KatPadi's Point

I Listened to The Dispatcher And It Was Awesome

I just finished listening to The Dispatcher by John Scalzi, narrated by Zachary Quinto. It’s Audible-exclusive and was created as audio-first. This means that it was intended to be an audiobook first before a printed version so the process of writing was a bit different, as per Scalzi himself.

The novella lasts for only 2 hours and 19 mins and it’s worth every second. By the way, this audiobook also made me google the difference between novella and short story, or a novel. Apparently, a novella is longer than a short story but shorter than a novel.

So what’s the story about? In the near future, anyone who is murdered comes back to life in just a matter of seconds. If you die of natural causes, you’ll die, as in, legit die. If you commit suicide, you’ll also die forever. But if you’re murdered, you’ll come back to life 99.9% of the time!!!

SPOILER AHEAD. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

 

The story follows Tony Valdez who works as a “dispatcher”— a professional who legally performs euthanasia. Although “euthanasia” isn’t explicitly mentioned in the book (errr, audiobook), it’s what they’re basically doing because they have the license to kill people for them to have a chance to live again. Tony tries to solve the mystery of his missing friend in this setting where murdering someone is very difficult to commit.

Anyway, I’m not a story reviewer but I just wanted to share that this was a solid 99-cent purchase on Audible!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *