Welcome back to Back Shelf Saturdays, where I review backlist titles I didn’t get to read when they were first published. I do this (almost) every week to ensure I’m reading more than just newly released and forthcoming titles. For my purposes, a backlist title is at least one year past its release date.
This week’s title is Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi. Murder by Other Means is the second novella in Scalzi’s The Dispatcher series. The Dispatcher was one of my first-ever Scalzi reads and is still one of my all-time favorite SFF novellas. Murder by Other Means had big shoes to fill. The entire three book series is free to Audible Plus and Premium members and skillfully narrated by Zachary Quinto (of Star Trek fame). If you don’t have Audible, these novellas are also available as ebooks!
| Title: Murder by Other Means | Author: John Scalzi |
| Release Date: Sept. 10, 2020 | Genre: Speculative / Sci-Fi |
| Publisher: Audible Originals / Subterranean Press | Page Count: 105 |
Synopsis
In the world of the Dispatchers, a natural or accidental death is an endpoint; a murder pushes the do-over button and 99.99% of the time the victim comes back to life. Tony Valdez is a Dispatcher who’s been taking shadier and shadier gigs in financial tough times, and after witnessing a crime gone wrong, he finds people around him permanently dying in a way that implicates him. He has to solve the mystery of these deaths to save the lives of others–and keep himself out of trouble with the law.
Review:
If you aren’t familiar with The Dispatcher series, it’s set in a near-future version of our world. The main difference is that when someone dies by murder in The Dispatcher series, they come back to life 99.99% of the time. If they die by natural causes or by accident, though, they die. Because of the murder loophole, a new profession, called Dispatchers, was created. A Dispatcher is “a licensed, bonded professional” who ethically ends people’s lives when they are near death. Of course, the ethical side of dispatching doesn’t always pay the bills.
Tony Valdez is a Dispatcher and a good one, too. Throughout the series, Tony stumbles into dispatcher mysteries and sometimes helps the police. He’s mentally tough and only really worries about his own moral code. I like Tony. I love the world. While you’ll want to start with the first novella, The Dispatcher, these are quick and entertaining books, so you’ll zoom through them in no time.
Murder by Other Means opens with Tony doing a less-than-savory job – one that could land him in a heap of trouble if anyone found out. When that job ties Tony to a bank robbery, the death of an acquaintance, and a murdered cop, all roads lead the police to Tony. Tony isn’t one to go down without a fight, even if he has to investigate on his own. Luckily, he won’t have to do it all on his own.
Final Thoughts:
As a huge fan of Scalzi, especially his sci-fi mysteries, Murder by Other Means was such a fun find. I’m saving the third novella in this series for a later date because I know I’ll miss this series. If you like The Dispatcher series, check out Scalzi’s full-length novels Lock In and Head On.
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Year of the Novella
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