336 pages
Published Aug. 25, 2014 by Tor Books.
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.
Svizna knizecka. Naka akcicka. Na pozadi nenasytna korporace. Vse v kulisach celosvetove nevylecitelny choroby. Programovaci jazyk "Chomsky" pro interakci s mozkem lidi jako tresnicka na dortu. V poho lepsi oddychovka, klasickej Scalzi.
PS - Kdo vymyslel slovo "třipík" at si liskne ... aspon dvakrat ;-P
This is the only Scalziverse I have not dipped a toe into so I felt it was time to wrap that up. This was an engaging police procedural with a sci-fi premise. It had all the Scalzi quirks and a was a fast enjoyable read. I am not maybe going to rave about it as much as I have other Scalzi works because I felt the premise was a little divorced from the plot but this was still a fine read. Recommend.
I really liked this... mostly because I found the concept unique, or at least unique to me.
I found Scalzi through The Dispacher, which was an Audible freebee at some point. I like his voice. That said, my biggest issue with this novel is the quantity of exposition through dialog. Granted, there is a lot to explain in this world, but generally people don't talk like this. They think like this.
I was a bit worried about reading a novel about a pandemic during the current pandemic and quickly relieved to find out that the plot really doesn't revolve around the hisotry of Haden's syndrome. The end of the version I listened to had an audio drama of the history of the disease, but by the time I got to it, I was curious, so I enjoyed it. Some of the paralells between our current situation and Scalzi's fictional history …
I really liked this... mostly because I found the concept unique, or at least unique to me.
I found Scalzi through The Dispacher, which was an Audible freebee at some point. I like his voice. That said, my biggest issue with this novel is the quantity of exposition through dialog. Granted, there is a lot to explain in this world, but generally people don't talk like this. They think like this.
I was a bit worried about reading a novel about a pandemic during the current pandemic and quickly relieved to find out that the plot really doesn't revolve around the hisotry of Haden's syndrome. The end of the version I listened to had an audio drama of the history of the disease, but by the time I got to it, I was curious, so I enjoyed it. Some of the paralells between our current situation and Scalzi's fictional history are a bit striking though, particularly about the frustration and misinformation caused by scientific process of learning about a new virus.
As characters Chris Shane and Leslie Vann are engaging and reasonably developed. I'm interested to learn more in Head On. The mystery is unusual and a bit Holmesian in that by eliminating all of the possibilities, the only options become the impossible, turning the story to figure out how the impossible is possible.
Though enjoyable enough, this lacked something for me. I really didn't click with Shane, I must confess, bit of a Chris Longknife thing going on there and that properly put me off. A shame, as I was expecting to really, really dig this one.
