Lock In by John Scalzi

Lock In by John Scalzi is the author's latest book and the third of his that I've read. Last year, I read and very much enjoyed Redshirts, which won a Hugo. Lock In drew my attention because of an excerpt I was able to read before requesting the ARC. And once I started reading it properly, I found it rather difficult to put down. (And it has a very long blurb, but it's a useful one so I'm not going to trim it.)

Fifteen years from now, a new virus sweeps the globe. 95% of those afflicted experience nothing worse than fever and headaches. Four percent suffer acute meningitis, creating the largest medical crisis in history. And one percent find themselves “locked in”—fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus.

One per cent doesn't seem like a lot. But in the United States, that's 1.7 million people “locked in”...including the President's wife and daughter.

Spurred by grief and the sheer magnitude of the suffering, America undertakes a massive scientific initiative. Nothing can restore the ability to control their own bodies to the locked in. But then two new technologies emerge. One is a virtual-reality environment, “The Agora,” in which the locked-in can interact with other humans, both locked-in and not. The other is the discovery that a few rare individuals have brains that are receptive to being controlled by others, meaning that from time to time, those who are locked in can “ride” these people and use their bodies as if they were their own.

This skill is quickly regulated, licensed, bonded, and controlled. Nothing can go wrong. Certainly nobody would be tempted to misuse it, for murder, for political power, or worse...

The main thrust of the plot of Lock In is Chris the new FBI agent's first case, which turns out to be more exciting than usual. Chris is a Haden's sufferer who generally gets around in a threep (robot body), The case is related to Haden's, which is the focus of the FBI unit Chris is assigned to. There's murder, explosions and corporate bad guys; it's an exciting plot. It's also a plot tied very closely to the worldbuilding, which is where the most interesting stuff is.

I'll discuss the more minor thing first because it will facilitate later discussion. This could be construed as a minor spoiler and if that bothers you, you should jump to the next paragraph. With Lock In written in first person, Scalzi has been very careful to not to indicate a gender for Chris, the protagonist. Haden's sufferers can live their entire lives online or inside threeps (which are usually androgynous, was my impression, but I may be wrong), which lifts most of the constraints on gender presentation. It's an interesting point to make but I have to say I found Chris came across as male. And I'm usually one to assume first person characters are female until some jarring pronoun/name corrects me. Your mileage may vary. In any case, it's interesting to note the extent to which the protagonist's gender doesn't change the story at all. (And if you're wondering, there was no romantic component to the plot, which I'm a little disappointed about because I think romance between Haden's sufferers would have been an interesting point to explore further.) But since I thought Chris sounded male, I'm going to cave and use male pronouns in the remainder of the review.

My favourite thing about Lock In was the background commentary on disability rights and treatment of people with disabilities. It is depressing, but not implausible, that a very specific subset of disabled people — locked in Haden's sufferers — are given access to the technology and medical treatments developed for them. This may sound obvious until you realise that other types of disabled people — quadriplegics, people locked in for other reasons and people with other mobility restrictions — aren't allowed to use threeps or the Agora. Not even an matter of the technology not being subsidised, just plain not allowed by the FDA.

In fact, the only reason so much money was ever thrown at Haden's is because a) the president's wife and daughter got sick and b) such a large number of Americans were affected. (The rest of the world successfully exists in this book, but we don't hear much about it other than that it also has Haden's and deals with them similarly.) It doesn't seem implausible to think that without a), b) would not have made as much of an impact. Indeed, the next president is about to reduce a lot of funding and subsidies for Haden's, which is a part of the background that's crucial to the plot.

The other disability-related thing I appreciated in Lock In was the way the Haden's community had developed in its own virtual space. And especially for people who were young when they caught Haden's, the virtual world can feel more like their natural habitat than the physical world which they are forced to use if they want to communicate (outside of email) with non-Haden's people.

So basically Lock In is a surprisingly good exploration of what happens when a plague causes severe disability in a large number of people. I think it deals with various issues well and I found the premise believable. It's also an FBI procedural tied closely to the worldbuilding. If near future SF and/or crime SF and/or medical SF is your sort of thing, then I highly recommend Lock In. Aside from all the stuff I've discussed above, it was a fun read.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: August 2014, Tor
Series: Not yet? (But there's at least one novella set in the same world)
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Redshirts by John Scalzi

Redshirts by John Scalzi was this year's Hugo-winning novel. I listened to the audiobook, which was narrated by Wil Wheaton. As you can probably guess from the cover and title, Redshirts pays homage to all the extras who died in Star Trek, usually while wearing a red shirt.

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory.

Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the fact that (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces, (2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations, and (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.

Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.

Redshirts turned out to be less flippant and shallow than I had been led to expect. The universe Dahl and his friends live in is, more or less, perfectly sensible. And yet, the events surrounding the Intrepid and its senior officers are not sensible in any way. We are given a sense of this immediately from the prologue, which highlights the way characters are sometimes inexplicably driven to things they would not usually do. As the story develops we learn more about exactly why this is. In a way, the reader already knows why things are silly, but on the other hand, the exposition is not entirely straight forward. This is a more complex story than it seems on the surface.

My favourite thing about it — which should not surprise long-term readers of my blog — was the way Scalzi highlighted the sloppy worldbuilding and nonsensical physics of those sorts of science fiction sci-fi properties. The rules for the Box, which magically quantum computationally solves medical/biological problems in exactly the right amount of time, amused me particularly. So did the logic holes that baffled the characters themselves. Honestly, a novice writer could learn a lot by noting whether they do any of the things Scalzi brings up.

The subtitle of Redshirts is A Novel With Three Codas and I would be remiss if I did not mention them. After a story that puts disposable extras peripheral characters in the spotlight, the codas highlight the stories of characters on the fringes of Dahl's story, who are all touched significantly by the events of the novel, but whose stories don't fit into the main arc at all. The whole thing gets a bit meta.

Despite all the scathing commentary of the sci-fi genre, Scalzi brings a great deal of empathy and emotional significance to the tale. Even before we get to know any of the characters well, we feel bad for them. As we do get to know them better, the possibility of their deaths becomes heart-wrenching (and since they are still redshirts in their universe, it was difficult to predict who would survive a particular situation (except in retrospect). For a story that looks flippant on the surface, it was surprisingly heart-wrenching.

I have not watched much Star Trek (all I remember clearly are the two JJ Abrams movies) but as a geek the concept of a redshirt was in no way foreign to me. I expect that most geeks would enjoy Redshirts — and understand the concept — whether or not they are Trekkies. Highly recommended read/listen. People with little familiarity with sci-fi or science fiction probably won't get as much out of it, however.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2012
Series: No
Format read: Audiobook
Source: Purchased on sale from Audible