The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi | review by Stephen Theaker

John Scalzi was by 2017 one of science fiction’s most famous living writers, and though some of that was down to his formidable and somewhat reassuring social media presence, the books played a substantial part too. While the 2013 Hugo award for Redshirts rewarded a book that wasn’t universally adored, it was a sign of how popular he had become with readers, and he subsequently signed a colossal thirteen-book publishing deal (as alluded to in this book’s dedication: “To Tom Doherty … here’s to the next decade”) of which The Collapsing Empire forms the opening salvo.

The Dispatcher, by John Scalzi (Audible) | review by Stephen Theaker

This is a two hour twenty minute story, told in the first person and read with gusto by Zachary Quinto (Spock from Star Trek films eleven to thirteen). He plays Tony Valdez, the dispatcher of the title. We first meet him in a hospital, where his presence in the operating theatre is required by the insurers. He’s quite cagey about the precise nature of his job at first, and we know the surgeon isn’t happy about having him in there. Is he there to kill people if the treatment gets too expensive? Is the patient someone of such significance that the staff will be punished if he dies? Or is this like Nick Mamatas’s The Last Weekend, where someone has to drill the deceased before they turn into zombies? We don’t find out until the operation takes a turn for the worse and Tony has to step in to do his thing. His job is interesting, as is the reason it is needed. The story soon segues into a hardboiled search for a missing dispatcher, while exploring throughout the implications of the difference between Tony’s world and ours. The two-hour length reflects how much this resembles the pilot for a television series, with Tony teaming up with a tough female co-star for an adventure that establishes a strong premise, while leaving plenty more to be investigated. It’s good, and very well read. It was free to Audible members at the time of writing, but if it’s not by the time you read this it is well worth one of your Audible tokens. ***

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This review originally appeared in Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #59, which also included stories by Rafe McGregor, Michael Wyndham Thomas, Jessy Randall, Charles Wilkinson, David Penn, Elaine Graham-Leigh and Chris Roper.

The God Engines by John Scalzi – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

The God Engines by John Scalzi (Subterranean Press, ebook, 1223ll, originally published in 2009) opens with a classic first line: “It was time to whip the god.” That job falls to Captain Ean Tephe. The Righteous is powered by an enslaved god who must be punished if recalcitrant, with a whip whose handle is carved from the bone of a god, whose leather is godskin embedded with “first-made” iron, born in the heart of a star and never buried in the ground of a planet. Wounded gods can be healed with blood of the faithful, and thus each ship bears a complement of priests and acolytes; the book has no mention of engineers. The god worshipped by Tephe and his people long since enslaved his rivals, establishing dominion over this part of the galaxy, but the god powering the Righteous is not unique in his rebellion. The Righteous is thus sent on a mission to a world of people who do not yet worship any god (despite my groans when this world was first mentioned, it isn’t Earth!), whose faith will thus be of the most powerful kind: first-born, freely given. Mission success will gain Tephe a promotion but take him away from his sweetheart; a happy outcome for him seems unlikely.