The Dispatcher

A couple of days ago, John Scalzi’s novella “The Dispatcher” was released. Usually, any new book by him instantly makes it onto my to-read list but this time the release was audiobook-only (at least until some time in 2017)… so what to do?

I’ve never listend to an audiobook before and was always a bit sceptical about them. Reading a book puts me into a special mood that I don’t really want to miss and as my free time is limited, I’ve picked the “classic” experience so far. That being said, I listen to tons of podcasts so I kind of assumed audiobooks to be somewhere in between them, books, and movies. Ah… who am I kidding?! … it went to the top of my to-read list anyway!

The story teaser sounded interesting enough: A world where murdered people a revived, a legal killer profession employed e.g. by insurrances, a possible way around that resurrection…

Two days later: Content-wise, I have to say though, I was a bit disappointed. Sure, it was free and “only” a novella, but there was just a bit too little world-building going on. The story itself was fine but too simplistic for what I’m normally used to from John Scalzi; same goes for the characters. The book is just too short for the reader to get to know them in any meaningful way. That being said, the universe still sounds quite promising and putting it into a more detailed story might turn out to be quite interesting!

As I wrote, this was also the very first audiobook I’ve listend to, so I cannot really compare it to anything else. I liked the experience, though, and will most likely try other audiobooks eventually. Zachary Quinto was a good reader but it was still sometimes hard to tell some of the characters apart, something that also a friend of mine who mainly listens to audiobooks noticed.

This audiobook is free right now on Audible, so, in any case it’s definitely worth listening to if you enjoy urban fantasy or enjoy Scalzi’s other books. It’s just not great 😞