Read Time: 1 Minute
John Scalzi’s “Constituent Service” is a short and humorous take on interspecies politics and the quirks of local bureaucracy. I’ve enjoyed some of Scalzi’s other short stories and this was no exception. Essentially, it’s a few days in the life of a person handling the mundane day-to-day complaints of the constituents of the Third District – a mostly non-human enclave of a city on earth filled with aliens of numerous origins.
The story follows Ashley Perris, a rookie community liaison officer, whose first day on the job has her talking with a variety of aliens and their problems and politely dodging their inappropriate requests to touch her hair.
A number of seemingly random occurrences such as illegal alien spider-dogs being kept as pets, an upcoming parade that’ll set of seismic sensors, and a wayward chicken being lobbed at buses are coalescing into a much larger problem.
While interesting, I could put the larger picture of what was happening from early on. I’d have preferred some of it to be less obvious, as I then spent a lot of time just waiting for the penny to drop for the characters.
Narrated by Amber Benson and produced by Audible studios, the quality was excellent as expected. Benson has an easy to listen to voice and narration style.
So overall, if you’re a fan of sci-fi comedy and short stories, then you’ll likely enjoy this. At the time of writing, it’s available for free as part of the Audible Plus catalogue, so giving it a listen won’t cost you a thing!