Wednesday, October 18, 2017

4 stars-- The Dispatcher by John Scalzi

Oh this was fun. The Dispatcher was a little different than my normal grab but I've been on an audio binge lately and it was in my cloud and I figured...why not. It's quick read but quite entertaining.

The Story:

The basic gist is that you can no longer be murdered. Well, not easily. If someone kills you? Your body kind of goes poof! and you wind up back at your home all in one piece--though naked-- and ready to have another go at things.

And the hero, Tony? He kills people.

Yes, he's a Dispatcher. It's his job to kill people so they can have a second chance. Like if you're having a risky surgery you'd hire him to hang out in the OR and if things go south he'd just kinda pop you on purpose so you wouldn't *really* die. Hopefully.

It was a fun story. A fellow dispatcher has gone missing and Tony and a cop set about figuring things out. I liked Tony and his cop counterpart. They're different from each other. Tony may have blurred the lines over the years ethically. His cop? Not so much. It was fun watching them feel each other out as the story went along and he explained what dispatchers were.

The Narration: 
I loved the narrator. This was my first from Zachary Quinto and I enjoyed him. He's got a yummy voice and kept things nicely paced. Good distinction between characters and such. I listened at 1.25x speed and it was perfect. 


Overall, I enjoyed The Dispatcher. I'd actually be up for more from this world though I believe this is the only one out there. A good use of 2 hours of my time.

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.

Amazon | Goodreads | Scalzi on HCBS

No comments:

Post a Comment

I always enjoy hearing what YOU think so come on and leave a comment. Everyone's welcome :) And feel free to leave comments on old posts. I'll check in on you there too :)

Bloggers don't forget to leave your links!
~Anna

The Herd Archives