‘Lock In’: Sci-fi novel transports to new world

'Lock In” (Tor, 336 pages, $24.99) features an eager rookie FBI agent tackling his first case with his hard-bitten, world-weary partner. It's a fairly standard setup, but in John Scalzi's new novel, the rookie is not what you might expect.

In the near future of Scalzi's imagining, Agent Chris Shane suffers from Haden's syndrome, a disease that has stricken millions. His body lies inert while his mind transmits signals to his Personal Transport - known as a 'threep,” which allows him to have a life beyond his bed. He and his partner, Leslie Vann, find themselves tangled in a case involving Haden sufferers as well as individuals known as 'Integrators” who can allow a Haden to take over their bodies.

Questions of identity and culpability abound in this intriguing story. Shane and Vann, a former Integrator, never can be sure who they are dealing with. The reader might easily become confused were it not for Scalzi's careful crafting of Shane's narrative voice. The protagonist puzzles things in a way that keeps readers from losing the thread.

'Lock In” is successful as a sci-fi cop story, but it - like all the best science fiction - also asks us to consider challenging questions about what it means to be human and how society might adjust to unforeseen challenges.

The world of 'Lock In” is wholly believable, and Scalzi's story is both thrilling and thought- provoking.

Book reading

' What: John Scalzi reads from 'Lock In”

' Where: Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City

' When: 7 p.m. Tuesday

' Cost: Free