Head on
by John Scalzi
science fiction
copyright 2018
read in February 2019
rated 8/10: really quite good
Very enjoyable. Also quite confusing...
Confusing? Complex, really. A murder-mystery with each revelation leading to further depths of suspicion. Plenty of characters appearing and reappearing, I have trouble distinguishing them. In general the characters reappear with enough hints to remind me who they are, where we last saw them. There are just a few that I can't place.
It's a sign of an enjoyable book: I read it fast enough to miss details which are essential to the story :-)
And now it gets confusing: I'm sure that some of the incidents are familiar. As though I have read this book but not all of it. Yet it is only recently published. I have read the precursor, Lock In. Is that what I remember?
Quick check of Wikipedia: no mention of other novels in the Lock in world. Perhaps Lock In has similar incidents? Perhaps I read the novella? Though a "history" is unlikely to include stories of FBI agents trashing a police threep.
Oh well. Blame it on my own memory.
I've just checked my review for Lock In. I see that I categorised it as "young adult". This book (Head on) has some of the subadult identifiers but it is a distinctly adult-or-anyone book. Suitable for adult readers, nothing that makes it unsuited for younger readers. Too much death for young children perhaps, but it's not a nasty book.
And yes, there is also plenty of gentle humour. With likable characters and whole heaps of action.
Good fun from start to finish. Good enough to read again, not quite good enough to demand an instant second reading.
Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
... Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved
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"If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid." … Ginger Meggs
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