Unlocked

I read Scalzi's Lock In right at the beginning of the pandemic. It posits a future world, about twenty years after a pandemic has come through, killing 1% of the population and leaving another 1% paralyzed. It ended up being a lot lighter than I expected, which was for the best given my whole state of mind at that time. But this companion book takes a closer look at the pandemic itself and the immediate response and aftermath. The crazy part is that it was written in 2014, and still got a bunch of stuff right.

It's always so weird when science fiction starts to read more like historical fiction. It becomes a fun exercise in looking at which predictions were correct and which were wrong. Scalzi's pandemic hit the globe much more consistently, having started at an international scientific conference. So the initial impact is a lot bigger. But it still comes in waves, like the real pandemic did. And there's still an incredible rallying of everyone.

Another interesting difference is that Scalzi's fictional society focuses much more on treatment than prevention. Twenty years out they still haven't found a vaccine, but they have created a subset of cyborgs so all the people who were paralyzed and continue to function in society. Which makes sense from a science-fiction point of view, but it also drives home how our quick discovery of a vaccine was it's own brand of science-fiction except that it's true

Overall I had a lot of fun reading this. Scalzi is always a treat and a go to when I need a lighter book. He balances humor well with his technical stuff, which makes it go down easier.