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A review by thomas_edmund
Lock In by John Scalzi
3.0
Scalzi's Lock In had a premise that sucked me right in, and even held my attention for the first few chapters. The skillfully built world provided an intriguing setting for a police procedural, and Scalzi shows an admirable talent for creating plausible characters within a sci-fi novel (a genre that often sees ridiculous characters engaging in equally ridiculous plots)
However the tale unravels steadily throughout. The first awkward was the juxtaposition of our young protagonist as a FBI agent investigating a gruesome murder, against his life at home with 'Mom and Dad.' I was willing to overlook the clumsy shift in tone between police procedural, and family hubris, but the rest of the story relied too heavily on the sci-fi gobbledygook to make sense of whats going on. I'm sure a true fan would have understood the plotline, I just felt dumb and disappointed.
My final beef is that there was too much unmet potential. Perhaps Scalzi was saving ideas for later in the series, I was wondering why there wasn't more drama around the 'Lock-ins' and the political and social pressures. Instead there were just a few gags about the main character using the 'Ford Pinto' of Threeps and a brief sequence about the unreality of being in the same room as your prone body. I had been hoping for insanity, ethics, politics and psycho-physiological mayhem (that made sense)
I'm glad I read Lock In, its a cool idea and the story is decent, but just decent not MIND BLOWING
However the tale unravels steadily throughout. The first awkward was the juxtaposition of our young protagonist as a FBI agent investigating a gruesome murder, against his life at home with 'Mom and Dad.' I was willing to overlook the clumsy shift in tone between police procedural, and family hubris, but the rest of the story relied too heavily on the sci-fi gobbledygook to make sense of whats going on. I'm sure a true fan would have understood the plotline, I just felt dumb and disappointed.
My final beef is that there was too much unmet potential. Perhaps Scalzi was saving ideas for later in the series, I was wondering why there wasn't more drama around the 'Lock-ins' and the political and social pressures. Instead there were just a few gags about the main character using the 'Ford Pinto' of Threeps and a brief sequence about the unreality of being in the same room as your prone body. I had been hoping for insanity, ethics, politics and psycho-physiological mayhem (that made sense)
I'm glad I read Lock In, its a cool idea and the story is decent, but just decent not MIND BLOWING