Scalzi’s books are always such good palette cleansers. Head On was fast and fun (and a little bit infuriating). This is the second book in the Lock In series, which started with 2014’s Lock In. You don’t need to have read the first book if this one tickles your fancy, but you should, because it’s great. The premise here is that in the near future, a disease called Haden’s Syndrome (after the first lady of the US, it’s most famous victim) makes it so that […]
Your Pinky Swear Sits on a Throne Of Lies
Last year I listened to Wil Wheaton narrate John Scalzi’s Lock In. Later in the year, angry dimples told me that Amber Benson had also narrated Lock In and that her narration was very good. I listened to it and agreed. As much as I enjoyed the Wil Wheaton narration, I liked Benson’s even better. And then we found out that both Wheaton and Benson were narrating versions of Scalzi’s follow up novel, Head On. We agreed, Benson first, Wheaton later. I enjoyed Head On quite a […]
Apply directly to the forehead
John Scalzi is the Brandon Sanderson of science fiction. He’s prolific, can keep multiple series going simultaneously, and everything he writes is interesting and distinct. This is the second book in his Lock In series (I read the first one two years ago, and liked it a lot). I didn’t really do anything to refresh my memory of the series, but I never felt lost or in need of any reminders. I jumped right back into this world without issue. One percent of the world’s […]
Scalzi Gon’ Scalzi: Funny, Thought-Provoking, Occasionally Profound
In last year’s CBR I reviewed Old Man’s War, the first book in an NYT best-selling sci-fi series by John Scalzi. The gist of the first book was that when you reached a certain AARP-like age on Earth, you could enlist in the space marines to protect humanity from…something. You’d take an elevator up to space, and then you weren’t quite sure what came next. You were legally dead on Earth. That’s kind of all you as a space marine cadet knew. Without spoiling the first […]
A candy bar of a book
My husband, when I was reading The Martian, said he had liked the book but his one complaint was that it read like it was being pitched as a screenplay already. I didn’t feel that way, but also didn’t see why that would be a negative even if I had. I get it now. Which is not to say I disliked this book, quite the contrary. A science fiction thriller that uses a murder mystery as a plot to support the world building the writer […]
What Does Humanity Mean?
You can pick up any reasonably well written book and make a case for it being an exploration of what it means to be human, the state of humanity, or the universal truth of the human condition. Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series is very definitely asking what defines humanity. In the universe of the Old Man’s War series, Scalzi pushes the envelope of humanity. Colonial Defense Force soldiers are created when In The Last Colony, we return to the protagonist of Old Man’s War, John […]
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