Synopsis: A near-future police procedural, with the SF twist that about 10% of the population have full-body paralysis and so interact with the world via robot bodies, or surrogate humans, that they operate remotely via neural interface.
Book Review: John Scalzi is a top-rate writer. His characters feel real, his action is immediate, his prose is tight. He keeps your interest and delivers good product. And if you’ve ever met him in person, or follow his blog, you are aware that he is whip smart. I’d easily put him in the top decile of any room he enters, short of maybe an actual convention of geniuses. Which is why it’s disappointing when he doesn’t use his abilities to full effect to craft art, and instead produces successful commercial product.
The thing about Lock-In is that, despite being well-written, it leaves you empty. There’s some interesting events that happen to interesting people, but there is no character growth, no thematic arc, no emotional exploration, no deeply personal substance to the tale. Everyone at the end of the story is pretty much the same as they started.
The police procedural analogy fits on multiple levels, because I don’t think one can really call this story a novel. In substance, this book is a pilot episode of a TV series, except in written form. We’re introduced to characters and a thing happens to them to move us through the 1 hour time block, but there isn’t a story arc here. The arc will be revealed over the course of the season. Which is fine for an episode TV series, and which I’m sure some readers will love seeing translated into a book-series form. Personally, I’ve never been really thrilled with book series in the first place, I prefer stand-alone novels. Taking it even further, to the point that there isn’t even a satisfying story arc in one book and truly making them “episodes” like a TV show, is just too much for me. I’m sure others will love this sort of thing, but for me – Not Recommended.
Book Club Review: One nice thing about books made for commercial success – they go very fast. It’s easy to read, the pages fly by, and there aren’t too many pages to begin with. The ease of the read made for a huge turn-out, probably a record for us! And there were a fair few things to talk about, Scalzi has created an interesting universe and real characters. It was even better if you got the audio book version, as that came with a bonus novella at the end which was basically all World War Z style world-building. It was by far my favorite part of the book, after I finished that I was all “Wow, I would *love* to read a novel set in this world!”
I kinda get the feeling that his codas and novellas are where Scalzi stretches his artistic muscles and really lets loose with his talent. The part of Red Shirts that I fell so hard in love with was the codas as well. So yeah, this made for a decent meeting. On a week that your group needs a break from heavy stuff, I think this is a pretty solid decompression choice. Given that caveat, Recommended.
