ANDROID’S DREAM by John Scalzi

Narrated by Wil Wheaton

Grab the Insect Repellent

Sci-Fi Fun With Annoying Dialog Scenes

This was my first taste of John Scalzi. I heard that he is one of the most popular Science Fiction writers in the realm of Sci-Fi fandom. A quick search revealed that he is a very popular blogger who made good becoming a successful published writer. Listening to this book it is clear that he understands the SF world inside and out. It is nice to get all the insider jokes and well loved SF tropes. His sense of humor is much appreciated. It is clear that tongue-in-cheek is standard operating procedure for Scalzi. I like that.

That said, there is an element of this book that almost caused me to bail. The numerous reviews mentioning the obnoxious repetition of “he said,” “she said” is truly annoying. The repeated use of these dialog identifiers as first seems to be just a beginner’s mistake. Such markers are easy to ignore visually when reading a book in print, but with a narrator charged with speaking every word on the printed page the listener is forced to endure every “he said” until it becomes a dreaded anticipation, like waiting for that pesky mosquito to lite on your leg again after shooing it away for the umpteenth time.

After listening to this book I decided to try another Scalzi book, AGENT TO THE STARS and am pleased to report that no such overuse of “he said,” “she said” is present in that book. This begs the question: Is Scalzi just playing with his audience? From listening to that second book it is clear that Scalzi knows how to write dialog with a minimum of character identifiers, so why all the “he said,” “she said” repetitions here?

Fortunately the wonderfully sarcastic Wil Wheaton is the narrator. When voicing these “he said,” “she said” sections Wheaton lilts his voice to emphasize each one in just the right way as if to say, “I get it. This is really annoying.” Half way into the book I began to look forward to hearing Wheaton speak my frustration. He makes these awkward dialog scenes into an ongoing joke. If the story had been less interesting I would have abandoned the book long before the end, but I realized that I liked Scalzi’s plot construction, and proliferation of SF ideas. If you are new to Scalzi, I don’t recommend listening to this book first. The dialog will likely put you off, and that would be a shame. Try AGENT TO THE STARS for a better example of what he is capable of. But do return to this one if you can handle brushing away those pesky mosquitoes.