Lock In

A gripping murder mystery with unexpected philosophical depth

Note: There is a great prequel novella "Unlocked" available for free over at Tor.com, which provides an excellent pre-reading basis for this novel.

This story takes place 25 years after a devastating epidemic hit the world. Millions died, and millions more were left with "locked-in" syndrome: conscious, cognitive, and aware, but incapable of any speech or movement whatsoever.

But -- as with all such crises -- partially-successful medical and technological interventions were developed, and eventually the epidemic becomes a "normalized" fact of life. Although their immobilized physical bodies must be carefully monitored and maintained in sophisticated medical cradles, Locked-ins (known as Hadens) now have the ability to live full lives through the use of neural brain implants which interface with human-like android bodies known as threeps (a reference which will be instantly obvious to Star Wars fans).

But there are complications to the solutions found by modern tech and pharma companies...

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