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Head On (Narrated by Amber Benson)
- Narrated by: Amber Benson
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
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Head On (Narrated by Amber Benson)
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Summary
"As much as Scalzi has the scientific creativity of a Michael Crichton, he also has the procedural chops of a Stephen J. Canell to craft a whodunit with buddy-cop charm and suspects aplenty - most of them in someone else's body." (USA Today)
John Scalzi returns with Head On, the stand-alone follow-up to the New York Times best-selling and critically acclaimed Lock In. Chilling near-future SF with the thrills of a gritty cop procedural, Head On brings Scalzi's trademark snappy dialogue and technological speculation to the future world of sports.
Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent's head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are "threeps", robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden's Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real, and the crowds love it.
Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field.
Is it an accident or murder? FBI agents and Haden-related crime investigators Chris Shane and Leslie Vann are called in to uncover the truth - and in doing so travel to the darker side of the fast-growing sport of Hilketa, where fortunes are made or lost and where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field.
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What listeners say about Head On (Narrated by Amber Benson)
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Mark Gjøl
- 05-07-18
A good story marred by a terrible actor
I listened to the first book of the series narrated by Wil Wheaton and was disappointed by the performance, so for this second installment I decided to go with the alternative. Amber Benson tries hard to make distinct voices for each character, but not only are they jarring, the accents she choose are often wildly confusing. I was particularly confused by the manufacturer of sex bots, whose voice most of all reminded me of a sweet elderly lady. Of course that might have been her intention, but I didn't think it really fit the script. The intonation of characters are often off, and what I would have read as assertive or playful was read as whiny.
Throughout the book I regretted I hadn't chosen the Wil Wheaton narration for this as well, but really I wished they would have gotten someone else entirely to narrate it.
The story is pretty good though, I recommend reading it.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 08-01-23
Is the robotic narration intentional?
The narration is robotic but perhaps this is a deliberate choice because they are robots?
However the other characters (Van especially) sound sarcastic and bored. It's like listening to a group of imagined teenagers (because not all teenagers are sarcastic, rude and bored all the time). It's also extremely slow, I have the speed increased to 1.30.
The story and premise are interesting and I'll finish listening to see how it ends but I will not listen to another narrated by A.B. I might listen to another narrated by W.W.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- DL
- 12-05-18
Not a great sequel
I enjoyed the first book in the series but the plot of this one was decidedly average and not helped by very poor narration with voices that frequently felt like nails on a blackboard.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Zoltán Pósfai
- 18-04-23
Average story staying afloat on threep shoulders
I found some novelty in Lock In, but the second book only has an average story, and the only differing part is the play and involvement of threeps. Even there, several things felt forced and unnatural. (Like the pseudo-resistance to threep rental market.)
The voice acting was atrocious. Mostly felt like a better TTS.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- paul sparks
- 14-12-20
Hugely enjoyable
For me this book was actually better than lock in (which I really enjoyed) because all the relationships had been settled and the rapport and humour could play out unfettered
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 18-04-18
Chris and Leslie investigate , enjoyable
I liked the characters of Chris , Leslie and Tommy and investigation more of the world of Hayden’s and the interaction between them and other humans. The conversation is snarky and the story is well paced.It is very efficiently written, which has the side effect of making the main villain fairly obvious. This is more like a procedural than a mystery.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 31-03-23
robotic
like the story, narration is terrible.very robotica and pitch going up and the end of scentences
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Melanie
- 18-07-18
Great time with the characters..
I enjoyed spending more time with the characters from Locked In. Like Locked In, the mystery a the heart of the story is very simple, which is a bit of a let down.
Once again, I enjoyed Amber's narration of the book and will stick with her for any subsequent books.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Call me Bob
- 07-11-21
Solid detective novel with SciFi setting
First of all I read this one before the first and did not notice.
It is a good stand-alone book.
It was not something to knock my socks off like Hyperion or Daemon but it was good.
The only problem is that since you do not know the settings many "revelations" can also be "inventions".
And if you have seen the movie Surrogates (2009) you get the gist.
Anyway, give it a chance, I liked it.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Michela
- 27-05-19
A captivating, suspenseful novel
The main characters, the same FBI agents as in Lock In, have to solve the mystery of a series of deaths connected to a popular game. A considerable number of people seem to be involved with them, and more crimes and deaths soon follow, including a few endangering the main characters' lives. But the actual motives and secret connections are only slowly revealed, with unexpected help from all sources, including a cat, and readers have to get to the very end to see the answers to all questions. The interpretation of the audiobook is once again quite satisfying.
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1 person found this helpful