The Dispatcher

By: John Scalzi

Narrated by: Zachary Quinto

Length: 2 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Earphones Award Winner (AudioFile Magazine)

Winner, 2017 APA Audie Awards - Original Work

From master storyteller and Hugo Award-winner John Scalzi comes this Audible Original novella, winner of the 2017 Audie Award for Best Original Work. Emmy-nominated actor Zachary Quinto—best known for his roles as the Nimoy-approved Spock in the Star Trek reboot and the menacing, power-stealing serial killer Sylar in Heroes—brings his well-earned sci-fi credentials and simmering intensity to this genre-bending thriller.

One day, not long from now, it becomes almost impossible to murder anyone—999 times out of a thousand, anyone who is intentionally killed comes back. How? We don't know. But it changes everything: war, crime, daily life.

Enter Tony Valdez, professional Dispatcher. True to their name, these licensed assassins are tasked with humanely disposing of people in death’s crosshairs to offer them a second chance at avoiding the reaper. When a friend and fellow Dispatcher goes missing, Valdez is plunged into a web of intrigue both professional and personal.

It's a race against time for Valdez to find his friend before it's too late...before not even a Dispatcher can save him.

©2016 John Scalzi (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Good Grief This Was Good

Any additional comments?

A phenomenal book, such that I don't believe John Scalzi is the author. I quite like Scalzi's works, but I think of them as highly entertaining mediocrity. First with Lock In and now this, I think he has grown to a new level.

Scalzi's standard humor that he is known for is absent in this book, but do not let that scare you off. It may be short, but there is a solid and strong story here that kept me riveted to the end. Then after I had finished it, I kept thinking about it long after the last words were spoken.

And spoken they were! Zachary Quinto is phenomenal!

Truly this is an easy recommendation to anyone who wants a thriller or a mystery with a clever spin.

Awesome!!!

This book was incredible! For a free book and a 2 hour ride this surely will fit perfectly for the part!! Only down side is there wasn't more!!!

Original Well Written & Narrated Short Story!

This was my first listen written by John Scalzi and I was very impressed! For a short story, it was captivating, well written, and had a great pace!

Zachary Quinto's performance was fantastic!

Well worth the time!

Great idea

Nice interesting story with a unique idea - likeable characters- Great idea for a movie - better yet a TV series !

Don't over-think the science, and you'll enjoy it.

This book was like a sugary mixed drink. It's fun, but you'll regret it later. In all seriousness, the premise is a little hokey, but creative...but, it's fairly short and worth that little bit of time out of your life. Enjoy.

Superb! Dark, enthralling, a thrill to listen to.

It simply doesn't get better than this! Scalzi's story is original and well-written. The characters are intriguing, deep, and well-rendered. Perhaps it's the style of this particular piece, or perhaps Quinto's performance, but this story seemed much darker (in a good way) than his other work.

This is the first time I've heard Zachary Quinto perform a book, and I'm hooked! His performance was subtle and nuanced. Some performers are melodramatic, but Mr. Quinto nailed each voice, spiced them with unique inflections and centered them in their own registers, making character differentiation effortless for the listener. 10 stars!

New Running Mate, Same Great Result

Zachary Quinto is well known to SF fans as Sylar in Heroes and Spock in Star Trek. His narration of John Scalzi's new novella is, in a word, excellent. Longtime fans of Scalzi audiobooks may have been dismayed to see someone other than Wil Wheaton as narrator. Quinto doesn't match WW's incomparable standard, but he nevertheless does a great job.

Scalzi remains incomparable in his own right. There is simply no one else out there writing contemporary science fiction as clever, topical, and witty. The only problem with his writing is that we're not getting enough of it. The Dispatcher is a completely satisfying short work, but how much better would it have been at Lock In length?

Lock In is an apt touch point. The Dispatcher similarly imagines a near-future paradigm shift in the outcome of the worst kind of health trauma. How do different individuals react to these extraordinary changes? How do various elements of society deal with the ramifications? Despite the short running time, there are interesting ethical questions in addition to tight world building and a dandy (if no wholly original) plot line and story structure that is also reminiscent of Lock In.

This is a tasty amuse bouche from a guy whose idea of haute cuisine is stuffing whatever happens to be around into a burrito. I wish we got the full burrito -- I suspect that may in the works. I for one want to see more dispatching in the imaginative world of John Scalzi.

Loved it!

I just wish there was more. Scalzi's such a hit or miss, I wasn't sure about this, but hey it was free. I am glad I downloaded it!

Dispatched with Economy & Excellence

I got this as a free download from being an Audible Member at the right time. I'd heard a lot about John Scalzi, but hadn't read any of his stuff yet. And as an SF fan, of course I knew Zachary Quinto's acting work (Heroes; Star Trek reboot movies). So it was a no-brainier for me to try this short offering.

Wow, what a great way to interest me in both Scalzi's longer works, and in Quinto as a narrator! The story is intriguing. More of a long short story or perhaps a short novelette, it delivers a lot of punch in a small package. It requires a big suspension of disbelief at the outset -- one might even say a leap of faith -- but once you've taken that in, the story explores serious themes, such as the nature of Deity and the Universe, death and dying, and what constitutes morality.

And Quinto's reading was superlative, exceeding even my high expectations. His variety of voices including old, young, men's, women's and accents, was truly awesome and brought the work to life in a vivid and memorable way.

I'd be very interested in reading more from both Scalzi and Quinto, in partnership or individually. I'd also be interested in more set in this "Universe" of Scalzi's, in particular. I'll be looking for more from each, confident that whatever I'd pay will be well worth the investment.

Fantastic

this is a really tight well written story, lots of fun, with a great reader!