Travel by Bullet - The Library of the Uncommons

Hardcover, 224 pages

Published March 1, 2023 by Subterranean Pr.

ISBN:: 978-1-64524-081-5

(1 review)

The world has changed. Now, when someone is murdered, they almost always come back to life—and there are professionals, called “dispatchers,” who kill in order to save lives, to give those near the end a second chance. Tony Valdez is a dispatcher, and he has never been busier.

But for as much as the world has changed, some things have stayed the same. Greed, corruption and avarice are still in full swing. When Tony is called to a Chicago emergency room by an old friend and fellow dispatcher, he is suddenly and unwillingly thrown into a whirlpool of schemes and plots involving billions of dollars, with vast caches of wealth ranging from real estate to cryptocurrency up for grabs.

All Tony wants to do is keep his friend safe. But it’s hard to do when friends keep secrets, enemies offer seductive deals, and nothing is ever what it seems. The …

The world has changed. Now, when someone is murdered, they almost always come back to life—and there are professionals, called “dispatchers,” who kill in order to save lives, to give those near the end a second chance. Tony Valdez is a dispatcher, and he has never been busier.

But for as much as the world has changed, some things have stayed the same. Greed, corruption and avarice are still in full swing. When Tony is called to a Chicago emergency room by an old friend and fellow dispatcher, he is suddenly and unwillingly thrown into a whirlpool of schemes and plots involving billions of dollars, with vast caches of wealth ranging from real estate to cryptocurrency up for grabs.

All Tony wants to do is keep his friend safe. But it’s hard to do when friends keep secrets, enemies offer seductive deals, and nothing is ever what it seems. The world has changed… but the stakes are still life and death.

1 edition

DigitalRob@ramblingreaders.org reviewed Travel by Bullet by John Scalzi (The Dispatcher #3)

Review of 'Travel by Bullet' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Another great Dispatcher mystery. This series is fantastic, and I hope Scalzi keeps it going. I’d like a full length novel, but I definitely enjoy these short stories.

Would people fly anywhere if there was a 1:1000 chance of crashing? Those are the odds when someone travels by bullet in The Dispatcher universe. This makes me wonder what the chances of getting into a car accident each year for the average American. It can’t be good.

With this story, Scalzi does a nice job of adding to the universe. Billionaires travel by bullet to get out of awkward investigations, they force possible contractors to battle to the “death” for a job, and they manipulate the crypto market to get ahead.

The crypto market aspect of this mystery seems like it was ripped from the Bankman-Fried/FTX headlines. If this story hadn’t been published a couple months before the FTX scandal, it …

Another great Dispatcher mystery. This series is fantastic, and I hope Scalzi keeps it going. I’d like a full length novel, but I definitely enjoy these short stories.

Would people fly anywhere if there was a 1:1000 chance of crashing? Those are the odds when someone travels by bullet in The Dispatcher universe. This makes me wonder what the chances of getting into a car accident each year for the average American. It can’t be good.

With this story, Scalzi does a nice job of adding to the universe. Billionaires travel by bullet to get out of awkward investigations, they force possible contractors to battle to the “death” for a job, and they manipulate the crypto market to get ahead.

The crypto market aspect of this mystery seems like it was ripped from the Bankman-Fried/FTX headlines. If this story hadn’t been published a couple months before the FTX scandal, it would be easy to say Scalzi was inspired by the real life event, and by “inspired,” I mean “copied.” The similarities between this fictional story and the real scandal is remarkable considering the fiction came before the scandal. Scalzi’s muse must see the future.

Tony is a great character with more depth from each story, and Quinto’s voice acting compliments the character. I’d recommend this series to anyone who likes realistic science fiction.