128 pages
Published April 20, 2017 by Subterranean Press.
An interesting premise with a quick mystery to explore ever so slightly. Fun, quick listen. I may continue the series.
Very light-weight novella doing Scalzi at his peak: genre-blending noir and scifi with snappy dialogue and easy reading. It's designed to be an audiobook, and probably better in that medium, but I'm busy and this is a 30 minute read v. 3 hour audiobook?
This is essentially a mystery/detective novella set in a slightly different future with one strange premise: that at some point in our very near future, people who are murdered start reappearing alive and well in their home instead of actually dying. This turns out to have several interesting implications, one being that murder suddenly becomes a lot more difficult for those who want to do it; another being that dangerous sports and things like duelling suddenly become a lot "safer" and more popular; and most relevent to the plot, a new profession known as "Dispatcher" comes into existence. Dispatchers exist to help quickly "dispatch" (ie murder) those who are dying of something that could have been prevented. For example, in the novella our dispatcher happens to witness a nasty traffic accident that leaves a woman near death. If she were just to die from the accident, she would be permanently …
This is essentially a mystery/detective novella set in a slightly different future with one strange premise: that at some point in our very near future, people who are murdered start reappearing alive and well in their home instead of actually dying. This turns out to have several interesting implications, one being that murder suddenly becomes a lot more difficult for those who want to do it; another being that dangerous sports and things like duelling suddenly become a lot "safer" and more popular; and most relevent to the plot, a new profession known as "Dispatcher" comes into existence. Dispatchers exist to help quickly "dispatch" (ie murder) those who are dying of something that could have been prevented. For example, in the novella our dispatcher happens to witness a nasty traffic accident that leaves a woman near death. If she were just to die from the accident, she would be permanently dead; but if he kills her first, then there's a 999/1000 chance she will reappear safe and sound back in her own home.
Other than the one weird premise of the plot this is entirely non-fantasy, and the story unfolds mostly as a mystery, as the cops and the titular Dispatcher (Valdez) attempt to find out what happened to another dispatcher who's gone missing.
This novella is also available as an audiobook on Audible narrated by Zachary Quinto, who does an excellent job.
