Valerie

I cracked open my copy of the Dark Tower and found a piece of my high school AP English assignment inside. That's how long it has been since I've reread the Dark Tower. I think I have a lot of associations with this series and that period of my life, as it was one of my favorite pieces of King's work. Particularly this first novel, really this collection of five short stories, resonates so differently with me now than then. King laid so many foundations, many of them he admits unconsciously, for so many of his later works. It's a classic of dark fantasy, and while it is really more prologue than novel, it is an important prologue.

I had a really hard time visualizing a lot of this book, which is probably due in part to the 1984/2012 technology gap. I loved a lot of the technology foreshadowing that Gibson shows, but part of me assumes it's cliche simply because I've heard the word “matrix” done to death. I'm aware I should be yelling at the Wachowski brothers and everyone else who sniped the term from this book.

While the characters were fun to listen to and watch their interactions, I was frequently at a loss for their motivations. I'd get lost in some of the technical terms and sudden setting shifts and I'm sure I missed plot point after plot point that would explain it to me. A lot of reviews I've seen of this mention how much better it is on a second reading, so maybe in a year or two, I'll give it a second shot and see if I can follow it better.

So this was a big book. I don't mean that in terms of long (though it's that as well), but it has scope. It's one of those fantasy classics I've always meant to read but never got around to until it was on a convenient book club list. Parts of it I really liked. Parts of it I found myself skimming. Parts were magically transportive (Am I making up that word? I might be). Parts were woefully dated. Let me break this down.

Of the four parts of this book, I liked the first and the fourth the best. “The Sword and the Stone,” apart from taking me back to the Disney features of my youth, was utterly charming. It's a children's story that an adult can enjoy, similar in tone to The Hobbit or The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. At times it gets a little saccharine, particularly when White uses the animals as metaphors for his own philosophy, but on the whole I enjoyed the mix of Arthurian legend with anachronistic humor. I like how White takes advantage of his modern perspective to write the backwards-aging, Merlyn. It reminds the reader that this isn't a found text, but a modern retelling with the benefit of modern hindsight. Again some of those parallels hit a little hard for my taste, but I still enjoyed the device.

The book two opens, and Morgause is boiling a cat alive for fun.

The tone shift is so abrupt it took me time to adjust to it. White retells the story in an appropriate tone for the characters' ages, not the readers'. As Arthur graduates from adolescence and is thrust into the dark world of the adult court, so is the reader. For me, this was the part where the philosophy made the most sense and didn't seem as blatant. I felt Arthur's struggles to reconcile England with Merlyn's teachings. However, this section also introduces Guenevar, and there the book starts to falter.
White does not have a real understanding of women, and Guenevar makes me realize exactly why Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote “Mists of Avalon.”

The third book is almost entirely the story of Guenevar and Lancelot, and that just isn't to my palate. My reading slowed down here, and I just felt bad for Arthur. Most of my favorite side characters were absent at this point, and I just didn't have the patience for the world's best-known love triangle. I do enjoy that White makes Lancelot homely, and indeed he is brutally honest about most of the characters' age and physical appearance. From Pellinore and Piggy to Guenevar and Lancelot, everyone is described as a real human being and loved for that humanity, not any physical overlay. I appreciated that, but I still wished this book was not so very, very long.

I was faltering with the story until the fourth book where Mordred really comes onto the scene. White uses Mordred as a symbol for Hitler and references to anti-semitism, the SS, and the Hitler Youth are all very clear. Personally, though, I like taking that character at face value. Mordred is easily the most complex character, his motivations clear and entirely valid while his means are as twisted and terrifying as the history he represents. He manipulates Arthur's own impervious sense of justice against him, his family's sense of honor against them, and the entire country's sense of patriotism against it. It's a brilliant parallel on its own, but then we listen to Mordred speak. His language is maybe a bit modern, but that only serves to intrigue the reader. His confrontation with Guenevar after he's sent Arthur off is my favorite scene in the book. The way White describes him as “acting” instead of living is one of the most perfect phrasings I've ever heard. This fascinating antagonist brought me back into the story for entirely different reasons than I was first engaged.

The Once and Future King hasn't become one of my top fantasy classics, but I definitely have an appreciation for White's literary range and philosophical ideals. The slow parts may have been slow, but the fast parts made my heart race along. If you have time and haven't read it yet, you won't regret it.

I love games. I run a game club at the elementary school wear I work. I play board games with friends every Saturday. I've done video games, pen and paper RPGs, and a messload of Tabletop games. I feel that games are great training for life and give people much needed practice at strategy and cooperation.

Halting State takes that idea to the next level.

The book is clearly a different sort of novel from the beginning. It is told in the second person, immediately immersing the reader into one of three characters alternating by chapter. At first, this was a little disconcerting, especially trying to make my brain read in a thick Scottish brogue, but I was able to adjust to it and appreciate Stross' finesse with his theme. In any case, Stross creates such a fascinating vision of the future, the reader wants to inhabit the world.

The story centers around the idea of Life as Game. Most people in the future LARP, but they do it with the assistance of augmented reality glasses(neatly prediction of Google Glass in 2007). The glasses are as common and indispensable as smart phones today, and indeed are basically an app (again, this was written in 2007 before smart phones were indispensable). Cops use the glasses to tag and read information about locations and people, gamers use it to take a trip to the Plateau of Leng or Discworld instead of their morning commute. The plot involves the ways such a tech dependence could be exploited. Yet, Stross sets the book in Edinburgh and makes reference to how very little has changed. Coffeemakers are more complicated, but stone buildings don't fall down. Cars can drive themselves, but no one can bug a piece of paper. Stross cautions against putting all our eggs in the wireless basket, but he makes a point of emphasizing the real world we have to fall back on.

The characters, our guides through this world, are all believable and easy to inhabit. I especially appreciate that Stross uses two female narrators, both of whom are written as characters and instead of stereotypical damsels or “Strong Female Protagonist” archetypes. They are real characters with real strengths and weaknesses. Stross even uses two female police officers. Admittedly, Liz Kavanaugh is much more interesting than our narrator, Sue Smith, and I'm quite excited to know that the next book in this universe has Liz as the lead protagonist. Sue's chapters are a bit more dragging than Elaine's or Jack's, probably because Sue is there to be the non-technical interpreter for readers like me who know next to nothing about code or accounting. Jack and Elaine, on the other hand, are very fun personas to slip on, especially Elaine, the Claymore wielding accountant.

The technical details of the plot did go pretty far over my head, and I think the ending would pack a lot more punch for people better versed in technology than I am, but regardless of your level of expertise in the field, you should be able to appreciate Stross' vision of the future. You truly fill as if you are playing Spy vs. Spy, reading the flavor text and preparing for your character's next move. I highly recommend this book to fans of MMORGs and anyone who thinks maybe we are a little too plugged in these days.

You know, I was not always an Adam Rippon fan. I remember my opinion of him starting to change around the time he cut off his hair and started mixing up his outfits. It's very interesting to read his memoir and notice that this was around the same time he came out publicly and started living and skating more authentically. It made him much more engaging to watch, and by the 2018 Olympics, I was a fan. This memoir is clearly a lead in to Adam's transition to commentator and tv personality, and it's quick, funny, and enjoyable. There's also lots of fun behind the scene stuff with some of my other favorite figure skaters (did not know he was Daisuke Takahashi's roommate and subjected to tons of unsubtitled anime), so for fans of the sport, it's great fun. For fans of Adam specifically, definitely give it a read.

I think that the fantasy genre (and portal fantasy in particular) is a really interesting one to use with metaphors of colonialism, and I was really happy to see themes I've been mulling over for a while appear in a Hugo nominated novel. When reading it, the prose reminded me a lot of “This is How You Lose the Time War,” and I wasn't surprised to see either Amal El-Mohtar's blurb or the acknowledgement to her in the back. At times, the tone veered a little too YA for my personal tastes (the good guys are really good and the bad guys are really bad), and I personally feel a bit pandered too by books with a magic system based on “writing is magic!” but the background narratives of Mr. Locke's collections and Julian's attempts (or lack of attempt) at being a parent make up for some of the more simplified element. Overall enjoyed and if you like teenagers more than I do, you might enjoy it a bit more.

This book has a pretty cool concept, but I just never connected with the delivery. The idea of parallel Londons, each one with different degrees of magical content is a interesting, but I think at the end of the book, that's about all I took away. The main characters are pretty flat and occasionally make such obviously bad choices as to be frustrating and neither of them stand out enough from the slew of mages and rogues before them to really make an impact. The villains are villainous, the heroes are heroic, and if that's about all there is to it.

It does have a couple of elements I really enjoyed: openly bisexual characters whose sexuality isn't a plot point, women characters choosing and being allowed to choose traditionally male dress, and a multi-sided coat for all occasions. I have a coat fetish, okay? However, the actual plot felt really contrived with characters being invented just to save the day all the time and an ending that just sort of happens.

I guess in the end I give the book a solid ok. If you're looking for simple, straightforward fantasy, it's a quick read though I think it'll be pretty forgettable on my shelf.

This is a treasure for people wanting to read some new myths. Surreal and beautifully translated, it explores a very little known culture's creation myth and then extrapolates through generations. The morality may feel a bit heavy-handed for today's audiences, but nevertheless the lessons here are important ones whose echo really should be getting louder during these days of climate change surrounding us.

So that escalated quickly. This is the sort of story that separates Mercedes Lackey from a lot of the girl and her pony YA fiction of my youth. Lackey pulls zero punches. She spends the first two books explaining that a Herald's life is not glamorous and very dangerous and very, very likely to get you killed, but Talia and her peeps get out of scrapes all right. It's a nice, false sense of security before betrayal, death, rape, torture, and sudden horrific consequences. I'm not the sort to get teary-eyed ina book, but Kris' death got to me

The ending is maybe a litte pat, but the action of the story more than make up for it. Overall, I enjoyed returning to those fantasy tropes that initially won me over to the genre. I think the story still holds up today and could easily win over more young readers to the cause.

Wow. This is a love story. A love story backwards and forwards through infinite dimensions. A love story of souls that is so beautiful it isn't even triggering my, “But, how?!” time travel gripes. Maybe it's the florid prose and delicate surrealism in every chapter, or the subtle shift from mocking flirtation to the vulnerability of love, but it felt more like poetry than prose most of the time. You could read the whole book in an afternoon and then want to read it again. Reviews kept saying that is has a “strong emotional core,” and yeah, that's one way to put. The other is that this is SF romance at its finest. It won my book club's annual March Madness tournament, and I'm really happy it did. If you enjoy grown-up love stories and elaborate language, you should read this even if you aren't a genre fan.

When I started this book, I initially thought, “Oh, it's X-Men.” And it kind of is. People with powers start popping up, old guy opens up a special school, they go public. What sets it apart and the reason I bumped it to four stars is that being written in 2018, it can do a lot of things X-men never could. X-men was always an allegory for marginalization, but most of the mutants are pretty white and even the gay/bisexual characters tend to get glossed over when adapted to big screen and such.

This book starts out from the point of view of a disabled, Jewish father of one of the children. The professor from the school is on older gay man who has lived through the gay rights movement from the beginning. Other characters include a Muslim lesbian woman, a transgender shapeshifter, and a mixed race teenager. Many of the characters are already one or two strikes as far as functioning in American society goes. This narrative accounts for and honors that without ever feeling pandering. It connects what is happening in the novel all to closely to what is happening in this world right now.

That said, the pacing was a real issue for me, and the ending just ... wasn't an ending. I always have an issue with books that are like “I am the first in a series! Don't you want to know what happens next?” And yeah, but I'd also rather there be a complete narrative in each individual book. This one left so many plot points unresolved that I just ended up feeling like I stopped in the middle. Plus, I got this as an ARC from the Del Rey booth at Denver Pop Culture Con, so it's not technically out yet and the sequel will be much farther out. I'm always sad when I know I'll probably forget most of the important bits by the time the sequel exists.

I really couldn't get into this book, and parts of it I found downright irritating. About the only thing I enjoyed was the setting. The dystopian future where risking horrific death is preferable to living with no or little medical insurance while working in strip-mined fields growing vitamin sludge is pretty terrifying. Add to that the idea that the main goal of getting rich is being able to afford Full Medical so you can add years to your life, and we have a poignant and timely tale.

That said, the idea that this technology is not being so much researched as test-driven (often at the expense of losing the technology) is a little hard for me to believe. I also really couldn't stand the Freudian robot psychotherapy. Pohl seems to have done very little researching into how therapy works (or therapy was way different in the seventies). Most importantly, the main character is absolutely reprehensible. Every choice he makes, every snide comment, it all builds to showing just how awful he is. I'm not one to say main characters have to be likable, but this guy is just not enjoyable to read and spending time with him is pretty repellent.

I recognize that the book was written 40 years ago, but at times, it felt even more dated than that. Not my cuppa.

I... I feel good at the end of a Saga volume... I feel good at the end of a Saga volume that explicitly addresses complex moral arguments and assumptions around abortion as well as the all too often overlooked and powerful effects of miscarriage. And yet there is so much hope here. There is so much love. There are so many rainbow zebras.

Merged review:

I... I feel good at the end of a Saga volume... I feel good at the end of a Saga volume that explicitly addresses complex moral arguments and assumptions around abortion as well as the all too often overlooked and powerful effects of miscarriage. And yet there is so much hope here. There is so much love. There are so many rainbow zebras.

I ended up enjoying this book, but a lot of it took me a long time to finish it. I think the main reason for that is I didn't really enjoy either of the main characters. Moon was ... fine, but her obsession with Sparks sorta lost her for me. Sparks starts awful and gets worse. I never enjoyed a seen with him. The side characters were so much more interesting, and if the whole book was just from Jerusha's perspective, I would've been happy. The worlds are intriguing, the writing is really good, and the complexity of many of the storylines is really unique, especially for the time period, but overall I think I'll forget a lot of it and probably not pick up the sequels.

I liked this more than I expected. I'm really burned out on magic schools, particularly dark and gritty versions, and it seems like the author really wants to write “The Secret History.” It took a while to suspend my disbelief at the amount of power given to college freshmen, but the characters and the mystery were strong enough that I stayed engaged to the end. I don't know that I loved it enough to jump into the sequel, but it was a spooky exploration of classism, and reads pretty quickly for its size. Definitely investigate trigger warnings before reading if that is important to you.

It's possible I might have liked this book a little more had I read it like not within the last six months as it became clear we are living in the darkest timeline the time travelers in this book are trying to fix. It's also possible I wouldn't have. In general, time travel is not my jam, and this one just triggered all of my paradox, suspension of disbelief, plot convenience triggered. I like Annalee Neuwitz a lot as a nonfiction writer, and I was pretty into Autonomous, but the writing for this one was just not strong enough for me to get into it. I should like a super diverse, punk rock, sci-fi story that draws from actual little known pieces of history, but at the end of the day, it felt like a hodge podge of cool bits of history thrown together with some pretty one dimensional characters with time travel that was explained just enough to make me question everything about it.

Also, those time travelers did NOT do a good job of fixing the timeline if this is where we are today.

I went back and forth on my opinions of this book. At first, I wasn't into it at all. Military sci-fi has never been a particularly interesting genre for me, and the futuristic conception of earth 2010 was ... well it was written in the 70s. I know at the time, Haldeman was feeling the pressure of the Vietnam War's effects on society. I can see where his fears came from and how he would have felt a real fear of a government-sanctioned zombie society where you couldn't walk outside without a bodyguard. I could see someone else today writing much the same vision for fifty years in our future. However, I had a hard trouble getting past the dated feel.

As soon as Earth was taken out of the equation, however, I found the story gripping. The time skips and relativity made my head spin quite a bit, but I felt I started to get to know Mandella better. I like that there aren't any real character shortcuts taken with him. He is a product of his society with his society's prejudices, and when he's thrust into an unwanted leadership position, he realizes there is no good way to be in that position and he's just as terrible a Major as every superior he's ever hated. His own subjective time is so short compared to the span of the book that the reader is able to feel just upside down in the universe as he is. I loved this.

However, I was most impressed by the social commentaries Haldeman presents, starting right off the bat with women in the military. I imagine his point was to say to his contemporary audience, “What if this was your daughters?” Then throw in some government compulsory promiscuity to complete the horror picture. Viewed from the modern time period, it's impressive that he's able to create a cast of female soldiers, and more impressive that half the time people are shouting orders/fighting, no distinction at all is made.

Then we zip into the future with compulsory homosexuality. Another issue from 40 years ago that is so topical today. Throwing a homophobic soldier into a world where suddenly he's an outsider, everyone thinks he's disgusting and doing their best to just be cool about his disability. It's brilliant, thought-provoking, and I only wish he hadn't taken some of the barbs out in the end by having Charlie decide to change his mind. As someone who lives her life as far removed from war and military as can be done on this planet, this commentary struck me a lot more poignantly than Haldeman's main thesis.

Which isn't to say the main thesis is not lost or in anyway lacking in relevancy. At this point, the never-ending war fought for no reason has become a sci-fi cliche as much as short people on a journey is for fantasy. Haldeman pioneered the idea, and the perspective he took of a simple, uprooted kid literally lost in time keeps it fresh. The book is not one I would have elected to read were it not on my booklist, and it's not one I'm too likely to return to (see earlier comment on my removal from all things military), but I'm glad I did read it.

As a side note, very weird to read this so soon after reading “Old Man's War.” I got the edition with Scalzi's forward apologizing for taking so long to read the book everyone kept blaming he stole for his own novels. I don't think that's a fair criticism, really, but I did keep picturing all of the characters with green skin accidentally.

I loved the first 200 pages of this book. It was well-paced with great characters and a brutal look at PTSD. In some ways, it reminded me of Stephen King's “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.” In that book, the mundane story is more interesting than the monster. In this one, the actual struggles of Catherine are even more engaging than the alien subplot for a long time.

Which made it much more disappointing when the book approached the last third, and the ending was just devastatingly dull. Not to mention, there's a ham-fisted love plot that is supremely uninteresting. This book had a lot more potential than it ended up delivering on for me.

So I've enjoyed the Kingkiller Chronicles thus far. They are an epic, slow burn that twist and wind and at times get a little to wordy for me. They have a hero who is on a quest, and while that story doesn't get old, it is rarely renewed either.

Slow Regard of Silent Things is very different. This is the first time I've appreciated Rothfuss for his craft. I think it is much, much harder to write short fiction than novels with unlimited space. In this, a tangent with Auri, Rothfuss does not waste a single word. The amount of wordplay and poetic conventions woven into the prose were a delight to read. At times, when we are completely absorbed in Auri's world, the meter actually shifts into iambic pentameter for paragraphs. It's a clever book with clever tricks that serve the purpose of increasing our intimacy with this shy, shattered girl.

If I had to pin the book to a theme, it would be about recovering from trauma. Auri's past is not explicitly stated in this book or any other, but there are hints dropped all over about her failure at university and one startling sentence that seems to say Auri was raped or sexually abused in some way . The effects of that trauma are depicted without judgement, without explanation, but with this subtle, musical prose that lets us experience without entirely understanding. Mental illness from the inside is another favorite theme of mind, and while I hesitate to call Auri “ill,” she is unique and undeniably damaged. This book is a glimpse into how she repairs herself and the off kilter world around her.

Rothfuss writes in the afterword that he expected people not to like this book because there is no “story.” The narrative loosely follows Auri collecting gifts for Kvothe, but traditional narrative markers are absent. It's structure is the roller coaster that is Auri's mind rather than a hero's journey. It's less story than exploration, and it's a better book for that. I wouldn't try the book if you haven't read at least Name of the Wind, but if Auri captured your imagination, this slight deviation from the hero's quest is well worth your time.

I really loved Grace Lin's fantasy stories, but as a teacher I'm constantly looking for new read alouds for my students that are out of my usual genre. I love fantasy stories, and I have a million great fantasy read alouds for kids, but hardly any realistic fiction, so I thought I'd try some of Lin's semi-autobiographical work. The Year of the Dog is the first in her series chronicling Pacy “Grace” Lin's childhood. Lin writes that she wanted to share her experience growing up as a Taiwanese American and to give Asian children a character to identify with.

The novel isn't exactly a page turner, but it might be a nice break from my usual read aloud fair. The chapters are short and feature the stories within stories which make her fantasy works so unique and powerful. She also isn't afraid to address racism and cultural barriers although their treatment is pretty glancing. As a teacher of many 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation immigrants, I think I might have to explore this with kids to see their reaction.

It feels like forever since I read any Mercedes Lackey, so thanks Sword and Laser for bringing me back. This book transported me right back to my 14 year old self, idolizing strong female protagonists on horseback whom nobody understands at first but gradually grow into their own and find a true circle of friendship. Sigh. Oh, and one of those friends is a horse.

I've never read the Heralds books (14 year old me was partial to the Bardic series), but I definitely enjoyed visiting the universe. The plot is a bit formulaic and it's an extremely obvious Book I of III (or more depending on how you count the Herald books), but I still found myself emotionally moved by the sad parts and cheering at the heroic parts. Also, Lackey's writing (in everything I've read from her) has a really great attitude toward sex and sexuality that I think is important for young girls to read. It was unique at the time she wrote this series, and maybe it still is. For me, that's what elevates Lackey above a lot of YA fantasy from my generation.

It's a quick read, and after I get a couple of the graphic novels I've just got in read, I plan on finishing up the trilogy.

In lesser hands, I don't think I would have liked this book. I love Jemisin, but I primarily love her for the intricate worlds and cultures that she builds in her high-fantasy. She always has something to say about our world in them, but they are such intense, fully-realized places that I love exploring. So when I heard she was doing an urban fantasy about cities who become realized through people avatars, I wasn't instantly hooked. I don't really like cities, and the concept seemed a little goofy. But hey, it's quarantine and my FLB needs me to buy books, so I picked this one up. Damn, I'm glad I did.

First of all, Jemisin is just as talented at realizing our world and subspace alternate realities of our world as she is fictional ones. Her characters are sharply-realized, more real than some actual people I know, I swear. What might feel like ham-fisted attempts at representation by someone else is nuanced, complicated, well-researched and just a beautiful example of how to write characters that are not from your own culture. Staten Island (who literally has my paternal grandmother's last name) definitely made me shudder. She's deeply frustrating, and still so real and understandable. I hope more white feminists read this and see how frustrating a person like this can be.

Also, is there a word for fan-fiction when the writer is definitely not a fan? Subersive-Fic maybe? Jemisin's distaste for H.P. Lovecraft is well-known, and the idea that she would do a lovecraftian spin on anything seemed strange until I realized she is part of that movement that rather than removing the racist and xenophobic bits and keeping the cool stuff, actively tears down those ideas. I didn't expect the reveal of the Woman in White, but it makes so much sense. Lovecraft's fearmongering and white supremacy are the villains in this book, and our heroes are each a testament to how beautiful the world can be when we reject it.

The Lovecraft takedown is part of the text, but I think I caught some Tolkien criticism too. So much of fantasy draws from Tolkien in that nature = good, industrialism = bad. It's an easy argument to make. So it's definitely weird to read truly urban fantasy that is glorifying cities. But Jemisin makes the point that cities are where we learn to share. Foods, fashions, stories, attitudes, religions... cities make us have to live and learn together. If the hobbits never leave the shire, they never grow out of their own community. I don't think I've read another fantasy that depicts modern urban life as an ideal. I love Tolkien, but the time has come to think outside the shire.

I think this is the longest review I've written in a long time. I just want to talk about this book so much. Even if like me you've never been to New York and generally dislike big cities, I'd still recommend this book. It's a fascinating perspective shift. And if you do love New York? This is a love letter like no other.

I know what this book is trying to do. It's trying to blend high fantasy language and modern slang in a way that is interesting, engaging, and fun. However, it just doesn't land for me. Maybe it's because I so recently read Seven Blades in Black which does pull it off very well, but almost every time Gideon uses modern slang I am pulled right out of the setting. Not always, but when she references “pizza” after already stating they basically just eat cold gruel on her planet.... why? It's not refereshing, it's lazy. Another characters says “Hot dog!” at one point... which is not a modern exclamation and also “Where are the hot dogs in this world?”

It might have work if the world wasn't so very stylized, but it is excruciatingly stylized. The goth aesthetic here is making Tim Burton look like a hallmark Christmas movie.

Which all isn't to say it's a bad book. It has good bones, pun extremely intended. It's a fast-paced adventure murder mystery romance and there's a lot of good stuff in it. The twists are great. The fight scenes are maybe overkill, but they're impressive. However, overall I was left with a very juvenile vibe that kept me from really enjoying it.

I always like reading John Scalzi, although the time period of these blog entries made this more of a bummer. Quite a reminder that we could have had a world were T** was never president. I still enjoyed his blogs on pets and family and writing and all of the other many subjects “Whatever” tackles, though it probably would've been better for my mental health to skip all the political ones in this collection.

Scalzi is one of my favorite dialogue writers out there, and Lock In is another showcase for his skills in this area. Othere than that trademark snark, though, this book is very different from other Scalzi books I've read. It is a murder mystery at heart, but one set in a future where a large percentage of the popuation suffer from a disease that locks their bodies up, but not their minds. Therefore, these people exist either in an online space or interact with the world via robot bodies, affectionately called “threeps.” This brings into play concepts of racism, classism, and other awful isms we have to deal with in the real world. It's probably not my favorite Scalzi (Redshirts will always have a special place in my heart), and it almost might have been a little too light with its subject matter, but I'll always take too light over too heavy. Also, Scalzi's extreme fondness for “said” speech tags seems to be fading as at least this time, it didn't often interrupt my reading. It's a short read, a good mystery, and a fine addition to any sci-fi collection.