I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi Series: The Dispatcher #2
Published by Subterranean Press on April 30 2021
Genres: Adult, Science fiction
Pages: 192
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: I enjoyed the mystery and Scalzi’s cool concept of “dispatching,” but overall I wanted more from the story.
After my debacle of unintentionally rereading The Dispatcher, I finally downloaded the correct document and was able to knock out Murder By Other Means pretty quickly. This is the second novella in John Scalzi’s The Dispatcher series, and overall it felt a little underwhelming to me, and I honestly find myself struggling to find much to say about the story. I still enjoyed Scalzi’s unique ideas, but I wanted more from the story, I guess. In case you aren’t familiar with The Dispatcher, the story revolves around an interesting idea: in a future America, people who are murdered come back to life nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand. No one knows why, but once it started happening, people called dispatchers became legally licensed to kill, in order to save terminally ill people, for example. Tony Valdez is a dispatcher, but in this book, times are tough and many of his above board dispatcher jobs have dried up. Dispatchers these days are forced to take less savory (and oftentimes illegal) gigs in order to survive.
When the story opens, Tony is about to do one such job for a Chinese businessman named Mr. Peng, who is trying to close a lucrative deal in China. The only problem is he’s in his lawyer’s office in Chicago, and he won’t be able to get to Beijing in time. Enter Tony Alvarez, who has been offered a lot of money to shoot Mr. Peng in the head, thus ensuring that he will wake up in his bed at home—his home in Beijing—and will have plenty of time to nab the deal. Alvarez reluctantly agrees to the job—after doubling his price, of course—and things go smoothly. Mr. Peng’s body disappears after a couple of seconds, which means he survived being dispatched and will wake up in Beijing per the plan.
But when Alvarez takes his hard earned cash to his bank to make a deposit, his transaction is interrupted by a group of robbers. Things go badly, and this sets off a chain of events that involve a rash of suicides, which all tie back to Alverez. Detective Nona Langdon suspects he might be involved, but she doesn’t yet know how.
Scalzi does some new things with his idea in this story, delving into the less legal ways of dispatching. I found these both fascinating and creepy, since they bring up lots of moral questions about right and wrong. For the most part, Alvarez tries to stay on the straight and narrow. He takes his dispatcher job seriously, and for obvious reasons he doesn’t want to get caught doing anything illegal. Still, money talks and he’s in dire need of it, if only to pay his rent and put food on the table.
Scalzi has a pretty good mystery going on in Murder By Other Means, and the story kept me guessing up until the final reveal. However, it feels similar to the first book in many ways and even has some of the same action beats. I really want to care more about the characters, especially Tony Alvarez, but he’s more of a loaner and doesn’t seem to have many close relationships, which might have made the story more interesting. This is a short novella, though, and it’s tough to delve deep into characterizations with such a small page count. The story ended rather abruptly for my tastes, and I was left with a feeling of “That’s it?” at the end. I think Scalzi was going for an emotional ending, but it didn’t have the impact I was hoping for.
Despite my lack of enthusiasm, I wouldn’t say “no” to another story set in this world. Scalzi’s light, breezy style is always fun to read, and I think there’s a lot more to Tony Alvarez and his job than meets the eye.
Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.
I’m sorry this was an underwhelming read for you. Hopefully if a third book is coming that will be a little better!
Stephanie @ Bookfever recently posted…Can’t-Wait Wednesday: Daughter of Sparta by Claire M. Andrews
I would love to read a third book!
As a Scalzi fan it saddens me a little to learn that this new offering in the Dispatcher series is more of a “meh” than anything else: you are not the first to express a slight disappointment in the story, so I will have to keep my expectations down for this one… Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Maddalena@spaceandsorcery recently posted…WINTER’S ORBIT, by Everina Maxwell
Well, it could just be me, so by all means give it a try if you want. I have heard the audio is pretty good though:-)
I really enjoyed both Dispatcher novellas — but I listened to the audiobooks, which maybe makes the story a different experience. The narration (Zachary Quinto) is excellent, and makes the story feel very action-packed.
I would like to try the audio, I can see why they might be more fun!
This has me thinking about those movies or books that are idea storys (of a sort) and so the first story is super engaging, but any sequel is then unable to live up to the first story. That newness is gone and if the author isn’t able to inject something else just as interesting then we’re a little let down. As for novellas and characterization, I agree it is likely more of a challenge to write those interesting and engaging characters in that format, but thinking back there I’m finding many examples of novellas where the author somehow managed to do it (Murderbot, Made Things, Sisters of the Vast Black, The Emperor’s Soul, etc). Glad to hear, though, that the mystery was still enjoyable. I enjoyed the review.
Scalzi is always fun to read, but this particular book just wasn’t as exciting as the first. Oh well!
I enjoyed the first one and plan to read this one sometime. Wonderful review!
Anne C Fosse recently posted…Thief of Souls by Brian Klingborg
Thanks Anne:-)
At least I know I wont have to bothered rereading book 1 if it’s so similar lol. I think I got the first in a 1$ audible sale, not too keen to try the second but if it ends up on sale I might get it.
I kind of wish I had listened to the audio now…
Sorry to hear this book wasn’t all you hoped it would be. It’s good it hasn’t turned you off from reading another story set in this world though.
I really enjoy his writing, so I will most likely try anything he writes:-)
Sounds like a cool premise, to bad this one just didn’t hit the spot!
It is a very cool premise, and there is a lot you can do with it.
Considering how much the first one rocked, this one probably felt even more underwhelming since you read it immediately afterwards. I thought it was okay too, but it could have been a lot more!
Yeah, I guess it was nice to have a refresher, lol.
This is an author I’ve wanted to read, especially Lock In, and also Red Shirts. Some day maybe I’ll get to them! Thanks for sharing your review!
Lisa Mandina (Lisa Loves Literature) recently posted…Review: The Introvert’s Guide to Online Dating (The Introvert’s Guide #1) by Emma Hart
A superb review, Tammy:)). I haven’t read The Dispatcher – but like you, I’m keen to read anything Scalzi has to offer. His Locked In series is one of my favourite crime sci fi series to date. If it was a novel, I’d read it like a shot – but novellas are a tricky length to get absolutely right and relatively few authors nail the ending to my satisfaction. I generally come away, wanting more…
I hadn’t picked up on this one – maybe because it’s fairly short – you know me.
Lynn 😀
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