Redshirts

A fun escapist read, a hilarious commentary on a certain beloved TV show.

This was a huge surprise of a book! John Scalzi is a favorite author of mine, and an inspiration to my own writing. And based on the description of the novel and much of what I'd been hearing about it, I thought this was going to be a purely fun, action-packed, quirky romp. And, indeed, the first two-thirds certainly had a lot of that! But then, starting at the end of the main story and carrying through into the three codas, the book takes a very serious turn that left me both inspired and emotionally wracked. The codas are, from what I've read of his, the most sentimental (in the good way, not the sentimentality-bad way) stuff he's written.

What's funny (not in the ha-ha way), is that I did read some reviews of the novel before hand, to get an idea of the book before I bought it, trying to not spoil myself. And, I read a lot of comments saying that, “This is a great book! Until the stupid codas. They're pointless and totally don't fit.” A lot of those kind of comments. So, I was prepared to enjoy the satirical and fun first two-thirds of the main story, and then just kinda gloss over the rest. Whoa, was I wrong! No... boy are those comments absolutely wrong! See, despite the fact that most of the book is the story of a bunch or “red shirts” on a space shift figuring out newbies on the ship tend to die on away missions and figuring out how to overcome this apparent curse, that's not the real story. In fact, I see that as the preface for the real story, which is the three codas! The sci-fi action story is a necessary setup for the themes and conflict that are dealt with in the codas which investigate the nature of finding yourself. Discovering who you are, what you want to be and do, and how you deal with the life you're “given.”

I really can't say more without spoilering the book. And this is a book that I highly and heavily recommend reading! It's a short book, and very fast – you could probably read it all in a day and evening. I would recommend listening to the audiobook as Wil Wheaton (also no stranger to star ships and red shirts), does a fine job! Although, I don't agree with some of his inflection and tone choices. Until He gets to the codas. Then, I can't imagine anyone else reading it. He's absolutely brilliant, and I'd recommend anyone listening through the first part in order to hear Wil Wheaton read the codas. He's an actor, so very possibly the emotion I hear in his voice toward the end of the last coda is acting... but I don't think so. I think, considering what and how he talks about his own life in his blogs, he's truly feeling the emotion of that last coda, and it's bringing tears to my eyes right now as I remember it.

Read Redshirts. Even if you're not a sci-fi fan, even if you don't think you'll get the satire and the in-jokes. That's okay. Remember, the main action story is just a prelude for some of the best contemporary literary fiction that is the core of the book.

Book Review - Redshirts by John Scalzi - The set up and early chapters of this book were very funny. It is based on the science fiction meme about the Star Trek characters that have the red shirts always dying on away missions. In this book the redshirts realize that they always die and try to keep from going on away missions. Once the book gets going and you are into the actual plot it gets more science fiction focused and less funny. The book as a whole is fine, but it did not really live up to the opening. It finished with three different epilogues. They were also interesting because they concened three characters that were not really a part of the book, but were impacted by the conclusion of the plot. There were wildly different writing styles and while I was interested in the content, and the writing exercise I am not sure about their inclusion. The problem with the book is that it starts as a comedy, becomes serious science fiction, then has three codas that are blog formated comedy, romantic/drama, psychotic/paranoia. Overall still good, just not as good as it could have been.

Click through for the longer review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/redshirts/

Loved it. It had me at ice sharks. I could not put this down and finished it at about two in the morning. Very, very, very clever.

Started off thinking this was a bit weak, but it got a lot better. 4 stars because he took the metafiction further than I thought he could without everything collapsing.

It may have been on purpose to demonstrate how meta John Scalzi can be, but personally, I don't see the point in reading (or writing!) a bad book with the most cardboardy characters imaginable. The codas were okay but the main story was just rubbish. And rubbish on purpose is still rubbish.
Read my full review over at SFF Book Review

Lots of geek love. I feel an inevitable screenplay in this book's future.
Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Intrepid, the flagship of the Universal Union. It soon becomes evident that Andrew and his newly posted friends are replacing crew members that have met with untimely, and inevitably gruesome deaths. Death by falling rock, toxic atmosphere, pulse gun vaporization, shuttle door malfunction and those damn ice sharks. It doesn't take long to determine there is a bizarre set of rules that seem to govern this ship - most importantly involving away missions and any member of the bridge. There's the pitch - for the sake of keeping the review spoiler free, I'll leave it at that. But you've probably pieced together several plausible resolutions. It's a super fast read so you can forgive it spiraling out with a sputter with the three codas at the end. But it's still hella fun.

I love this Trekkian reality and can only imagine the immense nerd glee I'd feel hearing the Audible version narrated by Wil Wheaton.

This is a review of the audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

I loved this story. This approach to metafiction has been done before, but Scalzi brings so much wit and heart to it, this story stands above the rest. Of course it helps if you are a fan of Star Trek - any series in the franchise will do.

I found the first coda to be tiresome, but even that sour note is not enough for me to deduct a star. This is fresh and fun, and has the best quality of a parody - an obviously affectionate and thorough knowledge of the source material. It's also surprisingly emotionally engaging. I knew I'd laugh when I bought the book, but little did I suspect it would also cause some sobbing along the way.

Wil Wheaton isn't as dynamic as some audiobook readers (he doesn't create distinctive voices for the characters, and his reading does highlight how clunky and repetitive “he said” can become as a frame for dialog), but he clearly had a lot of fun with this, and I found his enjoyment infectious. Also, it's hard not to love him when his voice breaks a bit at a particularly emotional moment.

I have an inherent fondness for Scalzi books. He and I share a similar sense of humor and of drama. Redshirts is a great example of what I'm talking about here. This is a darkly humorous book, somewhat of a send-up of Star Trek, but told from the point of view of the “redshirts” of the crew, those extras whose sole job it is to die horrible deaths so that we know our heroes are in danger. In this case, the protagonists of the book are newly graduated cadets of a Universal Union who all score the most prestigious posting in the Fleet, the Intrepid. As far as they know, they live in a normal universe, leading relatively normal lives. They bond over drinks in the space station bar before the shuttle takes them to their new home. Once aboard the Intrepid, they start to notice that things are very odd there. Whenever the Captain, the Science Officer, the Engineer, or any of the other “main cast” crew members are walking down the corridor, all of the other crew members suddenly find reasons not to be found. Our protagonists discover why, as they go on “away missions” and barely survive. As they talk with other crew members (once they survive their “initiation”), they discover that for some reason, the rules of physics and statistics are severely bent out of shape in the presence of the “main cast” officers.

The book is full of very dry and dark humor. This is especially true as the characters come to terms with the fact that they are each likely to be killed off soon in some pointless and meaningless way. Cliches abound, but they work for this kind of a story, as they become the recognizable tropes that signal imminent danger for the characters that they are completely oblivious to, but which are obvious to readers. Even the ultimate solution to the problem is a huge cliche, but I found I didn't mind in the least because it was so appropriate to the setting. It was almost inevitable, and it was done well.

I do have some complaints with the novel. There were a few editorial oversights with mixed up names and such. I can generally overlook that, but it was jarring this time. Also, some of the names of the protagonists are visually similar and it took me a while to sort out which backstory belonged to which character. But the biggest complaint I had with the novel was that it seemed to end too soon. I don't mean the book was short; I mean that it felt like one of those TV shows where everything looks like it's wrapped up neatly but you still have fifteen minutes to go, so you expect that there's some big twist that's just about to happen to make the story that much more interesting. This novel seems to set up such a big twist, but then suddenly ends. It was disappointing because that apparent big twist had such potential.

After the main story ends, the book has three “codas”, extensions of the main story with characters that were featured in the main story but were not the main characters. Each of these codas were interesting additions to the story in very unique ways. The first coda is a first-person narrative told in blog/epistolary form. The second coda is written in second-person, a very unusual and difficult style that rarely works. This time I thought it did, exploring the thoughts and feelings of someone who has been told he was in a terrible accident with severe brain damage, and is trying to account for a couple of weeks missing from his memory. Finally, the third coda is in... you guessed it, third person, which tells the story of an actor who learns how profoundly and positively affected someone was by her portrayal of a bit part character, someone who had all of a couple of minutes of screen time. It's sweet and perfectly caps a story line from the main story.

I'd say, if you like Scalzi's stuff, this is a no brainer. Pick it up and enjoy it. It's not his best work, but it's a fun read. If you're in to Star Trek, or other weekly SF TV shows that sometimes just don't make a whole lot of sense, you might find this darkly humorous take on the entire genre to be entertaining. If neither of those are the case, you might still like it for the humor and the character interactions, which Scalzi always handles well. This is not a deep book, there are no life-altering revelations for the reader, but it is a fun read and a quick read.

An amusing tale with a touching conclusion. Nice work.

This warmed the cockles of my Geek Heart like no book since [b:Ready Player One 9969571 Ready Player One Ernest Cline http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1333576871s/9969571.jpg 14863741]. I'm not sure how much I can say without getting into spoiler territory, but I'll try.It starts off as a funny–but obvious–Star Trek parody, where all the lower ranking crewmen are terrified to go on away missions, for fear of getting killed in stupid and/or horrible ways. Entertaining enough, but...after a couple of chapters, I started to worry this gag was going to get really old over 300 pages. Which is when Scalzi shook things up by a clever spoilery twist, which he followed quickly by another spoilery twist. And before I knew it, this had become a serious SF book with a comic flair. The codas at the end turn this from a fun adventure into something with a lot of heart and soul–and even more cleverness than the large amount displayed in the main body of the novel. I so less-than-three this book. Go and read.

Fantastic premise and I quickly got wrapped up in the story wondering what was actually going on here. Unfortunately it slowly devolved into a masturbatory writing exercise. Perfect for that kid in the back of your freshman english class with the “I break for tribbles” patch on his backpack.