Even with 4.3 million of the United States population being afflicted with this, innovation in science and technology managed to allow human beings who were separate but still part of the day to day society to still be fully functioning. I could tell you more, but I don't want to spoil any readers out there.

Told in the first person by Chris Shane, our main character is afflicted with Haden's syndrome (read the book to find out more about it) resulting in him being "locked-in".

Chris's father is a former NBA basketball player turned millionaire businessman and his mother comes from a wealthy political Virginia family.

Can I just squee for a moment that our hero in this book is not only bi-racial, but according to the world building set up in this book, is also dealing with having Haden's syndrome and having it not stopping him from wanting to work for the FBI and do a good job. We also have the Navajo nation playing an important part in this book which I would love to see followed up on are remarked upon in subsequent books.

Chris honestly reminded me of my first day jitters more than 10 years ago when I first joined the federal government only he was much quick with a put down than I ever was back then.

I'd guess that you'd have less-than-flattering ways of describing us, Davidson said.
Dodgers, I said.
What?
Dodgers, I repeated. It's short for 'Dodger Dogs'. It's the hot dog they serve at Dodger Stadium in L.A.
I know what a Dodger Dog is, Davidson said.
I don't think I get how you get from us to them.
Two ways, I said.
One, you guys are basically meat stuffed into skin. So are hot dogs.
Two, hot dogs are mostly lips and assholes, and so are you guys.

Yeah so I am off of hot dogs for a while.

Right away Chris and his partner Agent Vann are thrown into a murder mystery and dealing with the fallout from the newly elected U.S. President refusing to fund anymore long-term programs for those afflicted with Haden's Syndrome. Finding out all of the ways everything that Chris and Agent Vann are investigating that ties in together is part of the journey, and boy is it fun.

So you get science fiction and then you also get a mystery that Chris and his partner Agent Vann who brought up memories of Goren and Eames, Sherlock and Holmes, pretty much every epic partnership I could think of while reading this book.



I also may have a fan-girl crush on the character of Agent Vann. She rocks and I wish she was a real live person so I could hang out with her.

Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't, Vann said.
But whatever it is, I will absolutely fucking bury you in it.
And I will enjoy it, because you chose to waste my time making me deal with you.
Door number one or door number two.
Choose wisely.
And if you don't choose in ten seconds, we're going with door number two.
Choose.

This book had world building galore and it didn't rely on info-dumping to get the reader through it. I really loved Old Man's War, but that had some info-dumping that was just enough to draw me out of the story at times. The Android's Dream had way too much and I started to mentally tune out while reading.

The world-building was excellent in this book. John Scalzi makes this alternative future seem like a real life possibility. The ways in which he imagines science changing to deal with those afflicted with Haden's Syndrome and how that changed the United States in some ways, but in the end still had things trucking along was pretty cool. I do love science fiction and fantasy novels, but one thing that drives me crazy in most is if the world-building doesn't make sense or based on what I know of certain cities/countries I have a hard time believing could occur. This is why for the most part, most young adult dystopian novels bug me.

The science when discussed in this book wasn't too over my head (thank goodness) and probably because I have friends who are programmers and have played with programming in college and now at my day to day job here and there. I still don't like it, but I know enough about it that I was not totally in the weeds.

Additionally, all of the characters were tightly drawn and felt so real to me I could picture them in my head. Even secondary and tertiary characters felt real to me and I didn't find myself trying to recall who was who. Mr. Scalzi manages to wet your appetite enough for some people that you find yourself just powering through pages to figure out if he is going to release any more tid-bits about a character or just let it flow naturally throughout the novel (yeah one of those times when I was like just tell me, just tell me, I want to know). For example, there is a character named Detective Trinh that is a metro detective (D.C.) that makes me want to know more about this character. She actually reminded me a bit of Inspector Lestrade from the Sherlock Holmes books, dismissive towards Sherlock at first, and telling Watson how Sherlock was no good.

The mystery was really cool and I can honestly say I was surprised at the end reveal and how neatly it was done.

I am excited about this being the start of a series since I definitely need to figure out what Chris and Agent Vann are going to be up to next.