The Dispatcher by John Scalzi

Introduction

The Dispatcher by John Scalzi is about Tony Valdez who is a legal professional murderer. In the future, people who are murdered come back to life in the place where they find most comforting. People who commit suicide and have natural deaths stay dead. Murder victims return to life naked but alive. So, murderers can keep people from dying an eternal death. Someone has kidnapped one of Tony’s colleagues, another Dispatcher and Tony must rescue him, or his colleague may be killed and stay dead. Will Tony continue to search for him even though Tony may face his own eternal death? 

Summary

The story starts with Tony at the hospital on an assignment covering for his friend Jimmy Albert. Insurance companies demand Dispatchers are present at risky surgeries so if the operation goes wrong the Dispatcher can murder the patient so the patient can live again. This will protect the hospital and the insurance company from wrongful death lawsuits. It is a judgment call for the Dispatcher on whether to do the task. After he completes his assignment, Chicago detective Nona Langdon interviews Tony about Jimmy. Jimmy is missing and Nona thinks Tony can help her find him. Tony knows the right people to ask about what assignments Jimmy was working on. Jimmy was taking less than legal jobs and they wondered if that was why he was kidnapped. Tony uses his contacts without Nona knowledge and it gets him into trouble. Nona and Tony follow their leads to find out what happened to Jimmy.

Recommendation

The Dispatcher is a 130-page novella and is a tight, intriguing story. The mechanism of how murder victims are returned to life is an interesting idea and the ramifications are explored in this story. It’s a future police procedural with a surprising moral. If you don’t pay attention to your loved one’s wishes, you will suffer at your own peril. I want to read the next novella, The Dispatcher 2 when published and learn more about Tony and the role of Dispatchers in this world.

Links

The Dispatcher by John Scalzi is Book #1 of the Dispatcher Series

This is the link to The Dispatcher’s Goodreads page.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33910936-the-dispatcher

John Scalzi read the first chapter in his work in progress, the Dispatcher 2, at the science fiction conference ConFusion in Detroit on January 19, 2019. This is a link to my recap of the conference and John Scalzi’s reading

This is a link to my book review of The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi, Book 1 of the Interdependency Sequence. It is the next most recent book I have read by John Scalzi.

Conference Recap ConFusion Detroit 2019

Introduction

I attended the SF conference named ConFusion at 5801 Southfield Freeway Dearborn, Michigan at the DoubleTree Hotel from January 18 to 20, 2019. ConFusion is sponsored by the Ann Arbor Science Fiction Association. I attended 4 panels, one reading, one interview, and watched the movie The Princess Bride. The theme of the con was Storming the ConFusion, so the areas were designated with names related to the movie like Miracle Max’s Film Room, The Fire Swamp Artists Alley, The Cliffs of Insanity Consuite, Pit of Despair Gaming, and the Thieves Forest Music Room. I stayed at the Hawthorn Hotel by Wyndham which was next to the Double Tree.

ConFusion 2019 Program Guide Cover

This is a link to the ConFusion website.

https://2019.confusionsf.org/

Summary

Saturday, January 19th at 12 PM

Writers Talk about Anything But Writing panel with Mark Oshiro, John Scalzi, and Delilah Dawson:

Mark was the moderator and he came up with the topic. His point was that panelists get questions about writing, publishing, and touring, but get few questions about their other interests. This panel forced them to talk about something else. John Scalzi talked about being almost 50, his exercise program, and taking modern dance in high school. Mark talked about who he was cast as the lead in the play Music Man, Harold Hill, in high school while being Mexican and gay. John talked about working at Del Taco and learning about life. He was in an air band in high school and won a contest drumming to Round and Round by Ratt. Mark didn’t understand the concept of an air band since he is from another generation. John finished up the panel by talking about his wife’s family’s salsa recipe and how he was glad he married into the family to taste it, The panel was fun and I’m glad Mark came up with the topic. I learned about the panelists and I liked that.

Link to another air band video of John Scalzi at the Webb school:

Saturday, January 19th at 1 PM

Mars in Fact and Fiction panel with industrial scientist Bill Higgins, SF writer specializing in Mars fiction Martin L. Shoemaker, and professor from Connecticut State University Dr. Jennifer Piatek:

Two slide presentations were presented in this panel.

Dr. Piatek’s presentation was called Mars – A Short Tour, which covered the history of scientific fact about Mars. The incorrectly proposed canals of Mars were refuted in the ’60s with the Mariner mission. The Viking mission extended our knowledge of the surface of Mars. Mars has a rough southern highland and a smooth northern plain. Most Mars missions land in the north. The next mission to Mars is scheduled to be the Mars Rover 2020 mission, scheduled to be launched in 2020.

Bill Higgins presentation was called Mars in Our Stories, which covered SF writing about Mars. He highlighted a picture printed in the September 1956 Life magazine that imagined the aliens of Mars as told from many stories including War of the Worlds by H. G. Welles, Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis, and A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum. He next mentioned the 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds adapted by Orson Welles that caused a panic in New Jersey. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury and the John Carter series by Edgar Rice Burroughs were also mentioned. The panel ran out of time to continue to more modern examples of Mars fiction.

I thought that both presentations were well done, and the information was interesting.

A copy of a drawing by Boris Artzybasheff from the September 24, 1956 issue of Life magazine.

Saturday, January 19th at 3 PM

Reading by John Scalzi:

John Scalzi’s current work in progress is his sequel to his novella called The Dispatcher. The tentative title for the work is Dispatcher 2 –the dispationing (probably not the final title). He read Chapter 1 of his new work. In the world of the novel, people who are murdered will return alive to a place they found comfort in the past. They appear naked, healthy and well. Suicide does not work in this world so there is a call for Dispatchers, who murder terminal patients or for other reasons if their clients want a fresh start. This work is about a Dispatcher debating if he will accept Mr. Pang as a client. The chapter comes to a satisfying conclusion. Scalzi is an engaging reader of his work. Well done.

This is the Goodreads link to The Dispatcher.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34819813-the-dispatcher

Scalzi had more time to read, so he read two posts from his blog named Whatever. The first post he read was titled “Automated Customer Service”. It was a funny short story about a computerized phone customer service call about a malfunctioning Vacuubot.

The last story was named “Four Views of the Same Short Story”.

A short Q and A followed. The whole hour was fun and perfect. It was my best hour of the con.

Saturday, January 19th at 6:30 PM (Err, I should have been there at 6:10 PM)

I watched the movie The Princess Bride. The Princess Bride was the theme of this con, Storming the ConFusion. I’ve seen the movie many times but I thought that it would be fun to see it here with an audience. In the Henry Ford boardroom (renamed Miracle Max’s Film Room for the Con) there is a large screen TV at one end of the room and a large table with comfortable chairs surrounding it. The movie played on the screen and all the dozen chairs were filled.

On the sheet posted on the door, it said the movie would start at 6:30 PM but I think it started at 6:10 PM. Then I arrived at 6:25 PM the scene playing was the one where the Man in Black (Dread Pirate Roberts, but secretly Westley) was sword fighting with Inigo Montoya and it was almost over. The movie ended at 7:40 PM and the movie is 90 minutes long so I figure about a 6:10 PM start. I watched the rest of the movie. The cool thing is that the five scenes at the beginning of the movie that I missed are all available on Youtube. I watched them all after the con. It turned out to be a great idea to watch the movie with others and I am glad that I did.

Youtube link to a playlist with 12 clips from the movie:

Sign on the door to the boardroom where the movie played.

Sunday, January 20th at 10 AM

I attended an interview with Ada Palmer, the Author Guest of Honor for ConFusion 2019. Ada Palmer was interviewed by Black Gate columnist Brandon Crilly. She is an associate professor of early modern European History at the University of Chicago. Ada Palmer first talked about her current project on censorship. She is co-writing a book called Censorship and Information Control in Information Revolutions with Cory Doctorow and Adrian Johns. Her project is funded through Kickstarter Their idea is that censorship has always been a part of society and always will. There are two kinds of censorship. The Catholic model where works are sent to a censer and edited before they are published and the English model where works are censored after they have been printed and deemed censorable.

Censorship relates to her current fiction novel series, Terra Ignota. She extrapolated certain trends from the past into the future to develop her series. Some of those trends are religiosity, the changing family unit, and gender relations. She recommended the short story The Autopsy by Michael Shae, link below. She identifies herself as a writer and not a professor. Her writing suggestion is to take an old story and edit it to half-length to get to the essence of the story. It will help the writer to be concise and make sure that every line and word is doing some work. Brandon conducted an interesting interview with Ada Palmer and I plan to read Too Like the Lightning this year. It’s on my Goodreads list.

This is Brandon Crilly’s announcement of the interview: https://brandoncrilly.wordpress.com/2019/01/16/this-weekend-confusion/

This is the Black Gate magazine webpage: https://www.blackgate.com/

This is Ada Palmer’s faculty page: https://history.uchicago.edu/directory/ada-palmer

Ada Palmer’s project is funded through Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/648994832/censorship-and-information-control-in-information

This is a link to the Goodreads page of Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota Book #1)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26114545-too-like-the-lightning

This is a link to the Goodreads page for the book The Weird, where The Autopsy by Michael Shae is published: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12344319-the-weird?ac=1&from_search=true

Sunday, January 20th at 12 PM

State of the Solar System panel with industrial scientist Bill Higgins, SF writer specializing in Mars fiction Martin L. Shoemaker, and professor from Connecticut State University Dr. Jennifer Piatek:

The same panel members from the Mars panel on Saturday continued their discussion about space exploration beyond Mars. They talked about the International Space Station first and then spent most of the rest of the panel talking about probes to the asteroids. The TV show Salvage 1 from 1979 starring Andy Griffith was mentioned about commercial space exploration. The show was about a man who built a spaceship intending to go to the moon and salvage the Apollo mission’s equipment and sell it on the Earth. It was an interesting panel and the room was packed, standing room only.

Sunday, January 20th at 1 PM

Supply Lines and Economics in Fantasy Worldbuilding panel with K. A. Doore, Ferrett Steinmetz, Jennifer Mace, Scott H. Andrews, Jon Skovron, and Teresa Nielsen Hayden.

They authors talked about how economics affected the story they write. The best part of the panel was their recommendations of resource books to read. They are 1491 by Charles Man, Debt by David Graeber, Great Cities in History by John Julius Norwich., and Food by Dorothy Hartley. There were two examples of novels using the topic illustrated, the Dagger and the Coin series by Daniel Abraham and War of Light and Shadow by Jenny Wurts. I wondered if six panelists were too many for them to get each of their points across, but the panel went smoothly, and each panelist had interesting comments. I put all the books mentions on my Goodreads to read list and look forward too many hours of good reading.

Recommendation – Conclusion

I had a great drive to Detroit just before the snowstorm. The con was set up well making it easy to find the locations. My star of the con was John Scalzi. He gave an excellent reading and was engaging in the panel I attended. My other highlights were Ada Palmer’s interview and watching The Princess Bride at the con. I’m planning to return next year.

Links

This is a link to John Scalzi’s post about attending ConFusion 2019.

The next most recent conference that I attended was Cleveland Inkubator which was held on August 4, 2018, at the Louis Stokes Wing of the Cleveland Public Library, 525 Superior Avenue Cleveland, Ohio 44115. The event was sponsored by Literary Cleveland. This is a link to my conference recap.

The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi

The Interdependency Sequence Book #2

Introduction

This is a book review of the Consuming Fire by John Scalzi. Cardenia Wu-Patrick is the most recent Emperox of the Interdependency. She is coronated as Grayland II and her reign starts with a crisis. The star systems of the Interdependency are connected by the Flow and the Flow is changing. She faces a looming disaster when the dependent colonies of the Interdependency will become isolated. What can she do about the collapse of the Flow and can she get the ruling class to agree to her solutions?

Summary – Background

Cardenia is concerned with the crisis of the projected collapse of the Flow connections to her Empire. The Flow is a wormhole network that connects the different stars of the Interdependency. Humans can only live on the surface of the planet called End. All other colonies are space stations or enclosed stations on planetary bodies. The Interdependency is headed by trading clans. Each clan owns a star system and has a monopoly on one product. The products are traded between clans and no colonies are independent. Cardenia’s clan is the Wu clan. The Wu clan created the Interdependency and every Emperox for the last thousand years has been a member of the Wu clan.

The secondary plot of the novel involves the Nohamapetan clan’s opposition to Cardenia’s rule. Nadashe Nohamapetan has been accused of the attempted assassination of Cardenia. Her mother, the Countess Nohamapetan tries to free her daughter. Cardenia lets the wheel of justice progress without interference. Cardenia put Kiva Lagos in charge of the Nohamapetan clan’s finances, which causes conflict with the Countess.

Summary – Main Plot

The main plot involves the projected collapse of the Flow. Flow physicist Count Claremont predicts the collapse of the Flow by his calculations. Flow Physicist Marce Claremont, his son, continues his father’s work and is Cardenia’s closest advisor. When the first Flow collapses as predicted, the Interdependency is rocked with the ramifications. Flow physicist Hatide Roynold has different ideas than Marce about the Flow. She predicts that other Flows will open as others close. A flow opens to a lost colony in the Dalasysla system that has been isolated from the Interdependency for 800 years. Cardenia sends Marce and Hatide to investigate the lost colony. They want to discover what can happen to an isolated colony when the Flow collapses. What Marce finds in Dalasysla will change what the people of the Interdependency think about their past and their future.

Recommendation

The Consuming Fire is a quick reading action novel with a satisfying conclusion that answers questions but raises more questions. It’s a great follow up to The Collapsing Empire and shows enough about the conflicts in the Interdependency to set up a spectacular conclusion in Book 3 which is tentatively titled The Last Emperox due to be released in 2020. I liked the relationship between Cardenia and Marce the best. They make an engaging pair. I thought the best part was the revelations that Marce discovers in the Dalasysla system. It’s an excellent expansion of the story’s universe. I plan to read Book 3 as soon as it is published.

Links

This is the link to The Consuming Fire’s Goodreads page.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37534901-the-consuming-fire

This is a link to my book review of The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi, Book 1 of the Interdependency Sequence

Head On by John Scalzi

Head On by John Scalzi

Head On by John Scalzi, Book #2 of the Lock In Series

Introduction

Chris Shane witnesses the death of Duane Chapman, the first player killed in the new future violent sport of Hilketa. Years ago, in our future, an epidemic called Haden’s Syndrome affected millions of people who are now unable to control their own bodies. They interact with the outside world by using autonomous robots, called threeps, which are remotely connected to their brains. Chris and Duane have Haden’s Syndrome.

Duane plays in a team sport where the threeps battle on a sports field. The object of the game is to rip the head off the designated opponent’s threep and score a goal with it. Duane’s threep was destroyed and his body should not have died but it has. Chris is an FBI agent who must find out how and why Duane died. The case goes down unexpected paths and Chris must put together the clues to find the truth or risk Chris’s own life.

Summary

Chris is non-gender specific in the novel. Chris is at the Hilketa game because Chris’s father is interested in purchasing an expansion team based in Washington, D. C. Chris’s father is a famous championship-winning former basketball player and a real estate billionaire. Chris was the poster child for Haden’s rights but now wants to just solve cases for the FBI in relative anonymity. Chris’s partner in the FBI is Leslie Vann. She is the senior partner and helps Chris investigate the case. People keep dying in the novel as Chris gets closer to the truth. The criminals destroy Chris’s threeps and eventually threaten Chris’s life.

Recommendation

I enjoyed this novel very much. It is not necessary to read the first novel first though it helps with the background material. This novel reads fast, the action does not stop, and the revelations are valid. The police procedural part of the novel holds up well. The part of the novel dealing with Chris’s self-identity and struggle with being famous is the most interesting and the most frustrating. Keeping Chris gender-neutral has eliminated any romantic relationships. Duane is a Haden married to a non-Haden, Marla. Though that relationship does not end well, I wanted to see Chris struggle with a relationship in this novel. I think this might be what the author is building toward if there is a third novel in the series. I look forward to reading more about Chris Shane if there are more novels in the series.

Links

This is the link to the Goodreads page of Head On by John Scalzi.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35018901-head-on

This is a link to my review of Lock In by John Scalzi, Book #1 of the Lock In Series. FBI agent Chris Shane cannot physically examine a murder scene because Chris has Haden’s Syndrome. Chris interacts with the world with an android.

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, Book #1 of the Old Man’s War series

Introduction

In Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, two things have happened to John Perry recently. His wife had unexpectedly passed away and he decided to join the army. It’s not just any army. The Colonial Defense Forces will only take recruits on their seventy-fifth birthday. All recruits are taken off of the earth and are never heard from again. The novel opens on his seventy-fifth birthday at the gravesite of his beloved wife. He says goodbye to her and heads to the CDF recruitment office. He has no idea what will happen to him next, but he has nothing left to keep him on the earth and so he enlists.

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Summary

John Perry changes as part of the enlistment process. He must succeed to graduate boot camp. The recruits serve a term of ten years, but the survival rate is less than 30 percent. He is very practical and advances in the CDF by using his wits and a lot of luck. At the end of their term, the recruits can become colonists on a new planet or re-enlist in the CDF. The CDF protects the colonies. This novel follows John Perry at the beginning of his term of service.

Recommendation

To me, this novel is a mixture of many military science fiction novels of the past mixed up with new ideas making a great new novel. It takes the themes of pro-militarism and the boot camp to soldier coming of age from Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, But, there is also a sense of loss of humanity by the protagonist and the conflict of fighting the other from The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. I was also reminded of Deathworld by Harry Harrison for the “anything can kill you” mantra of the CDF members. I highly recommend this novel and intend to read the many sequels.

Links

I received this novel from a Tor.com newsletter. Tor sends one free e-book every month to newsletter subscribers. I have copies of The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson and A Fire on the Deep by Vernor Vinge.

The Tor.com newsletter is at http://read.macmillan.com/tordotcom/newsletter-signup/

This is the link to the Goodreads page of Old Man’s War by John Scalzi.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36510196-old-man-s-war

This is the link to my review of Lock In by John Scalzi. FBI agent Chris Shane has Haden’s Syndrome and interacts with the world through an android. Chris must solve a murder caused by an android.

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi, Book #1 of The Interdependency.

Introduction

Cardenia’s father is dying. Once he passes on, she will become the emperox of the Interdependency. She is not ready and there are tremendous complications facing her immediately. Can she guide her interstellar empire through these problems or will her empire fall?

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Summary

Humans have expanded to the stars by using a medium through space called the flow. The flow only travels to certain star systems, but the flow can move and star systems can be lost. One thousand years before this story the Earth is lost to her colonies. The colonies form an empire called the Interdependency. Families are grouped in Houses and each House has a monopoly on one trade good or one technology. The flow is changing. There are three main POV characters in this novel; Cardenia (the future Emperox Grayland II), Kiva Lagos (heir to the House of Lagos), and Marce Claremont (the physicist son of the physicist who first discovered the Flow’s change). Cardenia’s first problem is that the flow is changing and how it changes will determine how she will respond.

Recommendation

This was a fun novel to read. The dialogue was humorous and witty. I liked reading each of the three main POV characters. The novel’s ending featuring Nadashe Nohamapetan’s comeuppance was appropriate. It feels like the first novel in a series, it is, and I’m ready for the next novel.

Links

This is the link to the Goodreads page for The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30078567-the-collapsing-empire

This is a link to my book review Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey, the first book in The Expanse series. This book is a space opera set entirely within the solar system and is similar to The Collapsing Empire.

Lock In by John Scalzi

Lock In by John Scalzi

Lock In by John Scalzi, Book #1 of the Lock In Series

Introduction

Twenty-five years after a global pandemic virus, Chris Shane’s second day on the job as an FBI agent includes a complicated murder as the first order of business. The thing is, Chris cannot physically examine the murder scene. Chris has Haden’s Syndrome. It is a disease that has a slim chance that the person affected cannot physically move their body anymore and become what is known as locked in. The person affected can, however, have their brain fitted with a neural net that lets them either manipulate a specially attuned person called an Integrator or an automaton called a threep. Chris uses a threep and the murder appears to be Haden related. Chris must discover the perpetrator or everyone that has Haden’s Syndrome will be in jeopardy.

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Summary

The novel is an interesting mix of a sci-fi thriller and a police procedural. The best part is the world-building on the effect that Haden’s Syndrome could have on society. It felt like it could have been a multi-episode arc of NCIS. If that is the story that you like to read, then this novel hits that spot.

Recommendation

I think that Scalzi was trying to play with two things with this novel; developing the ramifications of Haden’s Syndrome and to play around with writing gender and race. The world-building worked for me. It is never specified whether Chris is a male or a female. I have my opinion, but nothing written has changed that opinion. Chris’s race is not specified until later in the novel, so thinking about that revelation is thought-provoking.

Chris’s FBI partner Leslie Vann appears to think like a man, but I took it as a woman surrounded by males in law enforcement and taking their phrases as her own. I appreciated that Scalzi chose to explore these subjects, even though it might not have been totally successful because at times the writing felt forced. I am glad that the novel promotes discussion about gender and race. That does mean something. I would recommend this book if only for that.

Links

This is the link to the Goodreads page of Lock In by John Scalzi.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21418013-lock-in

This is the link to my review of Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. It is also a near-future science fiction novel.