Travel Agent

Author John Scalzi is a skilled writer of pulpy, cotton-candy science fiction. The more I've read of him, and the more online discourse I've seen about his work, the more clear it's become to me that literary snobs tend to turn their noses up at him. Still, I usually enjoy his creative settings and snarky characters, and find myself periodically returning to his stories.

One story was a no-brainer for me: the third volume of The Dispatcher, a series of novellas released in audiobook format. The first one was my introduction to Scalzi, and I loved it. The second one wasn't as compelling, though I still welcomed the return trip to the interesting universe: a modern day world in which 99.9% of the people who are murdered are immediately resurrected back at their homes; main character Tony Valdez is a "dispatcher" hired to intentionally murder people, effectively saving their lives in dangerous situations.

Book three is Travel by Bullet, and is an interesting evolution on the setting in at least two ways. The title itself hints at one; where the first two stories focused largely on the "murder" aspect of the premise, this story focuses more on the fact that victims are transported elsewhere upon resurrection, allowing those willing to risk a 0.01% chance of death the means to "travel by bullet" to another destination.

The second twist? Scalzi decided to incorporate the real-world coronavirus pandemic into his fictional universe. This isn't the only time he's done so, but The Kaiju Preservation Society focused on a parallel Earth sitting alongside our real one. Here, the setting is manifestly not our reality, yet the world is reacting to a pandemic just as ours did. It's an interesting choice, as the story really isn't about a pandemic -- narratively speaking, it's mostly there just to explain why the characters don't find themselves in book three at the places you'd expect they'd be as of the end of book two. Still, writers often incorporate current topics into their work, and it's interesting to see it done in a non-metaphorical way.

I've focused on the pandemic aspect perhaps a bit more than it deserves, but that's largely because I want to avoid giving away too much of the story for people who haven't "audio-read" the first two Dispatcher books. They're all worth the time (even if the first is really the best). Suffice it to say, this one is a compelling new mystery set in this by-now well-established world. I still love the premise, and John Scalzi still seems to be finding interesting tales to tell with it. Zachary Quinto returns once again to narrate, and once again is completely in sync with Scalzi's trademark blend of wry and snarky humor.

I'd give Travel by Bullet a B+. If you've listened to any of The Dispatcher books, you should check out this one. If you haven't? You should at least check out the first one and see if the series is for you.