Murder by Other Means

'Murder By Other Means' is a novella-length noirish thought-experiment that explores a new 'What if?' in the world John Scalzi created in 'The Dispatcher', another novella-length piece of speculative fiction, that explored the impact of a VERY big change in the natural order of things: 999 times out of 1,000, murdered people come back from the dead. Scalzi offers no explanation of why the murdered come back. It's just a change that happened one day and that the world adapted to by creating Dispatchers, people licensed by the state to kill you in the event of your imminent death by natural causes so that you can instantly reappear, naked but healthy, in your home.

Both novellas are written from the point of view of Tony Valdez, an show more almost-but-not-quite anti-hero who works as a Dispatcher. In 'The Dispatcher', times were good for Tony. Work was steady and somebody had to do it and not everyone can just pull the trigger, kill someone and then go get coffee like Tony can. Then he finds himself involved in the apparent abduction of another Dispatcher and gets lots of unwelcome attention from the police and a local organised crime boss while Scalzi had fun exploring all the implications of the murdered coming back. It was a fun ride if you could swallow the initial inexplicable change in the state of the world.

Scalzi published 'The Dispatcher' in 2016. In 2020, in 'Murder By Other Means' he paid Tony Valdez another visit and explored how the criminal world would adjust to the threat being taken out of murdering people. Times are no longer good for Tony. Austerity has defunded much of the work of Dispatchers and Tony is finding himself having to bend the rules to pay his bills. He lands in trouble when one piece of rule-bending results in everyone associated with it turning up dead, permanently and by their own hand, and Tony is in the frame as either the one behind the deaths or the next one to die.

This was fun in an unemotional be a good sociopath and focus on the puzzle and not the dead bodies sort of way. The plot was satisfyingly twisty. Even when I was sure I could see all the pieces, I still couldn't see how they fit together until Scalzi explained it all. Maybe I just have an evil mind, but it was fairly obvious to me what other means organised crime would use to replace the threat of murder, so that part was no surprise. That still left a whole bunch of interesting things to figure out. Who was doing the threatening and why? How could they be stopped? And what did a failed bank robbery have to do with anything? It seemed to me that Tony Valdez had softened up a bit since the last novella and showed a surprising degree of empathy for someone who chooses to shoot people in the head for a living but it sat well on him.

This was an entertaining way to spend three and a half hours. The first-person point of view worked well as an audiobook, Zachary Quinto's narration was easy on the ear and, if you're an Audible member, it's included with your membership. Why not give it a try? After you've listened to 'The Dispatcher' of course. show less

Murder by Other Means - Scalzi
Audio performance by Zachary Quinto
4 stars

First there was The Dispatcher, a short story set in a world very much like ours, except for one bizarre difference. Murder doesn’t work anymore. Almost all of the time, 99% of the time, murder victims don’t stay dead. The body disappears while the living individual reappears at a safe location. Dispatchers are licensed to murder individuals who are at risk of accidental or natural death, ideally allowing the individual a longer life.

What’s a murderer to do? Scalzi is a master of speculative fiction. He lines up all of the plausible implications of this bizaar phenomenon; political, financial, legal, psychological, and pours them into this very scary show more novella. It’s a recognizable 21st century Chicago. The criminal underworld is a very dangerous, dirty place. The dispatcher, Tony Valdez, returns from the short story, walking a knife edge to avert disaster. It’s a dark story. It scared me. I hope Scalzi will write another.

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How can a story involving so much murder be so enjoyable and borderline humorous? You make sure that very few of the victims actually die. That's the improbable conceit of the story and the author makes it work. The audio book of the first Dispatcher novella is sitting in my Audible queue (the pandemic really messed up my listening habits). But this was thoroughly understandable and entertaining without that introduction.

As with most stories from John Scalzi, the value is in the writing. The snappy dialog and colorful characters whisk you along for a pleasant ride full of twists and turns and a totally believable outcome (ignoring the previously mentioned improbable conceit). Highly recommended for a few hours of show more entertainment.

Disclosure: Thank you to Netgalley and Subterranean Press for providing a free copy of this book in return for my honest review. show less

I am a huge John Scalzi fan, and I find his novels tend to make for great audiobooks. I listened to the first book in The Dispatcher series and loved it. Everything from the story to the narrator was great. Unfortunately, the second book in the series, MURDER BY OTHER MEANS, was not so great.

The problem lies not with the story or the characters but with the narrator. Zachary Quinto sounds like he did not want to be there that day, which shows in his performance. His tone is flat. He inflects no emotion into his voice at all. He barely differentiates between male and female voices, and there is no difference between male characters. Worst of all, he takes Mr. Scalzi's trademark sarcasm and renders it moot.

Because his narration is so show more monotone, the story has no drive. It is as if the events in the novella are occurring around the main character and not to him. Even though every word counts for story and character development in short stories, Mr. Quinto's narration lulls you into a stupor so that you find you missed entire paragraphs and have to rewind. Either that or the main character is supposed to be an emotionless automaton.

As it was less than four hours of my time, and I listened to MURDER BY OTHER MEANS while doing household chores like I always do, I can't say it was time wasted. I can only hope that for the third book, Mr. Quinto was in a better mood when he recorded his performance. show less

★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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A SEQUEL TO THE DISPATCHER?
I think the last thing on my mind as I finished The Dispatcher was that there'd be a sequel. It seemed fairly stand-alone (but, I guess, I can see that the door was open). But now that I've heard this? It seems only natural that there'd be a follow-up to The Dispatcher and the door is open for more.

WHAT'S MURDER BY OTHER MEANS ABOUT?
So, in this world 99.9% of the time, if you're murdered, you come back to life in your home/somewhere you feel safe. If you die of natural causes, in an accident, from suicide—you stay dead. But if someone intends you harm and you die, you're most likely safe. This started a few years before show more this book is set, and no one knows why.

But that doesn't stop people from taking advantage of it. There's a new industry, our protagonist/narrator is part of it, Dispatching. Licensed killers who shoot people when death is all but certain to give them another chance at life. In the time since The Dispatcher, it seems that some new and creative uses for them have become common. Most of them straddle the line between legal/illegal or moral/immoral.

Tony Valdez starts this book hurting for money, and takes one of those not technically illegal jobs. Soon after, people around him—loosely connected, but not really friends or colleagues—start dying from unnatural causes. Not murders, obviously, because they stay dead. But as the bodies start to accumulate, the police have to look at the one common denominator—Tony. Tony starts investigating himself—if only because he figures it's going to be long before he's one of the dead that doesn't come back.

HOW WAS THE NARRATION?
Quinto makes Tony come to life, and is able to humanize this licensed executioner enough that you don't think of him as a killer for hire, you think of him a beleaguered private contractor on hard times. Quinto's great at the rest of the job, too—I'd absolutely listen to more audiobooks he narrates.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT MURDER BY OTHER MEANS?
I was less than enthusiastic about The Dispatcher back in 2016—which I didn't remember until I just glanced at my post. I'm not over the moon about this, but I enjoyed it, and hope there's more to come (I'm not sure I want to wait four more years, however). If there is? I'm jumping on it eagerly.

It was clever, it is honest about the human condition and the ways we find to hurt and destroy (and comes up with a few that are custom-made for this no-murder reality), yet remains a very human, very real thriller. It's a good way to spend a couple of hours. show less

I never expected a sequel to The Dispatcher so was naturally intrigued when I saw this come up in one of my Audible recommendations. The world Scalzi has come up with, where murder is almost impossible, is fascinating. Or, as Tony Valdez points out, not impossible - you just have to get creative to commit a murder now.

Tony is presented a with quite a nasty puzzle to solve if he wants to survive, all starting after he accepts a morally questionable Dispatch job. Tony is racing against the clock as the body count starts to raise, with all the evidence pointing his way even though he couldn't have possibly caused any of the deaths.

It's a clever story and an entertaining read. I'd love to see what Scalzi would do with a full length novel show more in this world as the ending felt rushed this time around.

I listened to the audio book narrated by Zachary Quinto. It took me a bit to get used to his narration as the main character sounded monotonous in the beginning. As more characters added, it got better. This is currently available in the Audible Plus catalog for members. show less

So, full disclosure, I am not audiobook people. I am a massive Scalzi fan and I'm pretty fond of Zachary Quinto, so I thought it was worth a try. It's not enough. There are just too many names and too many subplots for me to keep track of just by listening. I'm not sure why audiobooks don't go the direction of podcasts, or even radio plays, and try for more auditory interest? Even Quinto, an expert voice actor, comes off as monotone and some of the voices he uses for different characters are jarring or absurd.

The bones, I think, are decent: Scalzi explores what options the criminal element has to operate with in a world in which murder doesn't work. He brings back his Dispatcher protagonist, his cop sidekick Langdon and the morally grey show more crime boss from the Dispatcher and that continuity and further story development was nice. Hopefully I'll get a chance to read this at some point when it stops being an audible exclusive. show less