"The Dispatcher"

[Aqua Letifer]

@george-k said in "The Dispatcher":

@aqua-letifer said in "The Dispatcher":

he could write about a trip to Wal-Mart and I'd read it.

LOL.

He has a very "conversational" style of writing, making it totally accessible.

Another sci-fi series in the same vein is the "Bobiverse" books.

Amirite @LuFins-Dad ?

[Inside baseball]
When writing character dialogue, you need to throw out everything you ever learned about creative writing. Park your brain at the door and let your ear do the driving.

Any of your kids, nephews, nieces, etc. really good at impressions or mimicry? They'd make very good dialogue writers with some practice.

A lot of writers can't do this, though. They haven't trained their ear. They don't know how to listen in that particular way. A great many writers have beautiful prose but their dialogue sounds like... well, beautiful prose. Not at all like a person. They don't know how to sound like a character instead of themselves.

Scalzi is one of the best.
[/Inside baseball]

[Jolly]

Above all, a good writer is a good storyteller.

Scalzi is a good storyteller.

[George K]

@jolly to this day, I'm grateful to you for turning me on to "Old Man's War." A remarkable, and epic series.

Scalzi's style led me to explore his other works (I think "Fuzzy Nation" is my favorite). He has a sense of humor, irony and he can be really sensitive ("Fuzzy Nation" and "Lock-In").

[George K]

Started "Murder by Other Means" today.

So Scalzi.

Only about ¼ of the way through, and it makes me sad that there's not more.

Looking forward to the Amazon's series.

[Aqua Letifer]

@George-K said in "The Dispatcher":

Started "Murder by Other Means" today.

So Scalzi.

Only about ¼ of the way through, and it makes me sad that there's not more.

Looking forward to the Amazon's series.

Let's be honest, Scalzi's good fun, but he's not who I think about when I think of versatile writers. He's got a handful of tricks in his bag that he always pulls out. Always uses them very well, but it's the same bag of tricks.

The Dispatcher series is a little different, though. It reminds me a lot of Glengarry Glen Ross (the play and to a lesser extent the movie): The plot is revealed through a series of extended dialogues that take place in distinct settings. It's also kind of like radioplays, or lower production theater. I really like that. It's different, he doesn't shove it down your throat and it just works as a way to tell these particular stories.

[George K]

Finished it this morning. It was...okay.

Not Scalzi's best, and certainly without the snark and humor that I've enjoyed in his previous works. It's almost as though he was trying to be the Scalzi I've enjoyed in the past, and failing at it.

Too many twisty-hoops to get the story told. Too many irrelevant characters introduces, just for the sake of making the novella "just long enough."

It was a nice enough story, and would probably be a good fit for a Netflix/Amazon series.

As a sequel to the first novella, it was a "Meh plus a half."

[LuFins Dad]

I liked it well enough… I just started a reread of Old Man’s War. I never read the sequels so I want to refresh my memory then dig into the sequels.

[George K]

@LuFins-Dad I loved "Old Man's War."

The sequels, IMO, are better than the original story. I particularly loved "Zoe's Tale," which tells the same story as another book - I forget which one - but from a different perspective.

[LuFins Dad]

I just re-listened to these on Audible. Fun stories… And Zachary Quinta was on point for the narrator. I don’t think Will Wheaton would have done as well…

Any word on the Amazon series?

[LuFins Dad]

Oh…

Were @George-K and @Aqua-Letifer aware of https://www.audible.com/pd/B0B8387XQX?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=pdp

[Aqua Letifer]

Yup, already listened.

[LuFins Dad]

@Aqua-Letifer Damnit.. I had a murder idea coming out of the 2nd book that I thought would be an interesting idea to explore and was going to post it… I’m midway through the first chapter and it looks like Scalzi beat me to it!