March to Other Worlds Day 17: The Dispatcher by John Scalzi

Day 17 The Dispatcher by John Scalzi

Science fiction is at its best when it makes you think and John Scalzi’s, The Dispatcher, will make your brain work overtime. In the future, the bodies of people who are murdered disappear from the crime scene and reappear—fully alive—in their homes. This outstanding novella explores the implications of this bizarre new fact of life.

 

One of those implications is the development of a new profession. Dispatchers are government licensed persons whose job it is to kill individuals just before they would die a “natural” death so that they have a second shot at living. So dispatchers are now required by insurance companies to be present in many surgeries in case things go wrong. If the patient dies on the operating table they are dead, but if the dispatcher kills them a few moments earlier they disappear and wake up at home with their body in a state before the surgery began. Similarly, in a car accident. If a dispatcher happens to be nearby you can instantly recover without your injuries.

 

These are examples of benign legitimate efforts to take advantage of this new reality, but Scalzi also digs into the dark side—the many ways in which criminals and other people can take advantage of the new situation. Much of this is very troubling, but totally credible given the new rules of reality. It’s a fascinating, thought-provoking, series.