Lock In — Book Review & Quotes

Review

Lock In paints a specific question in the form of a disease, but in general, what happens to our humanity when the majority of our life is lived in a digital environment? Can life be as full when it’s happening in bits and bytes?

Quotes

“Making people change because you can’t deal with who they are isn’t how it’s supposed to be done. What needs to be done is for people to pull their heads out of their asses. You say ‘cure.’ I hear ‘you’re not human enough.”

“Rich people show their appreciation through favors. When everyone you know has more money than they know what to do with, money stops being a useful transactional tool. So instead you offer favors. Deals. Quid pro quos. Things that involve personal involvement rather than money. Because when you’re that rich, your personal time is your limiting factor.”

“When you’re a kid all you want to do is be somewhere else.”

“It’s not an effective protest if it’s not pissing people off.”

“Which is why Mom, when she’s being indiscreet, refers to the trophy room as the “vet’s office.” Because that’s where Dad brings people to take their balls.”

“I’ve been told my liminal space is like the dark of the grave. But I think of it as the dark from the other end of life entirely. The dark of everything ahead, not everything behind.”

“Did she tell you I set puppies on fire, too?” Vann asked. “She did not,” I said. “It may have been implied.”

“She was old and crankily conservative in the way only old liberals could be.”

“The diagnostic said there was nothing wrong with the threep, which may have meant there was something wrong with the diagnostic.”

“Really really really difficult,” Tony allowed. “But theoretically possible because, hey, it’s a quantum physics universe.”

“It’s not spam if you agree to it,” Tony said. “They just won’t have much of a choice.”

“And also because I know if I’ve figured it out, someone else has too, because there’s always someone else smarter out there, who may not have ethics.”

“I’m saying pay attention to when it makes sense to say something,” Vann said. “And pay attention to when it makes sense to hold it in for the moment. I get that you’re used to saying what you think to anyone, anytime. That comes from being an entitled rich kid.”

“I love her more than I actually express in words — an irony for a writer — and am every day genuinely amazed I get to spend my life with her.”

“I find it comforting,” Bell said. “It reminds me of the womb. They say we don’t remember what it is like to be there, but I don’t believe that. I think deep inside we always know. It’s why children burrow under blankets and cats push their heads into your elbow when they sit beside you. I’ve not had those experiences myself, but I know why they happen. I’ve been told my liminal space is like the dark of the grave. But I think of it as the dark from the other end of life entirely. The dark of everything ahead, not everything behind.”

“Then: “What time is it in Arizona?” “It’s two hours behind here, so about eight thirty,” I said. “Maybe. Arizona is weird about time zones.”

“Wow, really?” I said, before I could stop myself. “I used the wrong word, didn’t I,” Davidson said, looking at me. “I can never remember if ‘clank’ or ‘threep’ is the word I’m not supposed to be using today.” “Here’s a hint,” I said. “One comes from a beloved android character from one of the most popular films of all time. The other describes the sound of broken machinery. Guess which one we like better.”

“So all of it — local and archived data — went up with the lab building.” Vann glanced over to me with an expression that I suspect meant these people were sloppy.”

“Heads could be heavily customized, and a lot of younger Hadens did that. But for adults with serious jobs, that was déclassé, which was another clue to Schwartz’s likely social standing.”

“Trust me, Shane,” she said. “Anything you’d say on the topic I’ve already heard a couple thousand times. You’ll just annoy me.”

“Because this is what I learned about myself that first day: My body is my body. I don’t want anyone else in it. I don’t want someone else controlling it, or trying to. It’s my own little space in the world and the only space I have. And to have someone else in it, doing anything to it, sends me into a panic.”

“Do any of the private companies send reps or IT guys here?”

“Rich people show their appreciation through favors,” I said. “When everyone you know has more money than they know what to do with, money stops being a useful transactional tool. So instead you offer favors. Deals. Quids pro quos. Things that involve personal involvement rather than money. Because when you’re that rich, your personal time is your limiting factor.”

“But then, the trophy room isn’t for us. It’s for everyone else. My father deals with millionaires and billionaires on a daily basis, the sort of people who have egos just this side (and sometimes way over the edge) of sociopathy. The sort of person who thinks he’s the apex predator wading through a universe of sheep. Dad takes them into the trophy room and their eyes get to the size of dinner plates and they realize that whatever shit they’ve got going on is tiddlywinks compared to Dad. There are maybe three people in the world more interesting than Marcus Shane. They’re not one of them.”

“Sani’s family lived in a well-kept double-wide in an otherwise less-than-spiff trailer park outside of Sawmill.”

“Simply put, she was the one who had to put up with me. That she did so with love and patience and encouragement instead of strangling me, throwing my remains into a wood chipper, and then pretending she had never been married to me at all is a testament to the fact that she is, in fact, the single best person I know.”