Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome

#1119
Title: Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome
Author: John Scalzi
Year: 2014
Publisher: Kindle/Tor
Pages: 96

A quick and enjoyable novella that serves as prequel to Scalzi's forthcoming Lock In. Told by varied respondents in the style of World War Z, which is to say, in the style of Studs Terkel's Working, Unlocked provides the documentary background on Haden's Syndrome, which is ironically spread at a conference of epidemiologists. In most people it looks like influenza, in some number it progresses to a meningitis/brain restructuring (as-yet) not fully developed, and in a fraction of those, to a functional locked-in syndrome. This latter group is aided by new technologies that allow people with third-stage Haden's to communicate: An online community (the Agora) and threeps (remote-controlled cyborg bodies that initially look like C3PO, hence the sobriquet). This exposition serves to orient the reader to the world of Lock In, where it is the historical and technological backdrop to a story that begins with a Haden's first day on the job, a murder investigation.