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Head On (Narrated by Wil Wheaton)

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Head On (Narrated by Wil Wheaton)

By: John Scalzi
Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
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About this listen

"As much as Scalzi has the scientific creativity of a Michael Crichton, he also has the procedural chops of a Stephen J. Cannell 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.
Adventure Crime Thrillers Cyberpunk Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Thriller Exciting
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What listeners say about Head On (Narrated by Wil Wheaton)

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Not as good as Lock In

Still a great at story which makes great use of the Haden's premise which gives Scalzi great scope for some otherwise impossible action.
Another great performance by Will Wheaton.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Don’t loose your head!

John Scalzi has almost created a recipe for the perfect book in here. FBI agents: Chris and Vann are running an investigation looking into a mysterious death that would make Holmes and Watson proud. It all takes place in the near future, with just a few sci-fi themes. The book focuses on the interrrogation of witnesses and explores your moral views through the ‘Haden’s syndrome’ concept, letting your imagination run wild. If that isn’t enough, the sarcastic humour and interactions between the agents show a character and skilful writing style of the author. Truly entertaining.

Wil Wheaton’s narration is splendid. The charisma he puts into the story is rare and makes a fantastic audiobook. Perhaps he draws his energy from his beard... and I hope he keeps on performing more books.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Who dunnit with a defference

@Scalzi is a gifted story teller and has devilered some hard-hitting social commentary in this book. I personally didn't like the premise of the game. However this does not distract from a well spun yarn. Listening to the book and keeping track of all the small yet vital characters was a bit like extreme listening.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Did not enjoy this sequel.

It became a sports thriller very quickly. The minutiae and background of the sport lost my interest. Some idiosyncrasies with the manner and participants of the sport from the first novel (trying hard not to spoiler here!) but at the end of the day could have been a murder mystery based on football (or Rollerball if you want to keep it Sci-fi..). Not for me. From what I listened to, also felt Will was phoning it in.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Still good. but not as good as Lock in

Enjoyed this but it felt quite derivative, compared to Locl In which felt fresh. Well read, worth reading.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good story but just OK narration.

Enjoyed the story but disappointed by Wil Wheatons narration. He is entertaining enough to listen to but makes every character sounds the same!

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4 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Got even better the story progressed

During the 1st 10mins I thought this wasn't gonna be the book for me as I'm not a sports fan as thought it was going be to boringly sports heavy. It also took me a while to be able to visualise the main characters as I kept seeing the well known actor/narrator's image in my head. Luckily the character development wove lavers into each characters as they came to live in my head. The story was engaging & really made you think what living in this SiFi world would actually be like. I ft will happily try another book from this author or narrator.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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Great story

I love the concept he's created with Hadens and threeps, it's so interesting. Focusing on Shane & Vann again this is another good story. Gotta admit there's a lot of repetitive dialogue that were just cringy pissing matches between fed/cop/civvy got a bit tedious. However I still enjoyed the book in the most part!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Continuing the locked in storey

This continues the locked in story, and so it's beneficial to have read/heard that first. The story, character portrayal and pace are much like the previous book, which is to say it works well.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good read

It’s a good follow on using the baseline of Locked In and expanding it. I especially like the narrator Will Wheaton.

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