The Dispatcher by John Scalzi

The Dispatcher by John Scalzi

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Jacket Blurb:  Listening Length: 2 hours and 18 minutes

One day, not long from now, it becomes almost impossible to murder anyone - 999 times out of a thousand, anyone who is intentionally killed comes back. How? We don't know. But it changes everything: war, crime, daily life.

Tony Valdez is a Dispatcher - a licensed, bonded professional whose job is to humanely dispatch those whose circumstances put them in death's crosshairs, so they can have a second chance to avoid the reaper. But when a fellow Dispatcher and former friend is apparently kidnapped, Tony learns that there are some things that are worse than death and that some people are ready to do almost anything to avenge a supposed wrong.

It's a race against time for Valdez to find his friend before it's too late...before not even a Dispatcher can save him.

Read as an audio book.

This was awesome. An absolutely delightful melding of scifi and mystery in a nicely packaged novella that just worked.

The book blurb sums up the plot quite well, so I won't rehash. Zachary Quinto does a wonderful voice performance (Will Wheaton, you might have some competition here...). I enjoyed the fact that Scalzi didn't explain the "science" behind the whole 'if your murdered, you get to come back' aspect. Sometimes, some things just need to be left to the imagination.

I could gush more about Tony Valdez's character, I could wax poetic about Zachary's voice, but if you have enjoyed Scalzi's other books, AND you like murder mysteries, you'll probably like this one.

Go read it.



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