![\"An](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Lock-In.jpg?resize=199%2C300&ssl=1\")
By John Scalzi\n\u00a9 8\/26\/2014, Tor Books
\n337 pages
\nASIN: B00IHCBE1C<\/p>\n
By John Scalzi
\n\u00a9 8\/26\/2014, Tor Books
\n337 pages
\nASIN: B00IHCBE1C<\/p>\n
My last Scalzi read, Starter Villain, was light, snarky, and filled with feel-good stuff, even though it had some dark overtones. This one, Lock In, was the opposite. Based in a world where a new, highly contagious virus has affected millions of people worldwide with \u201clock in\u201d\u2014a condition called \u201cHaden\u2019s Syndrome\u201d in the story, where victims are fully awake and aware but unable to move or speak or respond to outside stimuli\u2014the story drops rookie FBI agent Chris Shane into a roiling situation where a new law will end government protections for Haden patients. Protests, violence against Hadens (who interact with the world through \u201cthreeps\u201d or \u201cintegrators\u201d), and the threat of riots is rampant, making Chris\u2019s first week on the job a bit more exciting than he\u2019d expected\u2014especially since Chris is, himself, a Haden\u2019s victim, and lives his life through a high-end threep. (Think android who is driven by the main character\u2019s own brain through wireless computer connections.) Not a light read at all, but absolutely gripping.<\/p>\n
At its most basic, Lock In is a mystery, a riveting, fast-paced thriller about complex political, corporate, and societal conflicts. But at the same time, it is so much more than that. It\u2019s a story of classism, bigotry, and the social unrest that greed-fed fear can raise. I could totally imagine this same kind of situation arising in the real world, given this set of circumstances.<\/p>\n
There is so much detail, so many layers to this story\u2019s complexity that it\u2019s hard to summarize. An opening \u201cpreface,\u201d presented as a scholarly summary of Haden\u2019s Syndrome, explains the disease, how it affected the populace, how integrators and lock-ins came about, and other data points necessary to the reader before diving into this complicated drama. This is a very good addition to the book, because without this information, it would be difficult to get past the first few chapters; the story\u2019s intricacies would quickly drown the reader.<\/p>\n
The overall concept is enormous. Imagine significant numbers of people who require an entirely different type of existence: robotic or other-human interfaces in order to do anything outside their bodies; people who also rely on a virtual world in which they can freely move, think, interact with other Hadens, and simply relax; patients whose physical bodies require constant monitoring, feeding, cleaning; special \u201ccradles\u201d to safely hold their physical forms, and so many other needs not shared by the general populace. And in the story, Haden\u2019s Syndrome isn\u2019t eradicated. It continues to infect a small number of people every year. Not all of them end up locked in, but every single one is affected, their brain altered by the disease.<\/p>\n
Now imagine that all government funding to support these absolute needs is going to vanish overnight. Yeah. This book is all about that crisis.<\/p>\n
Lock In is not an easy read, not just because of the subject matter\u2014no, if you love a good thriller, you\u2019ll love this book\u2014but because there are so many names and details and layers to track. A couple of times, I had to page back to remember who was doing what, but it didn\u2019t detract from my enjoyment of the book. And even though it was hard to relate to the quality of Chris\u2019s locked-in state, it was easy to connect with his personality, his ethics, and his actions. Same with Vann, who is an integrator. Can\u2019t really relate to having a neural net in my brain, but I could empathize with her woundedness, and completely understand the reasons for it. She struck me as courageous and admirable due to the hard work she\u2019d done to get where she was.<\/p>\n
I could say so much more, but I don\u2019t want to give any spoilers. Suffice it to say that this twisty, captivating story kept me reading past my bedtime. An absolutely fabulous thriller you won\u2019t want to miss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By John Scalzi \u00a9 8\/26\/2014, Tor Books 337 pages ASIN: B00IHCBE1C My last Scalzi read, Starter Villain, was light, snarky, and filled with feel-good stuff, even though it had some dark overtones. This one, Lock In, was the opposite. Based in a world where a new, highly contagious virus has affected millions of people worldwide…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8n0kX-1oa","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5335,"url":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/05\/starter-villain\/","url_meta":{"origin":5342,"position":0},"title":"Starter Villain","author":"DremaDeoraich","date":"February 5, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"By John Scalzi \u00a9 9\/19\/2023, Tor Books 268 pages ASIN: B0B9KVXCQ6 This was a fun little romp. I wouldn't call it a cozy anything, but author John Scalzi created a story about villains that actually has a feel-good energy. Yes, there's murder. Yes, there's criminal activity. But there's also a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/category\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo shows the upper body of a long-haired grey and white cat in a grey suit with a blue tie in front of a dark grey background. Text reads, \"Meet the new boss. Starter Villian. New York Times Bestselling Author. John Scalzi.\"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/StarterVillain-194x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6223,"url":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/13\/service-model\/","url_meta":{"origin":5342,"position":1},"title":"Service Model","author":"DremaDeoraich","date":"July 13, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"By Adrian Tchaikovsky \u00a9 2024, Tor Books 373 Pages ISBN 13: 978-1250290298 As I\u2019ve come to expect from any Adrian Tchaikovsky book I read, Service Model was brilliant. Told with sensitivity, humor, humanity, and a touch of philosophical wonder, the story follows the personal development\u2014inasmuch as a robot can expect\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/category\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"A robot, silhouetted against the clear image of a green and gold sky where the moon hangs close, stands amidst the dark ruins of a city. Text reads, Service Model, Adrian Tchaikovsky. \u201cAdrian Tchaikovsky is one of the best storytellers in the business. Come see for yourself.\u201d \u2013 John Scalzi.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/ServiceModel-194x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5344,"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5342\/revisions\/5344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}