THE DISPATCHER - John Scalzi



In the not too distant future, it will become nearly impossible to kill someone. 99.9% of the time, when someone is intentionally killed, they come back - their bodies disappear from where they were "killed" and reappear at their home, naked, in bed.  Only death by natural causes or true accidents are otherwise permanent. No one knows how or why this has happened, but it has definitely changed everyday life in many ways - including the creation of a job as "Dispatcher" ... someone who 'kills' people for pay so that they can be reset for whatever personal reason they might have. (Let's say someone is in surgery and something goes wrong ... 'dispatch' them so that the don't actually die, allowing doctors to try again.)

But while some old problems have gone away, some new problems arise. What happens when a 'dispatch' goes wrong and the target actually dies? Who is responsible?  And if you wanted to really torture someone now you could torture them to death, have some goons waiting for the body to reappear, take the person and keep up the torture.

Enter Tony Valdez, a licensed and bonded Dispatcher. When a fellow Dispatcher is kidnapped, local police call upon Tony to help them understand the Dispatcher job and to navigate some of the Dispatcher shortcuts to getting a job done.

What a  great, almost obvious, idea.  I mean, so many people today play video games in which a character 'dies' and their life is reset to a home base (or at least reset to somewhere presumably safe) - why not take this into the 'real' world?

The book, and particularly the character of Valdez, have all the hallmarks of a Scalzi story - some irreverent humor and some scathing satire. And if you read Scalzi, chances are this is just what you are looking for.

Unlike many of his other books, this one is almost 90% detective mystery, with a sci-fi setting. He does this well, though for such a short book (a novella or even novelette, actually) we spend perhaps too much time setting up the world and the main character before we get to the mystery.

I understand that this was written with the intention of being an audio piece - read by Zachary Quinto. While I may have missed any specific inflections that Quinto may have added, because I read this rather than listened to it, I think it stands just fine as s short sci-fi mystery.  It's also quite a clever world and I'm eager to read the next volume and wish that Scalzi would return to this series.

Looking for a good book? John Scalzi's The Dispatcher, originally written for audio and now published in a special edition by Subterranean Press, is a clever sci-fi mystery with all the loveable wit and gruffness that Scalzi brings to his books.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars

* * * * * *

The Dispatcher

author: John Scalzi

series: The Dispatcher #1

publisher: Subterranean Press

ISBN: 1596067861

hardcover, 130 pages

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VINYL RESTING PLACE - Olivia Blacke

Image
 Juni Jessup and her two sister, Tansy and Maggie, have gone into business together in their hometown of Cedar River, Texas, opening a combination record store and coffee shop. Vinyl LPs are making a comeback after all, despite critics thinking the medium was dead.  But speaking of 'dead' ... finding a dead body in the supply closet just as they are looking to have a grand opening is not part of the plan.  Juni's life gets more complicated when their uncle, Calvin, already a suspect in the murder, disappears. And the police officer leading the investigation is Juni's EX-boyfriend (who passive-aggressively keeps putting himself back into her life). Convinced that her uncle would never murder anyone, Juni sets out to prove his innocence - which isn't easy since he's making himself look guilty - because Calvin is family and family is EVERYthing to Juni. As readers of my blog know, I'm not a big fan of most cozy mysteries, but the setting caught my eye and my in...
Read more

THE WALLED CITY - Ryan Graudin

Image
  Jin and her sister, Mei Yee, were taken and sold and then sent to the lawless Walled City to serve as prostitutes or slaves to anyone willing to pay. Jin managed to escape her captivity, but not the Walled City and she now lurks about, disguised as a boy and is trying to track down the brothel where her sister is still captive. Jin will work odd delivery jobs to earn a small bit of money and hopefully have a legitimate means of coming in contact with her sister's captors.  This is how she meets up with Dai, a mysterious boy who has somehow managed to avoid running with any of the gangs in the city but he seems to have his own unusual connections, which Jon could desperately use if she has any hope of finding Mei Yee. But Dai has his own desperate needs.  The story is told from the different perspectives of each character and we do bounce around quite a bit as the chapters are generally short. This never bothered me, which is slightly unusual as often I find this techni...
Read more

THE RAVEN THIEF - Gigi Pandian

Image
 With Tempest Raj now a member of the company, Secret Staircase Construction (a company who, as their title suggests, builds mystery-themed, secret rooms inside homes) has finished their first job. Their client now wants to celebrate to kick off her new beginning - new home and new life now that she's divorced from her cheating ex-husband, famous mystery author Corbin Colt. First up, a mock séance to remove any trace of Corbin from the property, led by Tempest's friend, Sanjay.   But during that séance, while all those gathered sat in a dark room holding hands, Corbin's dead body crashes the party, falling across the table in front of everyone. There were eight people in the room, and they were all holding hands, but all the evidence points to one of them being the murderer.  Suspicions point to Ash, Tempest's grandfather, because he was the only one with Corbin's blood on him. Of course, as a doctor, he was also the only one who checked on the body - ...
Read more