Head On Book Review

My most recent read was Head On, by John Scalzi. I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion on what I thought of the book. The book was published on April 17th of this year.

Head On is about FBI Agent Shane, a poster boy for hadens all around. Hadens are people who contracted a disease, which makes them permanently paralyzed, physically. Their mind is still sharp though and most use threeps, which are like bionic replacement bodies. Threeps are slightly stronger than normal bodies though, so they are not allowed in any "normal" sports, which is why they created Hilketa. Hilketa means murder, which is essentially what the game is. Murdering other threeps. To score points, they have to rip a head off of someone else on the other team, randomly chosen, and use it like a basketball to score points. This game is gruesome looking but it has no harm to actual players, until one dies out on the field. Then it is up to Agent Shane, a haden himself, and Agent Vann, his partner, to figure out if this was an outlier, or was it something more sinister, like a murder.

This book was a mystery sci-fi book and was very good. I kept jumping around on the suspects of who it might be. In the end, I never saw it coming. This book was written fantastically though, and there was plenty of blackmail and Hilketa (both ways). I do recommend this book but take into account that there is lots of death and murder.