Our library buys every John Scalzi book. I'd love to see this turn into a series, a great mix of mystery and sci/fi.

I had enjoyed the previous entries in the Dispatcher series and the Kaiju Preservation Society books by the same author and was excited to read this chapter in this series. The characters felt like the same characters from the previous two books. I enjoyed the plot going on and was glad I got to read this again. John Scalzi has a great writing style and I was hooked from the first page.

"Langdon told me not to come back to the apartment, but I wasn’t going to stay away entirely. This was my home, after all. I walked back on North Avenue in the direction of my street, watching the video of the break-in and sending Langdon screenshots as I did so."

I’ve listened to Zachery Quinto read all three of John Scalzi’s Dispatcher novellas, and I liked them. I think Quinto does a great job with Tony Valdez’ voice and Scalzi’s sensibilities and humor really shine in this noir-ish, fantasy-ish, sci-fi-ish series.

Tony Valdez lives in a world a lot like ours, except if you murder someone, most of the time, they’ll reappear somewhere safe – naked and alive. People still die of natural causes, by suicide, and in accidents. But they don’t die by murder. Tony is a dispatcher – trained, licensed and bonded to provide ethical murders to save lives. The Dispatcher and Murder by Other Means explore all the ways we find to make this gift of a second chance into another way to profit off the misery of others and evade consequences. The wealthy are the worst, just like in our reality.

Travel by Bullet shares a couple of other similarities with our present world – a pandemic, crypto bros, and a bad law. Tony is now working at a hospital in Chicago in the Critical Care Unit, where he’s asked by families to dispatch their loved ones, which likely won’t save their lives, because they’d still be deathly I’ll, but no longer at the hospital where they can get medical treatment. Tony is notified that his friend, Mason, is in the ER, having thrown himself out of a moving vehicle on the Dan Ryan Expressway. When Mason’s involved, you know the shenanigans are going to be morally questionable.

Tony is a great character, comfortable with the morally gray to a point. He’s an active part of the plot while also always an observer of the people and actions around him. He withholds a piece of himself, even from the reader, so that you know what he’s thinking on a surface level, but like everyone around him, you are pretty sure he knows more than he’s telling.

I love this pulpy, but brightly lit cover that Subterranean Press is giving the print release. Noir is often about what happens in the shadows, but when the bad guys are billionaires, they don’t need shadows to hide their corruption.

I enjoyed reading this in print as much as I had enjoyed listening to Zachary Quinta read it to me last year. Audiobooks and print books are equally valid ways of reading, but they are different. I like seeing the way Scalzi plays with words.

CW: pandemic (not gone into detail), minor characters making decisions about a parent’s medical care, life threatening injuries, murder, physical violence, torture (not explicit)

I received this as an advance reader copy from Subterranean Press and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.

I really enjoy these short novellas
Tony Valdez is tired, tired of Dispatching for the pandemic, tired of waiting for his consulting job with the CPD to be funded... but not too tired to respond when his sometime friend Mason asks for him at the E.R where he is "Dispatching" ailing victims in the critical care unit of the hospital.
Sadly for him, coming to Mason's aid gets Tony wrapped up in a a plot of greed, cryptocurrency, manipulation and kidnapping. So, nothing new for Mason, or Tony really.

Another fun, quick installment to the series!

Another thoroughly enjoyable entry in this sci-fi mystery series. Having already listened to it last fall, it's impossible to read this without hearing Zachary Quinto's voice in every sentence, but that's not a bad thing! The story holds up even without the audiobook narration, and the concept is original and interesting, especially the way Scalzi has worked this entry into the context of COVID. I hope there are more Dispatcher novellas to come. Thank you to NetGalley and Subterranean Press for a digital review copy.