Head On: A Novel of the Near Future

by John Scalzi

Overview

"As much as Scalzi has the scientific creativity of a Michael Crichton, he also has the procedural chops of a Stephen J. Cannell to craft a whodunit with buddy-cop charm and suspects aplenty—most of them in someone else's body." —USA Today

John Scalzi returns with Head On, the standalone follow-up to the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed Lock In. Chilling near-future SF with the thrills of a gritty cop procedural, Head On brings Scalzi's trademark snappy dialogue and technological speculation to the future world of sports.

Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent’s head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are “threeps,” robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden’s Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real and the crowds love it.

Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field.

Is it an accident or murder? FBI Agents and Haden-related crime investigators, Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, are called in to uncover the truth—and in doing so travel to the darker side of the fast-growing sport of Hilketa, where fortunes are made or lost, and where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765388933
Publisher:	Tom Doherty Associates
Publication date:	03/26/2019
Series:	The Lock In Series , #2
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	138,584
Product dimensions:	4.10(w) x 7.40(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

JOHN SCALZI is one of the most popular and acclaimed SF authors to emerge in the last decade. His massively successful debut Old Man's War won him science fiction's John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His New York Times bestsellers include The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation, and Redshirts; which won 2013's Hugo Award for Best Novel. Material from his widely read blog, Whatever, has also earned him two other Hugo Awards. Scalzi also serves as critic-at-large for LA Times.

He lives in Ohio with his wife and daughter.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Head On

"New and fresh....Scalzi's smirking, impish voice is a nice touch." —NPR

"Particularly relevant....A fun, breezy thriller, one that showcases a world that carries with it some extremely astute commentary on some of the real problems that we face in our own. " —The Verge

"The Lock In universe is as fascinating as ever....Complex, expansive....Pretty damn cool." —RT Book Reviews, 4 stars

"Head On doesn’t care if you’ve read Lock In or not, but it does care if you enjoy a mystery wrapped up inside a science fiction novel....This might even be one of the best introductions to Scalzi out there." —Culturess

"[Scalzi's] prose flows like a river, smoothly carrying us through the story; his characters are beautifully crafted; and his future world is impeccably designed, at the same time wildly imaginative and wholly plausible." —Booklist, starred review

"This taut mystery, filled with memorable characters in a well-constructed world, will keep readers on the edges of their seats." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Readers will definitely show up for the witty banter and smartass takedowns….Very clever, wonderfully satisfying fun." —Kirkus

"A snappy, cannily-driven police procedural in which Scalzi highlights and skewers contemporary issues and hypocrisies." —The Seattle Review of Books

"Scalzi is in good form again here with his usual rich blend of smart, rapid-fire dialogue and well-paced bursts of hard-hitting action." —Toronto Star

Praise for Lock In

"This is the kind of thriller that Michael Crichton, Lincoln Child, and James Rollins do so well. Add John Scalzi to that list." —Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Kraken Project and Impact

"As much as Scalzi has the scientific creativity of a Michael Crichton, he also has the procedural chops of a Stephen J. Canell to craft a whodunit with buddy-cop charm and suspects aplenty—most of them in someone else's body." —USA Today

“Satisfying.” —NPR

“Scalzi takes his work to an entirely new level.” —Cory Doctorow

“A smart, thoughtful near-future thriller…. This powerful novel will intrigue and entertain both fans and newcomers.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“John Scalzi may be the most entertaining writer in SF today.” —Toronto Star

From the Publisher

03/15/2018
The latest hot sport Hilketa consists of teams of players who attack each other with weaponry, rip off their opponent's head, and send it through the goalposts. With "threeps" (robot bodies controlled by those afflicted with Haden's Syndrome) as players, this violent game attracts major crowds and investors until one star athlete dies in the middle of a game under mysterious circumstances. FBI agents Chris Shane and Leslie Vann (introduced in Lock In) are called in once again to investigate this Haden-related crime and discover a darker world of sex, drugs, and deals gone wrong. When Shane's parents are courted as possible investors in the game, he must use his own experience as a Haden and his investigative skills to discover the truth before more deaths accumulate. VERDICT This sequel to Lock In continues the intriguing partnership of two agents with their own unique Haden experiences in a world not too far removed from our own. Scalzi's accessible prose will keep readers on a page-turning course to the book's finale. [See Prepub Alert, 11/15/17.]—Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

Library Journal