Redshirts

I truly wish I had better things to say about this book. Over the years I've heard and read good reviews, so I expected a lot. Maybe that's part of the problem, but I'm not so sure that it is.

The first half of the book was enjoyable and I had high hopes that this would be a story I would remember fondly through the years. Some of the dialogue was...boring and repetitive in nature, but the twist of a “Narrative” being responsible for events on Intrepid (their version of the Enterprise) was interesting. Their equivalent of the red shirts becoming aware that at least one of their number on an away team will die, and their subsequent efforts to avoid being chosen to go, drive a lot of the humor during the early portions of the story.

But things went downhill in the second half of the story and especially, to me, in the three Codas that followed. I get that Scalzi was trying to inject satire into the use of nonsensical plot points to explain away poorly written screenplays, but it just did not resonate with me. I found it confusing and disappointing.

Your mileage may vary.

This is the only work by Scalzi that I've read, and based on my experience with “Redshirts” it may be the last. I've read posts by others praising some of his following works, but this one just left a bad taste in my mouth and, since I had heard good things about “Redshirts” that did not line up with my reading, I have a real reluctance to take that chance with him again.

This is uneven. The story itself is refreshingly self-conscious and critical. Fun and easy read with a twist. However the epilogue, with some exceptions, was pretty dull and moralising.

Cleaver premise but honestly, I found the execution to be pretty average. Some parts are difficult to read with every tiny piece of dialogue ending with “person said”, “person replied, “person said”. It was very off-putting endlessly seeing this filler, I'd expect it from an amateur but someone who's allegedly an experienced writer with a proper editor? What were they thinking?

I'm also not sure why the last sections (Codas) of the book existed, they really served no value at all and should have been edited out.

There were several sections where I was ready to return the book to the library; thankfully the next sentence pulled me back in. One of those times I was sitting at 32% of the book and when I looked up, was at 75%. And there were sections I just got too lost amongst the science; again thankfully I've learned from watching Gilligan's Island, to just go with it.

Hmmmm, what IF the story line was Gilligan's Island? Alot of not good writing and I seem to remember one of the extras was a surfer that caught a wave back to where ever he surfed into the storyline from, so those writers at least didn't bump off the extras all the time but this does have me wondering what did happen to their extras. I'll never know because the last time I watched it as an adult I was throwing penalty flags right-n-left. Nor do I suspect I'd find it anywhere I have access to, for replaying.

Das Buch ist im Wesentlichen ein Meme in Romanform. In guter Romanform und ich musste öfter beim Lesen laut lachen.

Warum es mit einem etwas trockenen Dialog enden musste, der fast ein Fünftel des Buchs ausmacht, bleibt mir jedoch verborgen.

The premise of this book is what attracted me to this book. To be honest, I didn't come in with high expectations, because, redshirts. The only other thing I've read of Scalzi's is The Dispatcher, which did a good job of making me think. I didn't think of this as a book with a message, but a quick look on Goodreads indicates others see a possible deeper message. That message falls more into the election camp, to use a theological term, to which I personally don't fall into and won't argue that here.

I listened to the audio read by Wil Wheaton from Audible. It took a few times for me to be able to get into the story and follow it. Wheaton does a fine job of reading the story, but I had a bit of a hard time keeping some of the characters straight, especially Dahl and Duvall. Further, every time a character speaks, it is followed by “Character said”. That did help me know who was speaking, but makes me appreciate those who use a variety of ways to help the reader know who was talking, such as adding character behavior in with the dialogue.

I liked the premise of the story and how it unfolds with the characters. There are familiar nods to sci-fi fan favorite shows with what many I know love and hate about them being mixed in. It was a fun story, for sure. The three codas following were interesting, though not as entertaining to me. The third coda seemed to be the most introspective of the lot, but felt weird in a voyeuristic kind of way.

I didn't like the proliferation of swearing in the book. As was pointed out in the TV show Chuck with Captain Awesome, overuse of the word robs it of the meaning and impact. Take out 90% of the f-bombs and then it doesn't feel like it's being used as often as the word “said” in the script. This and the “you owe me a sex act” references take fun out of the story for me.

Would I recommend this book to a friend? I would say it depends on what one wants to read. If one is looking for something irreverent and entertaining, but lacking much substance and enjoys Star Trek or a spoof of it, then sure. If one is looking for a book with some substance, I say move along. Ultimately, I would compare this book to a prize from an arcade game. Fun for awhile, but disposable in the end.

Fantastically funny book. I listened to the audio book read by Will Wheton which added an extra layer of humor and fun to the narrative (see what I did there).

5-stars for originality, creativity, humor, and finding a way to make this story work in any practical technical sense. It couldn't have been easy, though it was entertaining and engaging. Geek nirvana.

Some books are surreal suspensions of disbelief. Some books just make you go “WHAT the FUCK” every couple of chapters when a new twist is revealed, and this is one of the latter. Just - what the FUCK.

Imagine your average sci-fi space opera TV show on cable television with hand-wavey science and half-assed special effects - take those characters and make them realize they're IN A TV SHOW. Let them realize all of their woes are due to shitty writing, and see what they do with that knowledge. THAT is this book, and it is crazy and hilarious and weird and eye-roll-inducing.

Between the time travel, the Box that does magic science behind the scenes so things work out on-screen, the Narrative taking control and making people say and do things they wouldn't otherwise do - this book is wacky and just full of what-the-fuckery. It's fun, though, and if you can keep yourself from groaning out loud every few pages, it's a pretty good read.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

Fast paced read, with a neat hook that goes places I didn't really expect. Some of the characterization is a bit eye-rolley, but the nature of the story kind of makes that necessary I suppose?

I thought the plot was interesting and ambitious, and the dialogue was mostly really sharp, but a lot of the rest of the writing was pretty uninspired. There were pages of conversations where every line would be ‘“blah blah”Dahl said' and then ‘“Yada yada” Duvall said'. I found it very distracting.

Really wonderful and mind-blowing except for the double final and the post scriptum of other people. the former could still be cool even dough I think it would have been greater without the double final. About the post scriptum, I really think they were not necessary and in some way not so coordinated to the rest of the book.
but still... mind-blowing and funny.

Excellent book! The codas at the end are too long though.

I generally liked this book, it was cute and a bit funny. I got confused a bit with the characters, but no big deal they all kind of meld together anyway. It was entertaining, but a bit shallow and one note. I gave it 3 stars because it was entertaining and I do like Star Trek, plus after watching the latest season of Black Mirror it felt like a good follow up.

Didn't do it for me.

“Redshirts” es una parodia de las space opera ganadora de los premios Hugo y Locus.

Saca mucho de Star Trek, los personajes son tripulantes abordo de la Intrepid y viven varias pasadas de vuelta entretenidas y emocionantes en sus misiones de desembarco (los camisas rojas siempre mueren). Tiene matices Dickianos en los que se cuestiona la realidad de los personajes y su entorno. Es divertida, hilarante y hasta emotiva en la parte final. Me gustó más la primera mitad del libro. Eso sí, tengo que decirlo, no es lo mejor que he leído de Scalzi aunque no llega a defraudarme.

Recomendada para pasar un buen rato, es una lectura rápida.

All the “redshirt” characters are interchangeable, which is the point, but it's also frustrating. There's a scene at the very end of the book where the main character and another guy are reflecting on what's happened and I spent half the time trying to remember who the other guy was. Wil Wheaton doesn't even attempt to vary his voice between characters. Still a good concept and story but characterization is null.

The audiobook is eight hours except when the story ends you've still got two hours left on the clock. There are three alternate perspective stories in the remaining time.

A great book, it had me laughing and loving the whole way through. had a really good time with this book

I laughed my arse off in the beginning, I was a little concerned at the turn of events in the middle, but by the end I was satisfied, if not thrilled. A solid ‘it was ok' out of five.

Couldn't make it through the ‘codas', but the main story was decent and made me laugh in some places and the premise was acceptable.

The writing was mediocre (SO many ‘said's AND in the same place of the sentence) and at times the author seemed to say so too, but to me that's a cop-out :/

So three stars for letting me listen to a ‘Star Trek' parody that breaks/pokes at the fourth wall (more or less) - hey it made me laugh.

Listened to this as an audio-book narrated by Wil Wheaton. Thoroughly enjoyable and fast paced science fiction romp until I got to the codas. They were enjoyable themselves but are quite a switch in pace and required me to adjust my thinking/listening of the novel. None the less, I feel they were a good way to wrap the characters and gave a satisfying end.

Seriously funny.

A fun read, even for those of us who have limited knowledge of Star Trek.

The main story is enjoyable but for some reason the characters didn't stick for me. And the last three chapters continue after the conclusion in a way that makes me wish it ended sooner. It was alright. I enjoyed the obvious similes to Star Trek.

Excellent spoof on Star Trek and other science fiction shows.
Lost one star due being too meta.

Genial novela con un calado serio, que se deja ver claramente en los 3 capítulos finales del libro.

Me han gustado las paradojas que plantea.

Tiene las dosis de humor de Scalzi, pero ya os digo, los 3 últimos capítulos me han parecido brillantes.

P.D: Además cualquier libro en el que se cite a Jasper Fforde denota cierto nivel.