Related Post:
- Vacation Reading: Part 1
Lock In by John Scalzi
- Tor, 2015
- Kindle ed., 336 pages
- ISBN 978-0-76-537586-5
My daughter recommended this book by prolific science fiction author John Scalzi to me because she knows I like a good science fiction story that examines timeless topics and themes. I read Scalzi’s Old Man’s War several years ago and liked it, so I queued this one up for vacation reading.
The novel is set in the not-too-distant future, when a highly contagious virus has spread around the world. Most people who got sick experienced only flu-like symptoms of fever and headache. (If this viral scenario sounds familiar, hold that thought.) But 1% of the population—4.35 million people in the U.S.—ended up with the extreme form of the disease, called lock in; these people are fully aware but unable to move or respond to stimuli. This form of the disease is named Haden’s syndrome, after one of its most visible victims, the former First Lady of the U.S., and people with the disease are called Hadens.
Lock In opens with a short description, which looks something like a Wikipedia entry, about Haden’s syndrome. But once the story itself begins, we’re off on a traditional procedural crime narrative in which a first-person narrator, newly appointed FBI agent Chris Shane, works with veteran agent Leslie Vann from the federal agency charged with investigating crimes against Hadens on the case of a murder at the Watergate Hotel.
Scalzi has a knack for incorporating information the reader needs about the fictional world into the normal flow of the narrative. His writing skill is especially evident in the complex, technical aspects of this murder case. Lock In is easy to read, without the jarring expository interruptions that sometimes occur in works of fantasy and science fiction by less skilled writers.
It’s easy to skip a book’s front matter on a Kindle, and when I was reading this book I didn’t realize when it had been published. Then I read the acknowledgments at the end, in which Scalzi thanks his wife for supporting him through the year when he wrote this book: 2013.
Just pause a moment and let that sink in. This book precedes COVID-19 by seven years.
There are a couple of more books in this series (one that looks like a prequel, another that looks like a sequel). Lock In won several awards: Locus Award Nominee for Best Science Fiction Novel (2015), John W. Campbell Memorial Award Nominee for Best Science Fiction Novel (2015), ALA Alex Award (2015), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Science Fiction (2014).
© 2024 by Mary Daniels Brown
Good Me, Bad Me by Ali Land
- Penguin, 2017
- Kindle ed., 400 pages
Let me start with a warning: This is a dark book. It definitely won’t appeal to everyone. My discussion here will be a bit more explicit than usual about subject matter so that potential readers can judge for themselves whether to pick the book up or push it aside.
* * *
Her new name is Milly. But she’s really Annie, the teenager who told the police about her mother, the serial killer of young children. Now that she’s Milly, she’s been placed with a foster family. Her foster father, Mike, is a psychologist, an expert in trauma. Her foster mother, Saskia, is a wispy woman who’s withdrawn and sad looking. Their daughter is Phoebe, who’s the same age as Milly; in fact, Phoebe and Milly will soon start their junior year of high school at the same school. That’s something for Milly to look forward to.
But there’s something else looming in the future: Annie’s mother’s trial, at which Milly/Annie will have to testify.
In the meantime, Milly is trying to settle in with her foster family. She narrates her thoughts in the first person throughout the book. Often, as here, she’s talking to herself:
I should feel lucky, but really I’m scared. Scared of finding out who and what I might be.
Scared of them finding out, too.
At other times, she’s talking to her mother: “I said good-bye that night [when the police came to arrest her mother], whispered it. I think I might have also said, I love you, and I did. Still do, though I’m trying not to.”
Both the reader and Milly soon realize that Phoebe is not happy about having Milly around, either at home or at school. Tension between Milly and Phoebe escalates as Phoebe and her school friends taunt and bully Milly, as only adolescent mean girls can; tension also escalates at home, as Phoebe desperately
competes with Milly for her parents’ attention. Gradually, Milly’s internal pep talks decline in frequency as Annie’s confabulations with her mother crowd her psyche.
The mother’s criminal actions are not too graphically described, yet it’s very evident how much she physically and emotionally abused her daughter by making her participate in and watch what happened.
The dysfunction of the foster parents is somewhat overdone. Mike, as a psychologist, should be more aware of both his own daughter’s neediness and his wife’s complete emotional withdrawal. But Phoebe’s actions are utterly credible, as are Milly’s. Perhaps that’s part of the point: It doesn’t take a complete monster like Annie’s mother to produce a troubled teenager.
Author Ali Land worked for a decade as a child and adolescent mental health nurse in hospitals and schools in the U.K. and Australia, and that experience shows in her portrayals of both girls. Overall, Good Me, Bad Me is astonishingly well done for a debut novel.
© 2024 by Mary Daniels Brown
Think Twice by Harlan Coben
- Grand Central Publishing, 2024
- Audiobook. Narrated by Steven Weber
Nobody does dazzling thrillers as consistently as Harlan Coben.
In this book Coben returns to his series character Myron Bolitar, introduced back in 1995 with Deal Breaker. Myron was a college basketball star who blew out his knee in his first NBA game. No longer able to play, he went to law school and then became a sports agent. Think Twice is Myron Bolitar book #12, the first since 2016.
The book opens with a couple of federal agents coming to Myron’s office to demand information about his former client Greg Downing. Myron tells them what he knows: that he delivered the eulogy for Greg Downing at his funeral three years ago. No, the agents insist, Downing’s DNA has been found at the scene of the high-profile murder that’s all over the local news. So where is Greg Downing?
I’ll leave you to read (or listen to, as I did) the book to find out. But let me tempt you with this fact: The book has a killer twist ending.
I’ve written before about twist endings.
And I know that just saying a book has a twist ending can spoil the surprise. However, twist endings are an interesting topic to think about. In fact, I’ve recently come across two articles about twist endings that I wanted to share with you. So here you go.
About Twist Endings
How ‘The Sixth Sense’ trapped M. Night Shyamalan in a twist ending forever
Must-Read Stories With Shocking Twists
© 2024 by Mary Daniels Brown
