It’s team gladiatorial combat, on a football field, with a nerdy scoring system. The reason Hilketa is so popular is that the players score points through simulated decapitation and go after each other with melee weapons. Scalzi delivered a witty, clever mystery that fed my inner nerd, piqued my curiosity and had me laughing out loud. Narrated by Will Wheaton Scalzi transported me and I became caught up in this procedural crime novel. Head On has us tagging along with FBI Agent and Haden-related crime investigators, Chris Shane. I was excited to return to this science fiction world altered by a virus known as Haden’s syndrome. Head On by John Scalzi is the companion follow up to Lock In. 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. Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real and the crowds love it. But all the players are “threeps,” robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden’s Syndrome, so anything goes. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent’s head and carry it through the goalposts.

Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. 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. John Scalzi returns with Head On, the standalone follow-up to the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed Lock In.

A Fortunate Accident by S.J. Pajonas