Head On
By: John Scalzi
Edition: First edition.
Series: Haden's Sydrome/Chris Shane/Leslie Vann #2
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: March 28, 2018
Place of publication: New York City, New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 335
ISBN-13: 9780765388919
Subjects: Epidemics; Virtual reality; Sports stories; Virus diseases; Fiction
First sentence: By the time Duane Chapman died on the Hilketa field, his head had already been torn off twice.
Description: 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.
Notes: "A Tom Doherty Associates book."
First Edition: April 2018; 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
$25.99; C$33.99