Tag: The Dispatcher

(and clearly, I can’t think of anything to put in the headline)

Travel by Bullet

DETAILS:
Series: The Dispatcher, #3
Publisher: Audible
Publication Date: September 1, 2022
Format: Audible Original
Length: 3 hrs., 44 min.
Read Date: September 2, 2022

What’s Travel by Bullet About?

A recent pandemic* has resulted in all Dispatchers being strongarmed into working long and hard shifts in hospitals. Their work isn’t that effective in light of the disease, but that doesn’t change the requirement. In the middle of a shift, Tony Valdez is called to the ER.

* It was never named, but you’re probably not wrong to assume it’s one you recognize.

A friend (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) and colleague, who spends a lot more time on the morally ambiguous side of the vocation, is in the ER after throwing himself out of a moving vehicle and getting hit by a car. Clearly, things aren’t going well for him. He looks to Tony for help, and well…things go bad from there.

The duo finds themselves mixed up with a handful of the city’s richest and most powerful, who are busy trying to get the best of each other while staying off the radars of both the Chicago Police and the FBI.

As much as Tony might try to fool the reader/the police/himself, he’s no stranger to the morally ambiguous—sure, he tries not to stray as far as his friend does, but still. Making this book, like the others in the series, another bit of Urban Fantasy Noir.

The Urban Fantasy-ness

I’ve always thought there was a vaguely SF feel to this series like it’s set a couple of decades in the future or something. In retrospect, I don’t know why. It was just an impression I picked up. This one struck me as incredibly contemporary and made me feel pretty silly for thinking that about the others.

When I wasn’t kicking myself for getting the chronology wrong, I spent a little time admiring the simplicity of Scalzi’s approach to Urban Fantasy and how it makes The Dispatcher stories really stand out. In most UF, you get something like magic, or a lycanthrope, or a vampire—and then before you know it, you’ve got all of those. But here, this world is just one tweak away from our world—no wizards, no Fae, no were-anythings—just that murder almost always doesn’t work (see earlier posts about this series for details if you want them, I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here).

The number of changes that this one butterfly wing flap makes in this world—health care, law enforcement, and crime (and who knows what else…)—is pretty monumental. You don’t need the Fae or a Council of Mages or anything to radically reshape the world. Yet it still is very recognizably our world.

Zachary Quinto

Quinto really needs to do more audiobook narration—I’m not sure how he got attached to this series, but it’s such a good thing that he did. He’s really able to embody Valdez and bring the stories to life. I really enjoyed this performance, and look forward to more.

So, what did I think about Travel by Bullet?

This was a blast—this world has always felt realized, but I felt more “at home” in it this time than I remember. I enjoyed this ride more than I remember enjoying the last one (not that I had any real problems with it). I don’t know if those two sentences are all that related, and if so, which came first—I also don’t think it matters.

This is a tight thriller—no wasted moments, but nothing’s rushed, either. Just settle in and enjoy the ride.

I feel like I should have more to say, but I don’t. All I can think to add at this point is that I want more of these, and hope that Audible and Scalzi provide them. Providing more soon would be a great bonus.

Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi, Zachary Quinto (Narrator): When You Can’t Kill Someone Anymore, Criminals Have to Get Creative

By HCNewton

On September 28, 2020

In Audiobook, Fiction, John Scalzi, Urban Fantasy

Murder by Other Means

by John Scalzi, Zachary Quinto (Narrator)
Series: The Dispatcher, #2

Unabridged Audiobook, 3 hrs., 33 min.
Audible Studios, 2020

Read: September 18-19, 2020

A Sequel to The Dispatcher?

I think the last thing on my mind as I finished The Dispatcher was that there’d be a sequel. It seemed fairly stand-alone (but, I guess, I can see that the door was open). But now that I’ve heard this? It seems only natural that there’d be a follow-up to The Dispatcher and the door is open for more.

What’s Murder by Other Means About?

So, in this world 99.9% of the time, if you’re murdered, you come back to life in your home/somewhere you feel safe. If you die of natural causes, in an accident, from suicide—you stay dead. But if someone intends you harm and you die, you’re most likely safe. This started a few years before this book is set, and no one knows why.

But that doesn’t stop people from taking advantage of it. There’s a new industry, our protagonist/narrator is part of it, Dispatching. Licensed killers who shoot people when death is all but certain to give them another chance at life. In the time since The Dispatcher, it seems that some new and creative uses for them have become common. Most of them straddle the line between legal/illegal or moral/immoral.

Tony Valdez starts this book hurting for money, and takes one of those not technically illegal jobs. Soon after, people around him—loosely connected, but not really friends or colleagues—start dying from unnatural causes. Not murders, obviously, because they stay dead. But as the bodies start to accumulate, the police have to look at the one common denominator—Tony. Tony starts investigating himself—if only because he figures it’s going to be long before he’s one of the dead that doesn’t come back.

How was the Narration?

Quinto makes Tony come to life, and is able to humanize this licensed executioner enough that you don’t think of him as a killer for hire, you think of him a beleaguered private contractor on hard times. Quinto’s great at the rest of the job, too—I’d absolutely listen to more audiobooks he narrates.

So, what did I think about Murder by Other Means?

I was less than enthusiastic about The Dispatcher back in 2016—which I didn’t remember until I just glanced at my post. I’m not over the moon about this, but I enjoyed it, and hope there’s more to come (I’m not sure I want to wait four more years, however). If there is? I’m jumping on it eagerly.

It was clever, it is honest about the human condition and the ways we find to hurt and destroy (and comes up with a few that are custom-made for this no-murder reality), yet remains a very human, very real thriller. It’s a good way to spend a couple of hours.

3.5 Stars

The Dispatcher (Audiobook) by John Scalzi, Zachary Quinto

By HCNewton

On October 14, 2016

In Fiction, John Scalzi, Urban Fantasy

The Dispatcher

by John Scalzi, Zachary Quinto (Narrator)
Series: The Dispatcher, #1

Unabridged Audiobook, 2 hrs, 19 min.
Audible Studios, 2016

Read: October 5, 2016

Last year, when he was in Boise, I heard John Scalzi read the first chapter of this book and I’ve been waiting for this ever since.

It’s an Urban Fantasy set in a world where natural or accidental death is possible, but if you’re murdered there’s an almost 100% possibility that you’ll come back to life. Huh? Yeah — heckuva hook, right? There’s no explanation for this, it just started — and it may just end at some point. But in the meantime people are taking full advantage of this.

Tony Valdez is a dispatcher — insurance companies and individuals have started hiring dispatchers to “dispatch” someone just before they die, so there’s a good chance — a fantastic chance, really — that they’ll survive. One of Tony’s coworkers has disappeared and a Chicago police detective has drafted him to help her track down his colleague. To find him, they have to look into the dark side of the dispatcher trade and the desperate lengths some will go through to extend the lives of their loved ones or themselves.

It was a fun book to listen to, a story that drew you in and drug you along to the gripping end. But once it was over, and I started thinking about it, all sorts of questions came to mind, not really plot holes, just things that weren’t adequately addressed. I think a lot of it was length, if this had been a novel, some of them wouldn’t have come up. The more I thought of it, it was almost like this novella was Scalzi’s attempt to prove a point/win a bet that, yes, he can write UF. A strongly written, convincing story that entertained from beginning to end — but there was just no heart to it, it just seemed like a writing exercise.

Quinto did a bang-up job — I think I only thought of him as the actor once or twice — he nailed every bit of this. If that whole movie star thing doesn’t work out for him, he could have a future doing this sort of thing. I should probably give this an extra star just for his work.

Very entertaining, a great experience — just don’t think about it too terribly much.

—–

3 Stars