Lock In (Narrated by Wil Wheaton)

By: John Scalzi

Narrated by: Wil Wheaton

Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

AudioFile Best Voices - Sci Fi, Fantasy, and Audio Theater, 2014

A blazingly inventive near-future thriller from the best-selling, Hugo Award-winning John Scalzi.

Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever, and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent - and nearly five million souls in the United States alone - the disease causes "Lock In": Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.

A quarter of a century later, in a world shaped by what's now known as "Haden's syndrome", rookie FBI agent Chris Shane is paired with veteran agent Leslie Vann. The two of them are assigned what appears to be a Haden-related murder at the Watergate Hotel, with a suspect who is an "integrator" - someone who can let the locked in borrow their bodies for a time. If the Integrator was carrying a Haden client, then naming the suspect for the murder becomes that much more complicated.

But "complicated" doesn't begin to describe it. As Shane and Vann began to unravel the threads of the murder, it becomes clear that the real mystery - and the real crime - is bigger than anyone could have imagined.

BONUS AUDIO: Audible's audio edition of Lock In contains the bonus novella, Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome, written by John Scalzi and narrated by a full cast.

"I love working with Audible, in no small part because they’re committed to doing what’s right, both for my books, and the people who listen to those books. There's a really excellent reason for Lock In to have two entirely different versions, so when it came time to make the audiobook, Audible did an ingenious thing: they asked both Wil Wheaton and Amber Benson to record entire versions of the book. As the author, I’m impressed with Audible’s commitment to my narrative - and I’m geeking out that both Wil and Amber are reading my book. This is fantastic." (John Scalzi)

2 editions. 2 narrators. 1 thrilling story. You can enjoy Amber Benson's narration here.

©2014 John Scalzi (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Critic reviews

"Hugo-winner Scalzi successfully shifts away from space opera with this smart, thoughtful near-future thriller resonant with the themes of freedom, ethics, and corporate greed….This powerful novel will intrigue and entertain both fans and newcomers." ( Publishers Weekly)

"The novel--which contains plenty of action, great character development, vivid and believable worldbuilding and a thought-provoking examination of disability culture and politics--is definitely worth the ride." ( Kirkus)

"Another brilliant novel from a writer who has quickly become one of the genre’s most successful and intriguing practitioners." ( Booklist)

"With narrator Wil Wheaton attacking Scalzi's text with both vigor and nuance, this story tells about a silent minority being given voice, then having that voice threatened.... Thanks to Wheaton's skillful efforts, this production is an enjoyable melding of narrator and material." ( AudioFile)

entertaining, sharp, descriptive

This was well written. No beating around the bush. No wasting time. Nothing left off either. Interesting story. Great narrating. Overall well played. I will consider reading his other books.

Completely Locked Into the Story

Making people change because you can't deal with who they are isn't how it's supposed to be done. What needs to be done, is for people pull their heads out of their asses. You say cure, I hear, "You aren't human enough."

I'm known for two things: starting books and not finishing them. Not the best thing to be known for if you are on a reading website with the goal to read a certain amount of books each year and to try different books and genres. But hey, at least I try, and when I really do try and manage to finish a book in my never ending list of juggling, it always turns out to be a winner.

Lock In is probably one of my top reads/listens of 2017 and John Scalzi has made himself a permanent spot on my list of "to read everything this dude has ever written" list. The humor and snark, the imaginative "what if" and sci-fi futuristic happenings, and the underlying mystery and cop procedural is all wrapped up in one hell of a sexy package.

What I probably enjoyed most out of all was the imagination used in creating this world and the details that Scalzi thought of in regards to creating his "super-flu". A lot of "dystopian/zombie-flu" virus books I've read basically have the premise of "oh look, a virus has infected the whole world and now we all ded" which, while interesting, isn't wholly imaginative or different in anyway. Scalzi served this super flu up on a delicious silver platter of "what ifs?" and "hows?", leaving you to either try to piece the puzzle together or to just accept that there will never be a real answer.

But that's just background info and doesn't really direct the plot! Instead, the idea of humans basically rocking robotic assistant bodies through neural connections is just beautiful sci-fi imagery and cleverness. That's what I love about sci-fi-there's always a kernel of truth that the story is based off of and the idea of personal robots and neural networks is something technology is currently working on in our time!

What I also really love about Lock In is the ambiguity to it. The main character is Chris, an individual who has 'Lock In' and so uses a personal transport robot to move their consciousness around to still live a fulfilling life. Scazli NEVER tells us (or so I thought in my time listening) if Chris is a dude or a chick! Why? Because it literally does not matter to the plot. This is an individual who is literally a robot and its more of how the other characters react to a robot as an FBI agent which is super clever on Scalzi's part. It really reflects on how gender/sex can be removed from a story and you still have a really great story. In fact, one of the best subplots in the book is more focused on whether robots count as humans since they technically aren't 'human' but just carry the consciousness of one and are they "second class citizens". Adversity and racism towards non-human entities is a very big sub-plot and really makes a person think.

Another amazing and ingenious idea of Scalzi was he had not one, but two narrators! Since we never find out if Chris is a female or male, it only makes sense to have the narration told by a male and a female narrator, each giving a different nuanced interpretation to the story. Wil Wheaton was the narrator for the "male" audiobook and he's probably one of my favorite narrators now because of his voice and his tone in telling the story. He really knows how to deliver sarcasm and wit to where I was literally holding snorts in at my desk because I could not contain my giggles! The "female" version was narrated by Amber Benson, whom I have not had the pleasure of listening to yet, but really this idea is just quite clever! I bet that listening to the Benson narration of the EXACT same story but told with a different narrator and their interpretation, their pauses and drops, inflection of their voice-I bet it is FABULOUS and adds a whole new dimension and degree of enjoyablility to Lock In.

The last little bit of joy to this copy of Lock In from Audible, was that it included Unlocked, the novella detailing the background and history to the super-flu and Haden's Syndrome that gives us the basis to the novel. Now, I have said before I am not a fan of novellas. I find them to be a cheap and icky way for novelists to earn extra pennies on the side by writing 60 pages worth of background info and releasing it for 3 bucks a pop. However, this novella was INCLUDED (!!!!) with the purchase of the novel and was SO worth it. I really, really enjoyed the full cast audio and different interviews each character gave to create a whole, cohesive story.

Highly, HIGHLY recommend and am eagerly anticipating the sequel to this novel and hope Scalzi feels that he's created a broad enough world to support a series!

The story is worth telling everyday. The trick is not to find the story of the century, you won't miss that story when it happens, no one will miss it. The trick is to find the story of the day and for that day make whoever reads it or hears it, care about it so intensely, that it doesn't leave them. Then it becomes a story of their life, maybe even THE story of their life.

Great Premise, Well-Exploited

The writer really put some thought and speculation into this work, and it shows in the product. The book is well-written, as is the narration. And the story itself is quite good. If you're a hard-core mystery nut, you may not find the mystery part to fall into the Top 100 mysteries of all time, but it's still pretty good!

Good book, interesting

Interesting plot and story. Definitely a good read. Doesnt rank up with my favorites that I'll listen to over and over, but I was definitely interested through out the book.

good sci fi investigation story

John Scalzi wrote an interesting science fiction investigation story with great narration by Will Wheaton.
I would recommend this to anyone who wants to pick up something that isn't too long and enjoys sci fi.

great read

looked forward to my long commute just so I could listen to this awesome book.

Scalzi hits a home run

From start to finish this was an amazing book. Wil Wheaton does an excellent job with the narration (as always) and gives a lot of nuance to the main character and his story.

I would highly recommend this to all fans of scifi, epidemiology, and just plain good books.

So good I actually cried

The story was amazing and Wheaton did an amazing job, especially with the character Johnny.

interesting read, decent narration

I listen to books narrated by Wil Wheaton because I like Wil Wheaton. However, he's not exactly the best voice actor, but I will say each book I listen to he gets better. In this book he has a much more distinct voice for many of his characters and it is easy to know who he is portraying throughout the book.

Excellent story and narration

This is excellent near-future sci-fi. I was much more engaged by the story than I expected to be. I would definitely listen again.