Head On (Narrated by Amber Benson)

By: John Scalzi

Narrated by: Amber Benson

"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)

John Scalzi returns with Head On, the stand-alone follow-up to the New York Times best-selling 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.

©2018 John Scalzi (P)2018 Audible, Inc.

Book is good. Narration is ok.

Darn! I didn't realize that Wheaton narrated this book also! I had listened to the one narrated by Amber Benson. When I listened to Lock In, I had Wheaton as the narrator. So having Benson as the narrator for this one, which she made the main character sound feminine, was throwing me off because I had always thought of Chris (the main character) as a man. It actually didn't occur to me that he wasn't. So having a feminine voice for Chris was actually starting to get on my nerves.

I thought the book was pretty good. I really like the characters and the world. The mysteries for this series are entertaining. However this one did get a little boring for a short amount of time. But over all it was pretty good. I'm curious as to what my rating would be if I would have listened to the Wheaton narration.

Good book, and yes - good narration!

The book: A new interesting angle to the "Hayden Syndrome" theme. Likable main characters. A bit of a whodunnit mystery and lots of action. In short - I liked the book. Also the "he said / she said" writing that marred "Lock In" is absent here. Better writing or perhaps better editing made it a smooth listen.

The narration: As with the first book I very much preferred Amber Benson's narration over Will Wheaton's speedreading performance. In particular Benson has the ability to make conversations sound natural, with short natural pauses when appropriate. Not so Wheaton. There's a reason that Benson's narration clocks in at 8 hrs 52 mins as opposed to Wheaton's speedy 7 hrs 36 mins.

Benson's ability to create different voices for characters may not be perfect but it's way better than Wheaton's. At least she tries... If a third "Lock In Series" book should appear I'll buy it - but only if Amber Benson is narrating!

Just a Detective Story

I wanted more stories from the near-future world of _Lock_In_, but this book is little more than a simple detective procedural. I still liked it, but it felt flatter, less engaging than I'd hoped.

Great story. Narrator a bit annoying

Another great John Scalzi book! Really missed Will Wheaton narrating though. New narrator had trouble with differentiating characters. Annoying voice lilt on narration like a newscaster. Once I was able to block that out mentally, the story took over.

A good as the first.

I listened to this with the other narrator and it was just as good. I like the idea that there can be no need for gender based on the idea of lockin. Good sequel.