Redshirts
Ratings535
Average rating3.8
Probably the best book I've read in a long time. If you're any fan of science fiction this is a must read. Even if you're not a fan but you like to make fun of bad science fiction you'll like this book.
This book was alright. It was very clever and well done, but once I came to realize how it was going to go, it ceased to amaze and delight me, and I just pressed on to make sure I was right about the end (I was). Still enjoyable.
Fans of Star Trek will get a kick out of this. Fans of TV in general will, too. All in all a fun read.
I found it pretty predictable and the parody elements not all that funny. It's like Kaiju Preservation Society, something makes me feel like he's trying too hard. Too hard to have characters perform cute tricks and spout cool quips. Too hard to make sure we know that he knows all the Star Trek things.
Not for me.
The book's concept was fun, and the first 3/4s was actually fun. But it falls apart at the end. If you're a fan of Star Trek I believe it would be worth the read but if you're not pass on this.
It's good and I can see why people loved it. Still has that Scalzi humour. But it's maybe too meta for me? All I know is that for now, it's my least favorite book from him. Although I must say that I've liked the codas, especially the last two. They were quite touching.
4.5 stars.
I had the time of my life reading this one. It was funny, fast paced and gave me so much joy.
I finally had the chance to read what is perhaps Jon Scalzi's best known book. It was good, yet I think I would have enjoyed the audiobook more. From the start I didn't catch the names of the characters and so I didn't get as much from the interactions as I likely would have from the differing voices offered by a reader. I'm also not well informed about Star Trek, so I imagine I missed many inside jokes, Easter eggs and such. The plot moved along, yet it never fully engaged me. I was surprised when the story ended with my Kindle saying it was only 80% complete. While the three short stories to wrap up plot elements had their merit, I'd have preferred less of those and more of the main story itself.
Fairly lighthearted with cleverly written dialogue, Redshirts starts off well. Character interaction throughout is amusing and the strongest part of the book. However, the ending fell flat and didn't quite hit for me. Scalzi is clearly a fantastic author, but I feel this one kind of got away from him. It was a fun read though and fans of Scalzi will want to pick it up. Not his best stuff, but some of his funniest.
I find lately, I've been reading a lot of books that surprise me in that they aren't what I expect them to be. This is no exception. That's not a bad think either. It does a great job of giving you the Star Trek feels, but having its own concept that lets it stand apart from it too. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'm just going to say that it's fun, there's lots of action an wit (which is my jam) and is unique in a refreshing way.
This book wasn't what I expected, and I appreciated where it went. I thought it was going to basically be a Star Trek book written from the POV of the infamous redshirts. The twist and premise was more clever than that, and that is when the book went from being readable to being enjoyable.
I am finding that Scalzi is a readable author, but “it's not Shakespeare” to quote the book itself. I've read Old Man's War, The Collapsing Empire, and now this, and have enjoyed them all.
My biggest drawback was the way he wrote his dialog.
“Now,” she questioned.
“No,” he said.
“Soon,” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said.
“Okay,” she said.
“You'll know,” he said.
I don't know if that was done on purpose to add to the facetious and parodistic nature of the story, but it was painful at times. Once I noticed it I couldn't stop seeing it, and now it makes me want to look at the other books to see if that was done there, too.
I thought the Codas were quite clever, especially as they were titled First Person, Second Person, and Third Person, and written in those POVs. I almost considered not bothering to read them, but I'm glad I did, and they didn't take long to read.
The beginning was fun. Reminded me of A Trekkie's Tale :-D
The visit to “our world” was a bit boring.
The codas... very nice. :-) I love the first, second, and third person :-D (you know, while they are stories of three different persons, they are also written in 1. 2. and 3. person POV :-D Brilliant!)
Totally loved it. I expected humour and I got it, what I didn't expect was an enthralling plot which had me invested to the end and to top it all off a surprising and pleasing twist at the end. Highly recommended. I am definitely going to read more John Scalzi novels.
A mostly fun science fiction novels that is a play on a SF trope from TV. It gets very meta towards the end, when it gets perilously close to being too clever for its own good. But Scalzi keeps it entertaining and I never considered not finishing it. he's written better books, but this is pretty good, especially if you like the breaking of the “wall” in fiction.
Sou aficionado por Star Trek e estava empolgado para ler esse livro. Nos primeiros contos fui fisgado pelas besteiras e pela narrativa, porém na metade do livro comecei achar cansativo.
Os contos individuais são legaizinhos e tem um humor infantil/adolescente que encaixa bem no universo. Porém, como os contos são inspirados numa série de TV (dos anos 60), muitos diálogos não se adequaram bem para linguagem escrita, isso deixou muito exaustiva a leitura.
Fun but characters were shit and really can't recommend this to anyone. I don't regret reading it but it's pretty close.
This was a fun read (I had a library copy to consult but also listened to the audiobook, the narrator of which was great). I don't usually read sci-fi, but this was really its own genre–mindblowing metafictional philosophy. I do feel as though the author didn't know how to end it, so we have the three codas that sort of wrap things up but not really.
One complaint about the writing: Not every piece of dialogue needs a dialogue tag, and this is especially noticeable on the audio version. Way too many “he saids” and “she saids” when the context makes it perfectly clear who is speaking.
This could have been just an ordinary book, a 2 star maybe because it was readable, not awful. But then came the ending. The last ~25% of the book (2 out of 8 hours) was a non story. The author was out of ideas on what to write and wrote exactly that, he sort of broke that fourth wall and said that he was out od ideas, and started to pseudo talk to his readers.
The story is as silly as it sounds, and as deep as you would expect. It is a parody with Star Trek's trope of killing of non essential characters, extra actors, in every episode just for drama effect.
The characters are uninteresting and shallow, and so is the story.
For the people giving this a 5 star, I'm sorry, but FU. The best possible scenario this is a 3 star. I wouldn't recommend this book for no one.
This was 75 percent exactly the book I thought it was going to be and then 25 percent something much more affecting that I was totally unprepared for. So different than the Old Man's War books but in a way that turned out great.
