Head On

John Scalzi

From Shelf: Wish list

The standalone follow-up to the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed SF thriller, Lock In.

John Scalzi's Head On, is a 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.To some left with nothing, winning becomes everything . . . In a post-virus world, a daring sport is taking the US by storm. It's frenetic, violent and involves teams attacking one another with swords and hammers. The aim: to obtain your opponent's head and carry it through the goalposts. Impossible? Not if the players have Haden's Syndrome. Unable to move, Haden's sufferers use robot bodies, which they operate mentally. So in this sport anything goes, no one gets hurt - and crowds and competitors love it. Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field. But is it an accident? FBI agents Chris Shane and Leslie Vann are determined to find out. In this game, fortunes can be made - or lost. And both players and owners will do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field.