I attended the SF conference named ConFusion at 21111 Haggerty Road Novi, Michigan at the Sheraton Detroit Novi from January 19, 2024, to January 21, 2024. I also attended ConFusion Detroit in 2019, 2020, (2021 was canceled due to COVID-19), 2022, and 2023. The Ann Arbor Science Fiction Association Sponsored ConFusion Detroit 2024. I attended three panels, one author reading, and watched the movie Labyrinth. This year’s theme was Labyrinth of Confusion. Celebrating the 38-year anniversary of the release of the movie Labyrinth (1986).
The Ann Arbor Science Fiction Association sponsors Detroit ConFusion.
This is my badge for ConFusion Detroit 2024.
Summary
ConFusion Detroit 2024 Conference Recap
Friday, January 19th at 7 PM
Labyrinth of Confusion Opening Ceremonies with Mark Oshiro, BluRaven C. Houvener, Kurt Erichsen, and Steph Campbell:
[insert discussion here]
They held the opening ceremonies in Ballroom D.
Saturday, January 20th at 10 AM
Panel on How to Write a Good Conspiracy Novel with Kelley Skovron, Marie Vibbert, Catherine Stein, and Ken Schraeder:
[insert discussion here]
They held the panel in the Marquette room with 15 attendees.
Saturday, January 20th at 12 PM
Panel on Wish I Knew When I Started with Catherine Stein, Jim C. Hines, Jean Davis, and Ness Ricci-Thode:
[insert discussion here]
They held the panel in Ballroom B with 20 attendees.
Saturday, January 20th at 1 PM
Reading with Author John Scalzi:
[insert discussion here]
They held the reading in the Keweenow room with 40 attendees.
Saturday, January 20th at 5 PM
Movie: Labyrinth (1986)
[insert discussion here]
They showed the movie in the Boardroom film room with 10 attendees.
Saturday, January 20th at 8 PM
Panel on Has the Hype Over Artificial Intelligence (AI) Art and Writing Programs Peaked? With John Scalzi, Lynne Sergent, A. L. Deleon, and Jason Sanford:
[insert discussion here]
They held the panel at Ballroom B with 45 attendees.
Recommendation – Conclusion
I felt the con went well and enjoyed my attendance. My star of the con was author John Scalzi. He read three short stories on his author reading and gave insightful comments on the AI panel. I’m looking forward to attending again in 2025.
Links
In January 2023, I attended the SF conference ConFusion in Detroit, Michigan. I still want to write a post about that.
I attended the SF conference ConFusion in Detroit, Michigan from January 21 to 23, 2022. The theme was Rising ConFusion. My stars of the con were Guest of Honor author Jim C. Hines and Science Guest of Honor Dr. Jordan Steckloff.
I attended the SF conference ConFusion in Detroit, Michigan from January 16 to 19, 2020. I attended four panels, two readings, and one interview. The theme of the con was How to Train Your ConFusion, based on the movie, How to Train Your Dragon. My star of the con was John Scalzi. He gave an excellent reading of Chapter Two of his upcoming book named The Last Emperox. My other highlights were Kameron Hurley’s interview and the lecture on Edible Insects and Human Evolution. I’ll be back next year.
I attended the SF conference ConFusion in Detroit, Michigan from January 18 to 20, 2019. The theme of the con was Storming the ConFusion, so they designated the areas with names related to the movie The Princess Bride. I had a great drive to Detroit just before the snowstorm came. 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’ll be back next year.
Zoes Tale by John Scalzi, Book #4 of The Old Man’s War series.
Introduction
Zoes Tale by John Scalzi is the fourth book in the Old Man’s War series. This novel tells the events from the previous novel, The Last Colony, from the point of view of Zoe Boutin Perry. She was adopted by John Perry and Jane Sagan and is now seventeen years old. They leave their home, the only home that Zoe knew, to settle in a new colony on the planet named Roanoke. What they find at Roanoke is not what they expected. Will they protect the colony, or will the colony perish leading to the extermination of humanity?
Summary
[Insert Summary Here]
Recommendation
[Insert Recommendation Here]
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page of Zoes Tale by John Scalzi.
Last Colony by John Scalzi is the third book in the Old Man’s War series. John Perry and his family colonized a new planet. Can he protect the colony, or will the colony perish leading to the extermination of humanity?
Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi is the second book in the Old Man’s War series. Jared Dirac is a clone with another man’s memories. He must save humanity from three allied alien races determined to destroy humanity.
In Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi, Jaime Gray lost his job and is delivering food now. It’s early in the pandemic and COVID-19 makes Jaime’s job difficult. Jamie’s old friend Tom offers Jamie a job to help the KPS as a grunt. Jaime takes the job and goes through a portal and makes friends with others working for the KPS. Huge creatures called Kaiju live on the land near the portal. Bad people want to use Kaiju for their short-sighted purposes. Will Jaime and their friends save the Kaiju and prevent a catastrophic event from occurring back on Earth?
Summary
In Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi, Jaime Gray goes into a performance review by the boss, Rob Sanders, expecting a great review. Jamie works at a food delivery service in New York City. Jamie is demoted to a delivery person by Sanders, who he calls a deliverator. It’s the middle of COVID-19 so there are limited job opportunities in New York City. With the lockdown food service delivery is Jamie’s only viable job opportunity so Jaime starts delivering food for the boss.
Six months later Sanders sells the business and Jamie is out of a job and prospects. On the last delivery ever, Jamie meets an old friend named Tom Stevens. They talk about Jamie’s situation and Tom offers Jamie a contract job as a grunt. Tom says the job is with an animal rights organization protecting large animals. Tom sends Jamie to an intake interview. But those animals he mentioned are not what Jamie expects and the location isn’t either. It’s the beginning of a wild adventure.
Recommendation
I thought Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi was a great and fun novel. The novel was short and featured Scalzi’s dry brand of humor. I liked how the author featured the pandemic in the novel, but the irreverent humor balanced the seriousness of the subject. I wonder if in the future the pandemic will be less than a footnote in future works. In this novel, it is important to the plot. I thought it was interesting that the author didn’t reveal Jamie’s gender. It is like the Locked-In series, where the author doesn’t reveal Chris’s gender. Scalzi doesn’t make a big deal about this, but it makes the reader think about the reader’s preconceptions coming into the novel. I had a good time reading this novel and look forward to reading more like it.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page for Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi.
Redshirts by John Scalzi is a stand-alone novel like KPS, and it features the same type of humor done so well in this novel. I recommend this novel if you liked Redshirts.
Review of Redshirts by John Scalzi, Ensign Andrew Dahl is assigned to the starship Intrepid. Crewmembers on away missions die at an alarming rate, but not the officers. Dahl must discover the unbelievable truth, or he will die like the other Redshirts.
Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi, Book #2 of the Dispatcher series.
Introduction
Murder by Other Means 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. 99.99% of all Murder victims return to life naked but alive. So, murderers can keep people from dying an eternal death. Times are tough for dispatchers because legitimate jobs are scarce. Tony needs money, and he takes a shady deal that goes wrong. They implicate Tony in a robbery scheme and people are dying without being murdered. Will Tony discover the criminal’s plans before they kill him by other means?
Summary
Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi is the second book of the Dispatcher series. In the first book, The Dispatcher, someone has kidnapped one of Tony’s colleagues, another dispatcher. Tony must rescue him, or his colleague may be killed and stay dead. Tony searches for him even though Tony faces his eternal death.
They set this novella in Chicago like the previous novella. Tony lost his role with the Chicago PD and needs money, so he takes a risky job. Mr. Peng is from China and wants a quick way home. Tony can provide that for him. He got the job from Lloyd Barnes, a Chicago lawyer. The translator is Mister Chen. Tony performs the dispatch.
Tony is at the bank and becomes involved in a robbery scheme in which he becomes implicated. People die in unusual ways. Tony has to unravel the mystery or he will be the next person to die and not come back.
Recommendation
Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi was originally only released as an Audible audiobook in 2020. I read the hardback novella published by Subterranean Press in 2021. The book is 191 pages long. This, the second story of the Dispatcher series, explores another ramification of the murder mechanism that rules this world. How would you murder someone without murdering them? The solution made sense. It was an enjoyable thriller.
Links
Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi is Book #2 of the Dispatcher Series
This is the link to The Dispatcher’s Goodreads page.
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.
The Dispatcher by John Scalzi is a police procedural set in the future where murder victims return to life. Dispatchers commit legalized murder. Will Dispatcher Tony Valdez look for his kidnapped friend even though Tony may face his eternal death?
Last Colony by John Scalzi, Book #3 of The Old Man’s War series.
Introduction
Last Colony by John Scalzi is the third book in the Old Man’s War series. John Perry, the protagonist from Old Man’s War, has retired from the Colonial Defense Forces to the colony planet of Huckleberry. Jane Sagan joins him. She is another former member of the CDF and the clone of his deceased wife. They have taken in the orphan Zoe Boutin Perry as their daughter. It’s a good life. John is a farmer and an ombudsman, while Jane is a constable. Their former commander, General Rybibki, asks them to help settle a new colony on the planet named Roanoke. What they find at Roanoke is not what they expected. Can John protect the colony, or will the colony perish leading to the extermination of humanity?
Summary
Last Colony by John Scalzi starts with John Perry and his family fitting in on their adapted colony of Huckleberry. Huckleberry was first colonized by people from India. John is the ombudsman of his town and his assistant is Savitri Guntupalli. She helps him and keeps him in line. John must settle disputes between people of his town like the Chengelpet brothers about a troublesome goat. John’s family is his wife, Constable Jane Sagan, and his adopted daughter Zoe Boutin Perry. Zoe is the biological daughter of Charles Boutin from the previous novel, The Ghost Brigades.
General Rybicki, John and Jane’s former commander, asks them to lead a first colonization team to the planet named Roanoke. When they get to Roanoke, nothing is like it seems. John must lead the colony against an alliance of alien lifeforms named the Conclave. The Conclave wants to contain humanity or destroy it. John wants neither to happen. He must go down a dangerous path if he is to succeed.
Recommendation
Last Colony by John Scalzi is a great sequel to Old Man’s War. It was fun to see John Perry and his family again. John faces an impossible position and escapes a dire fate again. Scalzi is the master of idea and dialogue. A quick read, I wanted more. He sets up the next novel in the series at the end of this novel. I am looking forward to reading book four of the series, Zoe’s Tale.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page of The Last Colony by John Scalzi.
Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi is the second book in the Old Man’s War series. Jared Dirac is a clone with another man’s memories. He must save humanity from three allied alien races determined to destroy humanity.
They held Dragon Con Atlanta 2020 from September 3 to 7, 2020. This year with Covid-19, it was a virtual conference. I viewed 5 panels, 1 interview, and 2 Dragon Con updates. Three tracks could be viewed at the same time for 24 hours a day from 6:30 PM Thursday to 3:30 PM Monday. The tracks were the main track, a fan track, and a classic track (replays of taped panels from 2008 to 2019). It was a great opportunity for me because Atlanta is far away from me, and I am not likely to attend this con in person.
Games of Thrones panel from 2015 on the Classic Track:
The panel’s moderator was Marc Lee. The panelists were actors from the Game of Thrones show Kristian Nairn (Hodor), Finn Jones (Loras Tyrell), and Julian Glover (Grand Maester Pycelle).
Kristian talked about filming in Iceland, Finn talked about performing a gay scene on his first day of shooting, and Julian talked about always playing the villain in movies, so he was never in the sequels.
I thought it was a fun panel and the panelists were engaging.
Saturday, September 5th, at 1 PM
John Scalzi: Tour of an Author’s Life (and Kitchen), an interview with John Scalzi on the Main Track:
This was a taped interview by Brian Robertson of author John Scalzi. He interviewed Scalzi by remote from each of their homes. The interview was done in three parts.
First, John Scalzi talked about his career in his office. He started as a journalist and posted his work in progress on his blog. That novel was Old Man’s War and the success of that book launched his career as a novelist. He considers it an accidental career.
The second part of the interview was from John Scalzi’s basement. He keeps his musical instruments down there. Playing music is a release for him between writing.
The last part of the interview was from John Scalzi’s kitchen. He enjoys making burritos with anything goes. The burrito he made here featured two-day-old lasagna and parmesan dip. He finished the interview mentioning that his latest novel was nominated for the Dragon Award for Science Fiction Novel.
John Scalzi’s latest novel is The Last Emperox. It is the third and final book of the Interdependency Trilogy and was released on April 14, 2020. This is the link to the Goodreads page.
The panel started with 298 attendees, increased to 335 attendees at 1:10 PM, and ended with 361 attendees at the end of the interview.
I thought it was a great interview. I’ve seen John Scalzi many times and he is always interesting and engaging.
Saturday, September 5th, at 5 PM
Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey panel from 2008 on the Classic Track:
The beginning of the panel was Todd interviewing his mother Anne and the rest of the panel was questions from the audience. She said she got inspired to write because she needed money for her three small kids at home. Anne wrote the Dragonriders of Pern series which became more popular with the success of Harry Potter.
She said that sometimes it is the names that inspire the story other times it is the characters. Geology fascinated her and cartography was important to her novels. She moved to Ireland and horses were important to her. At one point he owned 23 horses.
It was interesting to see this panel from 2008. Anne McCaffrey is one of my favorite authors.
The panel started with 208 attendees.
Sunday, September 6th, at 3 PM
Perseverance – Mars 2020 panel with Dr. Sarah Milkovich and Kim Steadman on the Fan Track:
This was a slideshow presentation with two engineers of the surface operation for the Perseverance rover that launched to Mars on July 30, 2020. The presentation was filmed on July 31, 2020. They plan to land the probe at Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021. It was built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. The mission is to seek signs of ancient life at an ancient river delta.
The engineers discussed the instruments on the rover. The rover will take readings and collect 30 samples at various locations. A second mission will collect the samples and launch them to orbit. A third mission will collect the samples and return them to earth.
These are links to the mission briefing on the JPL website and the NASA website.
I thought it was a great presentation. I hope the rover has a safe landing next year.
Sunday, September 6th, at 6 PM
The 2020 Dragon Awards announced by Cooper Andrews on the Main Track:
The 2020 Dragon Awards were announced. There are 15 categories including gaming, literature, and visual medium. There were nominees in each category and the winners were announced in this half-hour presentation. The last award was for the Science Fiction novel. John Scalzi, the writing Guest of Honor, won for his novel The Last Emperox.
Sunday, September 6th, at 6:30 PM
The Dragon Con Update with Will and Bee:
Will and Bee interviewed Leigh and Jon. Leigh and Jon conduct interviews of the leaders of different tracks at the conference. They want to bring attention to the behind the scenes people at the con. They post the interviews at the unique geek.
The Dragon Con update finished with a heck with Beth about the Fan Interactions Report. She showed pictures from four hashtags that they used.
Monday, September 6th, at 9 AM
Award-Winning and Best-selling Authors panel on the Fan Track:
Bill Fawcett was the Moderator of the panel. The panel was Tasmin Silver (writes urban fantasy and historical fantasy), Robert Sawyer (his most recent novel is the alternate history, The Oppenheimer Alternative), Jody Lynn Nye (wrote in the Myth Adventures series and co-wrote with Anne McCaffery), and John Scalzi (Dragon Con Writing Guest of Honor and winner of the Dragon Award for Science Fiction Novel, for the Last Emperox).
Bill asked the panel a series of questions. The main point was what makes a novel an award winner versus a best-seller. Robert’s answer was a best seller needs a likable protagonist while an award winner might have an unlikeable protagonist. John answered that best-sellers are marketable books with the goal to entertain, while award winners have a bold view and are written for writers.
Other questions included are best sellers a product of the time they are read, social media advice, and advice for new writers.
I thought that all four writers gave insightful answers to the moderator’s questions. I wish the had more time to talk.
Monday, September 6th, at 1 PM
Let’s Build a World panel on the Fan Track:
Michael G. Williams was the Moderator of the panel. The panel was Cecilia Dominic (writes urban fantasy and steampunk), Charles E. Gannon (writes hard SF and Alternate history), and Chris Kennedy (SF author, publisher, and editor).
The panel was about how writers build their worlds. The first question was about how the authors created their setting. The second question was about the most important decision to make in world-building. What do you most hate about world-building? Is it characters first or later when you are designing a setting? Is believability important to you?
They played an exercise on world-building picking four answers to important questions. They picked religion (ancestor worship that is not based on reality), family (with gender fluidity), social conformity (the worst thing to them is to be shunned), and tech (low tech).
I thought the plan was interesting especially how the writers completed the world-building exercise.
Recommendation – Conclusion
Virtual Dragon Con Atlanta 2020 was a great experience. Viewing the virtual con was nice since I would not have made it to Atlanta this year. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I checked out a few presentations Friday evening to see how it was. Before the Game of Thrones panel, I looked at the end of Improvised Dungeons and Dragons. The panelists took a humorous take on a random D & D game. What I saw was funny. I wish I had seen the whole panel. My star of the con was John Scalzi. Other highlights were the Let’s Build a World panel and the Mars 2020 presentation. I hope to attend Dragon Con sometime in the future.
Links
This is my post for a similar conference that I attended in person in January 2020.
I attended the SF conference ConFusion in Detroit, Michigan from January 16 to 19, 2020. I attended four panels, two readings, and one interview. The theme of the con was How to Train Your ConFusion, based on the movie, How to Train Your Dragon. My star of the con was John Scalzi. He gave an excellent reading of Chapter Two of his upcoming book named The Last Emperox. My other highlights were Kameron Hurley’s interview and the lecture on Edible Insects and Human Evolution. I’ll be back next year.
Last Emperox by John Scalzi, The Interdependency Sequence Book #3
Introduction
In Last Emperox by John Scalzi. Cardenia Wu-Patrick is the current Emperox of the Interdependency. She is coronated as Grayland II and her reign starts with a crisis. The Flow connects the star systems of the Interdependency, and the Flow is collapsing. 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 Part One
Last Emperox by John Scalzi has four main characters.
Cardenia wants a solution to the collapse of the Flow connections between the stars of 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 trading clans head the Interdependency. Each clan owns a star system and has a monopoly on one product. They trade the products between the clans, and no colonies are independent. Cardenia’s clan is the Wu clan holding the system of Hub. The Wu clan created the Interdependency and every Emperox for the last thousand years has been a member of the Wu clan.
The Nohamapetan clan opposes Cardenia’s rule. Nadashe Nohamapetan had been accused of the attempted assassination of Cardenia and was imprisoned for the crime. She escaped and is on the run. Nadashe wants to keep the status quo of the clan system. What that means is that the leaders of the clans will get transferred to the End system and the rest of the people will be left isolated in their home systems to perish.
Summary Part Two
Kiva Lagos oversees the Nohamapetan clan’s finances by Cardenia’s rluing, which causes conflict with the Nohamapetan clan. All Kiva wants is to lead the Lagos clan and to retire with her girlfriend, Senia Fundapellonan. But Cardenia wants Kiva to help her capture Nadashe while Nadasche wants Kiva to release the Nohamapetan fortune to her. They both thwart Kiva’s plans.
Flow physicist Count Claremont of the End system 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 and becomes her paramour. Marce wants to transfer all of humanity to the End system. He believes that the solution is somewhere in the data and he continues his search for the solution.
The fate of the people of the Interdependency rests on the actions of these four characters.
Recommendation
Last Emperox by John Scalzi is a great ending to the Interdependency trilogy. I did not want the ending to go the way it did, but it was the correct ending for the series. All the ideas begun in the first book led inevitably to the resolution in the third book. That makes the trilogy a successful series to me. On reflection, I like a story best that is true to its nature, and this story is true to its nature. The three books were consistent, funny, and interesting.
All together the three books total 948 pages. They could have published the trilogy as one long book but this isn’t epic fantasy so I appreciate getting a book every year. The characters come to a satisfying concluding arc. There could be other stories in this series, but probably not with these characters and their conflicts. I am looking forward to the author’s next series.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page for Last Emperox by John Scalzi.
Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi is the second book in the Old Man’s War series. The Colonial Defense Forces created Jared Dirac for a specific purpose. He is a member of the Ghost Brigades who are the elite troops of the CDF. Jared is a clone of the mad evil scientist Charles Boutin and was made because Boutin has betrayed humanity enabling three alien civilizations to ally against humanity. The CDF wants to understand Boutin’s motivations by studying Jared and defeating Boutin and the aliens. Will Jared help the CDF when Boutin’s memories become his own memories?
Summary
Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi starts with Lieutenant Sagan interviewing a captive alien. The alien gives its view on humanity. He sees three kinds of humans. There are the unmodified humans that colonize unclaimed planets. The main members of the Colonial Defense Forces are older unmodified humans who have their minds transferred to young clone bodies. The CDF creates the third human from human DNA. They are the Ghost Brigades of the CDF. They make Jared Dirac from Boutin’s DNA. When he gains consciousness he doesn’t have any of Boutin’s memories. The CDF trains him in the Ghost Brigades and sends him out on missions. On his missions, his memories are triggered, and he has memories of being Boutin. He must understand why Boutin did what he did and Jared must forge his own path to save humanity.
Recommendation
This novel is a great sequel to Old Man’s War. Old
Man’s War was about the second humans, the members of the CDF. Adding the Ghost
Brigades ratcheted up the tension in the sequel. Jared Dirac was a great character
to show the reader the methods of the Ghost Brigades. Charles Boutin seems like
a mad scientist from an old school space opera but he is more than that. I
appreciate that the author took an old trope and made it new. The author sets
up the next novel in the series at the end of this novel. I am looking forward
to reading book three of the series, The Last Colony.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads
page of Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi.
In Redshirts by John Scalzi, they assign Ensign Andrew Dahl to the starship Intrepid. Crew members on away missions die at an alarming rate, but not the officers. Dahl must discover the unbelievable truth, or he will die like the other Redshirts. This is the link to my review.
Redshirts
by John Scalzi starts with Ensign Andrew Dahl assigned to the Universal Union’s
flagship, the starship Intrepid. He works in the Xenobiology department and his
coworkers advise him not to go on away missions with the officers of the
starship. Crewmembers on away missions who are not officers are dying at an
alarming rate. Dahl must discover the unbelievable truth, or he will die like
the other Redshirts.
Summary
Andrew Dahl connects with a group of new crewmen on the
Intrepid. His group includes Maia Duvall who transferred from her last post,
his rich friend Jimmy Hanson, a suspected ‘fungus’ dealer Finn, and the mysterious
Hester. They learn not to go on away missions with the ship’s officers or risk
death. The officers to watch are the Intrepid’s Captain Abernathy, chief
science officer Q’eeng, astrogator Kerensky, medical chief Hartnell, and chief
engineer West. The key to the mystery is finding the missing crewman Jenkins. The
story is connected to the original Star Trek TV show. They must discover the
nature of what Dahl’s coworkers call the sacrificial effect and another effect
called the Narrative. Shenanigans ensue and the conclusion arrives to complete
Dahl’s story. There are three codas that are from different viewpoint
characters that finish the theme of the story.
Recommendation
Redshirts by John Scalzi is a great novel. It’s funny, has an unusual premise, and moves quickly to the conclusion. The novel is sneaky because the humor overshadows a great theme. The three codas bring home the theme of making your own reality. There is a first-person coda and a second person coda. The third person coda ties up the themes explored in the novel and the final image ends the novel perfectly. I like that there is no sequel because the end says it all.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page for Redshirts by
John Scalzi
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.
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.
