Love Amber's Narration

I'm only a third of the way through this book but I felt obliged to say that Amber Benson's narration is fantastic.
If you want a narrator who does character voices and dramatizes a novel, choose Amber Benson's version.
If you want a narrator who has a great speaking voice but has a drier, quicker delivery without any character voices, choose Wil Wheaton.

172 people found this helpful

Read other 1 star reviews, I said...

You will see a pattern of the poor reviews of this book. I said. It is terribly written. I said. Did the publisher hire an editor for this novel? I asked. A fifth grader could write better dialogue. I said.

Does reading this review drive you crazy? I asked. Well that is what listening to this book did to me. I said. Can anyone guess why? I asked.

97 people found this helpful

Scalzi Locks In Another Winner

John Scalzi always seems to come up with new ideas or new twists on old ideas (is there really anything new under the sun?). The premise is one of the most terrifying things that could happen to a person. It’s worse than life imprisonment in solitary confinement. In solitary you can stand, sit, move around (not much, but you can move), smell (but you might not want too), talk, feel, and see. Now imagine a virus that causes millions round the world to die, worse than the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920. Of those that recover 99%, go on with their lives. For other 1% (4 million in the US alone), it causes a person to be locked into their body, awake and aware of the world around them, yet incapable of seeing, moving, or communicating, unable (luckily?) to even taste the gruel that is piped into their body. Hundreds of millions in the US a around the world have been ravished by this disease, and it continues to strike down more victims every year.

But into this chamber of horror comes a ray of light, an open door leading back to the world - in the form an external body that sort of looks like the Droid CP3O. At least that is the style for the First Lady, an early victim of the virus, “Haden’s syndrome”. Named for its most public and well know victim - herself, the President’s wife. The First Lady has been given the first external body – our hero - Chris Shane, a child at the time, was granted the second, a child size version and becomes Haden’s syndromes second most famous victim. Yet through the adversity Chris becomes a beacon of hope for those suffering from this modern black plague. More than twenty years have gone by since the first outbreak; Chris is now a fledgling FBI agent and is trying to step out of the spotlight, into making a real life.

The second day on the job, the rookie Chris and new partner Agent Vann meet in front of the Watergate Hotel. The meeting spot is next to car that is sporting a love seat – embedded in the roof after being thrown through a seventh floor window. From this point on you are trapped in a twisted and totally enjoyable world pulled from the mind of John Scalzi.

A truly wondrous place to be.

On the narrators:

One of the more interesting curves is that Scalzi never hints at Chris Shane’s sex. So having Amber Benson and Wil Wheaton narrate individual versions is now more reasonable to me. I picked Amber’s version and wish that I had also picked up Wil’s so I could have compared them in their entirety. I have been a fan of both actors since the days of Star Trek, the Next Generation and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I decided on Amber’s version because I had the pleasure of catching Wil on several other books and I wished to hear Amber tackle this project.

Amber Benson, held her own as a late comer to Buffy. Even surrounded by a powerful cast of actors, she stood out early enough to really earn the prized role of Willow’s (Alyson Hannigan) better half, through 47 episodes. Narrating, “Locked In” Amber seems to start off slow – but then you realize that she is reading a report from a government agency, so it’s going to be a bit flat. The characterization starts building from Chapter 2 and, for the most part, is strong and clear. Very captivating, it allows you to lean back and take pleasure in the theater of the mind that John and Amber weave for you.

One note on Wil’s reading – I have only heard the five minute sample of his interpretation of the text, and it’s typical Wheaton. Crisp, clear and full of impact, and swift - it seems powerful and should also be a good experience.

80 people found this helpful

Tough listen

Hard to listen to when every other sentence includes "(character) said". This book is probably good if you read it, since you can mentally skip all the "(character) said" parts.

47 people found this helpful

Intriguing premise wasted on average cop story

As with past works by Mr Scalzi, Lock In is a light and entertaining story that doesn't quite do justice to its compelling underpinnings. In this case, Mr Scalzi has fashioned a world in which 1% of the population are physically paralyzed and escape their bodies by directing their awareness and cognitive function into alternate frameworks. Some choose a non-spatial internet; some choose synthetic android bodies; a few choose bodies of "Integrators"—healthy humans who lease-out their bodies on an hourly basis. Unfortunately Mr Scalzi treats the first category merely as a MacGuffin and thereby severely limits the novel's potential as a work of true speculative fiction. Instead the reader is treated to a standard-issue cop story with a pleasant veneer. Lock In is told competently but without the liveliness that elevated some of his past novels. Mr Scalzi proved to be deft at writing dialogue for lawyers in Fuzzy Nation and fast-talking agents in Agent to the Stars, but his ear for dialogue has failed him here: the cop-talk is stale and predictable. A more adventurous book could have survived such weaknesses, but Lock In is timid in its scope and never quite recovers from its failings.

The narrator's sex is never known, so the option of listening to a male or female performer makes some sense. I alternated between Ms Benson's and Mr Wheaton's performances, and for whatever reason, the narrator became female in my mind, so perhaps Ms Benson's voice was the more significant for me. Mr Wheaton, on the other hand, is the brisker of the two and thereby imparts some extra energy into the story. All things being equal, I would recommend his performance.

43 people found this helpful

I love snarkiness in characters

This was set up in two different editions. The one I listened to was narrated by Amber Benson and I think she did a fabulous job. I actually looked to see if it was only one actor because Amber is so fantastic at voices that I thought another gal may have joined her. Her voice and play on characters is nice because there is not a small amount of characters in this. It would have been very difficult to keep up with everyone had she not done such a superb job with the accents. I actually laughed a few times because the idea of the person matched what her accent was.

As the book introduces the characters I got a sense of real snarkiness form the two lead gals. Both cops, one locked in and one not. I love snarkiness in characters so this really thrilled me. There is some stuff about both gals that Scalzi does go into later on in the plot but not so much that it drags anything down. I really enjoyed hearing about their backgrounds, although, we learn about the main character, Chris Shane, pretty fast.

Then there is the sciencey stuff. I totally loved this part until the explanations start rolling. To be honest maybe some of it went over my head but not so much that I couldn't continue with the story line so I just went with it and tried to keep up. It was fantastically done being that John Scalzi had to explain the entire mystery behind what is driving the plot. This was great too because at about 10% I was asking where the story was going to go and shortly thereafter I got my answer. There IS a mystery behind it all but the Hadens have to be explained before the story can really get in that direction.

Audiobook purchased for review by ABR.

Please find this complete review and many others at audiobookreviewer dot com

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26 people found this helpful

Van said, I said, she said...

What would have made Lock In (Narrated by Amber Benson) better?

Take out the "Van said," "I said," "she said" after every single sentence.

What could John Scalzi have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

I really think Locked In is a bad and confusing story.

How could the performance have been better?

No narrator could have made this better.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

None, that I can think of.

Any additional comments?

In all fairness I am new to audible. I have maybe 15-20 books under my belt. I tried to listen to this book, and I just could not make myself finish it. I found myself taking off my headphones multiple times because it was either getting on my nerves or just boring. The first thing you will notice is "Van said." If you listen to this story, you will know exactly what I am talking about.

22 people found this helpful

interesting story line. Atrocious writing

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

If the author didn't write like this..... " "I laughed" Paul said. Oh funny she said. " did you look?" She asked. It was distracting to the point I returned the book.

If you’ve listened to books by John Scalzi before, how does this one compare?

No I haven't.

How could the performance have been better?

I'm not sure besides maybe abridged?

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Lock In (Narrated by Amber Benson)?

"He said" she did a great job with the voices! There was no reason for the he said crap

Any additional comments?

Don't do it.

22 people found this helpful

Great premise... hideous book

I can't believe a book with such high ratings and hype could possibly be so poorly written. The created world's premise was amazing... I loved the novella at the end laying out the history of Hayden's and how the lock in world came to be... great start. However, the "he said, she said, I said" is irritating at best... the plot within the world is thin and unbelievable, the majority of characters in the book swear... each using the same Deity and body orifice profanity which I personally found not only unlikely but unbearable. Hideous... I said... #### he said.

19 people found this helpful

Strongest Scalzi in years

The strongest Scalzi novel in the past few years, Lock In builds a near-future world that the reader can actually imagine coming into being. The action begins about 20 years after a devastating disease has literally decimated the human race. Horrifically, many of those who contract the disease but don’t perish experience “lock in,” meaning they lose all motor control of their bodies while remaining mentally awake and aware. In the decades since the disease first appeared, some solutions have been found that free these individuals from their solitary confinement; one solution allows the locked-in person to remotely operate a robot using only their mind.

The novel’s protagonist, Chris, uses a robot to interact with the world, leading close to a “normal” life. In fact, Chris has just graduated and become an FBI agent. The hook that gets us into the story is a strange crime that Chris must unravel. The twists and turns of the plot feature lots of the Scalzi inventiveness and wit that frequent readers will immediately recognize. Chris is the usual Scalzi protagonist, exhibiting the same dry sense of humor and sharp reasoning ability (much like the main characters in Old Man’s War or Fuzzy Nation).

But I have to give huge kudos to Scalzi for making Chris gender neutral, by which I mean, the reader is never given a hint as to whether Chris is a male or a female. I don’t know if I would have noticed this, except for the fact that the audiobook is available in two versions. One is performed by Wil Wheaton, who has performed nearly all of Scalzi’s other audiobooks. Because I think Wheaton does a great job interpreting Scalzi’s works, I initially listened to his version of the book and assumed Chris was male. But then something happened to the audio file and the Wheaton version wouldn’t work anymore, so I switched over to the other version, read by Amber Benson. And then it hit me: Chris could be female. This duality added greatly to my appreciation of the novel, and made me bump it up to 5 stars.

Lock In is a fully complete novel with no overt cliffhangers, but I must say that I really, really hope Scalzi writes a follow-up. The audio book includes a novella at the end called “Unlocked” which I thought was EVEN BETTER than the novel itself. Make sure you read the novella to get the full impact of the world Scalzi has created. Even better than a sequel would be a television series!!

[I increased the listening speed of the Amber Benson version of the book to 1.25 speed, because her style was just too slow for me. It sounded normal at the higher speed and was much more enjoyable.]

16 people found this helpful