Book Review: John Scalzi Lock In

As I have mentioned before, I have found much to like and little to love in John Scalzi's fiction (as opposed to his blog posts which are often entertaining and insightful). Despite this, I was pretty optimistic about his new book, Lock In.

There were two main reasons for my optimism. First, one of my major problems with Scalzi's earlier work has been that it is too derivative of other work. Old Man's War was, to me, too much like a re-telling of Heinlein's Starship Troopers, while Redshirts was too much like Star Trek fan fiction. In contrast, Lock In appears to be something entirely new; a novel set in a world of Scalzi's own invention.

Second, Lock In concerns people with disabilities. As a person with a disability of my own, who has often felt that SFF has neglected to portray people like me, I was excited to see what Scalzi would do.

The premise behind Lock In is that the world has been exposed to a highly contagious virus that comes to be known as "Haden's Syndrome", after its most high-profile victim, the First Lady of the United States. Although most are unaffected, a small fraction of people are "locked in"; fully awake and aware but unable to move or respond to stimuli, in an echo of the real-life "locked-in syndrome."

Another small group of people remain fully able and gain the ability to allow locked in people to ride around in their bodies, becoming what is known as an "Integrator". Others afflicted with Haden's syndrome use humanoid robotic personal transport units controlled by a Haden's brain (nicknamed "Threeps" after C3PO from Star Wars). And some of those afflicted with Haden's syndrome withdraw into a virtual reality world.

The book follows FBI agents Chris Shane (who is a Haden) and Leslie Vann who are assigned to a Haden-related murder with an Integrator suspect. Further Integrator-Haden related murders occur, making the case larger than expected. The result is a science fiction police procedural that touches on issues in disability politics and corporate welfare.

There are a number of things that Lock In gets right. For one, it does a good job conveying the sense in which there is a caste system whereby some disabilities are funded and well-studied while others languish in research backwaters. In the book, Haden's syndrome becomes a cause célèbre and receives vast amounts of government funding. The resulting technologies are reserved exclusively for those afflicted with the syndrome, even though people with other movement disorders, the very old, and the morbidly obese, would plausibly benefit from these technologies, too.

For another, the book also gets at some of the controversy within groups like the deaf community that must decide whether or not to have surgical intervention that might improve hearing at the cost of driving a wedge between them and the deaf community. It also touches on some interesting related issues. Should threeps be treated legally like motor vehicles? Or like human bodies? Who has the right of way? A car or a threep or a pedestrian? But on the whole, I found the books treatment of these issues unsatisfying. Rather than investigate them deeply, the book seems to simply want to flag them and move on; having ticked a box, the books can turn back to the plot. In sum, I view the book as something of a missed opportunity as regards investigating these issues.

The book is an easy page turning read; Scalzi has mastered the form of the airport paperback thriller. At times, I felt like I could hear Scalzi uttering some of the snarkier and most glib lines delivered by the characters, which was a little disconcerting. But most significantly, as far as whether or not the book works as a police procedural, I was also left unsatisfied. Perhaps its is just me, but I get tired of reading books in which master criminals are tricked into confessing to their crimes.

In sum, although I think it is possible to read and enjoy this book, I was left unsatisfied by the type of ending and the books failure to investigate the issues it raises more deeply. Unlike the Sad and Rabid Puppies, I want more message in my science fiction! Someone with a different background to my own, without the vested interest in these issues, might give this book a decent 6 out of 10. But for me, I can do no better than a "not bad" ...

R⁴ Rating: 5 out of 10.