John Scalzi: Unlocked
May. 23rd, 2018 01:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bibliogrammaJohn Scalzi’s Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden’s Syndrome is an odd but interesting piece of fiction. It’s a companion of sorts to his novels Lock In and Head On, in that it is, quite literally, what it says on the label. It’s written as a selection of personal accounts by medical researchers, doctors, journalists, scientists, business people, and people with Haden’s Syndrome, illuminating various aspects of the fictional disease that creates the world in which thise two novels are set.
It reads as if it were real, which is a testament to Scalzi’s gifts for characterization. The narrators have their own voices, perspectives, insights, into the ways American society develops after the world-wide catastrophe that is Haden’s Syndrome begins. My only regret is that Scalzi didn’t take the opportunity to give us more than a few casual remarks on what happened in the rest of the world while all this was unfolding in the US.
It reads as if it were real, which is a testament to Scalzi’s gifts for characterization. The narrators have their own voices, perspectives, insights, into the ways American society develops after the world-wide catastrophe that is Haden’s Syndrome begins. My only regret is that Scalzi didn’t take the opportunity to give us more than a few casual remarks on what happened in the rest of the world while all this was unfolding in the US.