Redshirts (original 2012; edition 2012)

Alright, if you can't take a little good-natured fun being poked at one of your fandoms, you're a sad human being. Largely because you might miss out on this book.
With the current Star Trek craze, there's no better time read a book like Redshirts, which reminds us of the silliest aspects of the original Star Trek TV series and does just that good-natured sort of fun-poking. Rare is the novel that can make you simultaneously cringe and giggle, but that's just the sort of book that Redshirts is.
The ensign cast we follow is laugh out-loud funny and while the plot seems fairly predictable (after a certain point) there are still enough twists to keep even the pickiest reader interested.
My main complaint with the novel is the codas, which I found by contrast very dull and unnecessary to the story. If you want my opinion, I'd just read the actual story as is and let it end on a high note.
I also (spoiler alert) wished that the Hanson situation had been better explained. I would have liked to know more about who Hanson was. That aspect did not feel as well explained as it ought to have been. ( )

Not a huge fan of scalzi, but being a huge fan of star Trek I read this anyway and enjoyed it a lot. ( )

This is a fun and light listen for the geek in your life. If you are a fan of Star Trek, you know that any extra wearing a red shirt on an away team mission is going to be eaten by some monster or wiped out by the space time continuum. This book was laugh out loud funny and the best part is that it is narrated by Wil Wheaton who played Ensign Wesley Crusher in the Star Trek TV series. Very fun. ( )

I'd much rather roll my eyes at Scalzi than Murakami. GodDAMN I hated 1Q84.

The book starts light, and I suppose stays light, but also plays with some much more complicated and unexpected questions - perhaps most significantly, what responsibility does an author bear to his or her work, as distinct from the obligation to the audience. In that sense, the book turned out to be a lot more interesting than it initially appeared. The particular driver of the plot I found creepy and horrifying - I don't think it was meant to be, just dramatic, but I found it unsettling in the manner of Poe or Kafka. The book's three codas (alternate endings?) are clever; they also provide a parallax on the book's deeper themes. While the book as a whole is a romp, the final coda, placed within the logic of the story, is sweet and moving. ( )

I saw Redshirts at the library and picked it up - unintentionally interrupting my current book. I sat down at Starbucks with a cup of coffee and the book and almost immediately wondered what I had stepped in. I quickly decided I was going to either love it or hate it. Surprisingly to me I ended up with a mild like and under-impressed. The book is funny, but tries a little too hard to be - and I thought I had it figured out after a few pages of reading. I hadn't but I wasn't terribly far off. The book isn't subtle which I think is why I don't love it - it is a very in your face sort of spoof of Star Trek. The characters at first seemed quite distinctive but quickly just became a mass of names without color or personalities. I could have loved this book, but, well ... nope. This reads a lot like weak fanfic. Can't really recommend it.

ETA: After reading a number of reviews on LibraryThing I felt a little differently about the story. My overall impression and rating didn't change however. I thought I would note here that about 3/4 of the novel is the Redshirts story proper. My criticisms of it stand. Following the primary story are three related short stories that Scalzi refers to as Codas. I really disliked the first one, the second one was better, and the third one, as others have noted, was really special. It frankly saved the book for me. I just can't help but feel that if the novel proper had been written better and the final coda expanded a little more we could have had a much better story here. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2103897.html

This is basically a two-joke book, and the punch line to the second joke is delivered less than a third of the way through; all the characters sound the same; and we don't ever get an Explanation for what is going on. Having said that, the third of the three codas, a time-travel parallel worlds love story, is far superior to the rest and I would have given it a much higher ranking on its own. ( )

John Scalzi has written a paean to the original Star Trek series in Redshirts. It’s going to be far more meaningful to geeks and nerds who remember the surprise and fun on Star Trek when it delighted us as youngsters.

Away teams were almost always deadly for some anonymous extra wearing a red shirt. This story is about what happens when the guys and gals wearing those red shirts begin to realize that they are nearly always destined to die, or at least be horribly hurt during those away missions. And it’s about what they decide to do to stop the madness.

Great fun, but not so much laugh out loud funny, as smiling and remembering and cheering for the expendable ones who decide to take their fate in their own hands.

P.S. I listened to the audio version narrated by Wil Wheaton which just adds to the nerdly value of the book! ( )

'You know, in the original Star Trek, they always had Kirk and Bones and Spock and then some poor dude in a red shirt who got vaporised before the first commercial. The moral if the story was not to wear a red shirt. Or go on away missions when you're the only one whose name isn't on the opening credits.'

Of course in the original Star Trek the redshirts never seemed to notice that their chances of surviving a visit to even the most innocuous and harmless looking planet were probably less than 50%, but start to think about what would happen if they did, and you pretty much have the plot of Redshirts by John Scalzi. On the Universal Union flagship Intrepid any away mission containing Captain Abernathy, Science Officer Q'eeng, Chief Engineer West, Medical Chief Hartnell or Lieutenant Kerensky is virtually guaranteed to have fatalities among the less important crew members, but beyond a few bruises the senior officers are never hurt. Apart from Kerensky that is, who in the past three years has survived three shootings, four deadly diseases, being crushed by a rock pile, a shuttle crash, an explosion, atmospheric decompression, induced mental instability, bites from two venomous animals, and the take over of his body by an alien parasite. But is that normal? Shouldn't he at least have post-traumatic stress disorder?

Such is the (justified) paranoia of the established crew about being sent on away missions they have devised numerous strategies to make sure they stay on the ship. But when Ensign Dahl, and four other new recruits are posted to the Intrepid, and discover how low their chances of survival really are, they decide to try to do something about the situation. Even if that means believing Jenkins, who has secreted himself in the cargo tunnels of the ship after his wife died on an away mission, and has come up with the most unbelievable theory of all...

I have to say that I'm probably quite susceptible to this book. The original Star Trek was about my favourite programme as a kid, and I love Galaxy Quest. So I thought it was great fun, and will be looking out for some more by this author. But if Star Trek was never your thing, then probably this isn't for you ( )

I really loved this. I know some have complained that the characters aren't super fleshed out, but I honestly don't feel that they needed to be when you consider the plot of the book. It was a fun & fast read that I found entertaining. I also couldn't help but picture a movie featuring Simon Pegg since the style of humor made me think a bit of Sean of the Dead - would love to see this! ( )

Redshirts is my first John Scalzi novel and I absolutely loved it! While I expected it to be a bit of a satire on science fiction as the general population knows it, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there's a lot more to the story. It's hilarious but also introspective and I warmed up to Andy Dahl and his colleagues pretty quickly. I cannot recommend it enough, definitely worth checking out if you’re a science fiction fan, someone who grew up watching sci-fi shows on television or something looking for a fun but also engaging read.

You could read my full review of this novel over at my blog: http://www.caffeinatedlife.net/blog/2013/01/28/review-redshirts/ ( )

Sci-fi fans will love this book. Based on the Star Trek phenomenon of the guy in the red shirt is the one who dies; this book told from the point of view of the characters, the writers, and the actors who played the characters. Confused? You'll have to read the book to see how it plays out, you won't be sorry. Loved the unique telling of the story by varying points of view. ( )

Though I knew that we were to be in on the joke that red shirts were fodder for bad guys throughout the book, it took me a moment upon starting it to get used to how early the characters themselves were in on the joke. It was at times very funny, and clever, and I did end up enjoying it. ( )

Redshirts is light, fun, and profoundly unchallenging as a read. It's enjoyable enough, but. I know I'm a quick reader, but I really shouldn't have been able to pick it up while messing with my computer and have it finished before I'm done fixing the problem with the internet. Maybe an hour and a half? It's absorbing enough, and I enjoyed it for what it is, but I find people's rapturous responses to its philosophy and so on a little disturbing. It essentially parodies Star Trek and shows like that, except in a way it comes out feeling just as cheap because it knows it's metafictional, it knows it's a parody, it knows that it's funny.

Nothing wrong with that, in my view, but it's not a masterpiece either. It's a clever bit of geekery that will appeal to people who are already fans of Scalzi, and people who should be fans of Scalzi. It's just, well, to quote the book itself, it's not Shakespeare, y'know?

The characters are thin, to my mind -- a bit ironic in a book parodying the thin characterisation of "glorified extras", the redshirts who we see for a couple of episodes so that we feel like a real person has died -- and the writing is so-so. Inquits should be more or less invisible, I've always thought: said is perfectly serviceable, and fades into the background, while the odd croaked and murmured add flavour and texture. But I started to notice Scalzi's inquits. Some conversations were far too liberally sprinkled with them.

Still, like I said -- fun. ( )

It's witty, funny, moral, a hoot, very intelligent. Just read this novel! ( )

This was a lot of fun.

As fans of Star Trek know, "redshirts" are the crew members on the show that provide the illusion of drama by, well, dying. Whereas the main characters, as everyone knows, always return in subsequent episodes. But what if the redshirts figured this out and attempted to change their seemingly predestined fates?

A funny, entertaining, and deconstructive look at an old formula.

I could have done without the three epilogues, but your tastes may vary. ( )

This was a lot of fun.

As fans of Star Trek know, "redshirts" are the crew members on the show that provide the illusion of drama by, well, dying. Whereas the main characters, as everyone knows, always return in subsequent episodes. But what if the redshirts figured this out and attempted to change their seemingly predestined fates?

A funny, entertaining, and deconstructive look at an old formula.

I could have done without the three epilogues, but your tastes may vary. ( )

I love a good parody, especially when it ends up going deeper than just spoofing--this one is a little bit Galaxy Quest, a little bit Six Characters in Search of an Author. ( )

I thought that one day, some SF writer would take quantum probability to the ultimate extreme and come up with a book such as [b:Redshirts|13055592|Redshirts|John Scalzi|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348617890s/13055592.jpg|18130445]. Though this is never the explanation for the strange goings-on in [a:John Scalzi|4763|John Scalzi|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1236228326p2/4763.jpg]'s latest, I have held on to the idea as a kind of hard SF basis for what clearly is not a hard SF book. You see, i was trying my best to like this book. It's a quick read embellished with Scalzi's accessible prose and dialogue. My ears rung from all the loud dialogue by the narrator, but I suppose this was the only way to interpret the wry exchanges of over-the-top, macabre humor that surfeits the book. The first part of the book is strait forward SF mystery as the main characters try to figure out why their fellow shipmates keep dying, while trying to save themselves. Then midway, the book takes a turn for the absurd as the reason for the high death rate is revealed. It doesn't help that Scalzi cannot restrain himself from making low-brow gags along the way. And just as I am getting used to the change in atmosphere, the story ends, with still another couple of hours worth of audio time left. The rest is filled with three codas whose main reasons for inclusion appear to be: to spring more jokes and comedic routines, to retell the story from different viewpoints and to extend what could have been a Hugo-candidate short story into a quite disappointing book. I've enjoyed almost all other Scalzi books I've had the chance to read, but this one just didn't work for me. Will give it 3 stars for the chutzpah to write it in this form. But then again Heinlein was not shy about putting to print stories such as [b:Friday|17208|Friday|Robert A. Heinlein|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1315410828s/17208.jpg|1415529], why not his heir-apparent? ( )

There's not much I can say about Redshirts. It is clever and a light read (I went through it in a few hours). Being a person who cherishes setting and description in a novel, this had almost zero of that, probably so that the reader will impose whatever science fiction television series they want on the book. Mine ended up looking like Star Trek:TNG. ( )

A fictional story about a universe which is a fictional television show with characters who come into the world of their creator to demand he write the shows better. From this, you might think the story a hackneyed repeat of Stranger Than Fiction or several other tales where the fourth wall is broken, but it isn't. It is clever and funny and even touching. I won't pretend that it all made sense to me, but I could go with the flow, just as I do when watching any fictional scifi show. The story started out slow, but it wasn't long before I was caught up in the Narrative and caring about the characters. My personal favorites were the Coda at the end of the story. For my own taste, there was more coarseness than I prefer, but it didn't get in the way of the story and was brief. ( )

This is a fun parody of the original Star Trek tv series. Though you do not need to have seen it to enjoy this. A new ensign aboard the flagship "Intrepid" realizes that every away team ends in the death of a low ranked officer but the five senior officers always survive. He sets out to find a way to stay alive aboard his new posting. ( )

This review can also be found on Written Permission

This was the first book of Scalzi's that I have read. And even though I wasn't really a huge fan of Star Trek when I was younger (nor am I now, for that matter) I still enjoyed the book. I think the key is to not take it too seriously. This might be easier said than done if you are a Scalzi fan, as I understand his work can be quite deep. But aside from some existential questions, this book is all fun and spoof.

Scalzi is light on the descriptive prose, which makes the book very lightweight and streamlined, but it also makes it hard to follow at times. I lost track of which person was which at times, and had to go back and remind myself. We don't really get a sense of what any of the characters look like, nor what the environment looks like. It is a little unnerving, coming from a high fantasy background where everything is descriptions and backstory heavy to something so slick and streamlined.

The narrative has a great voice, and there are a lot of tongue-in-cheek moments. The humor is relatable and at no time did it feel like it was being pushed too hard.

Plot-wise, I know the very last chapter upset a lot of people, but honestly I thought it was great. The thing that made me the most upset was that Scalzi never seemed to take the time to get invested in his characters or his plot. Was this a product of the subject matter? Was it because the characters were supposed to be "expendable"? I don't know. But it lessened the reading experience. And I hate that nothing was really explained in the end.

Scalzi is a good writer. This is illustrated exceptionally well in the second of the three codas, which are essentially epilogues. The second coda is written in second person. It is still an awkward way of writing, but it is the least awkward second-person prose I have ever read. Bravo, Mr. Scalzi.

Bottom Line: A fun and fast read that is not to be taken too seriously. Very meta, and highly recommended for the Trekkies out there. More of a 3.5 for me, not because I didn't enjoy the book, but because I am not as huge a fan of the meta as some. Rounded up because the book WAS entertaining. ( )

While I don’t consider myself a Trek fan, I can appreciate the wealth of pop culture that’s sprung up from the series as a whole. (My favorite Futurama episode, for example, is “Where No Fan Has Gone Before.”) So, I was very much excited for Redshirts, if only in honor of those poor bastards who get fatally hit right before the commercial break.

What Scalzi does best in his work (that I’ve read thus far) is really bringing the human element to his characters. This is definitely not an exception. I’ve seen this concept done before, largely as a running gag, but Scalzi makes you care about his characters. And I care about these people. Aside from two of the three ‘main’ characters (the Captain and the Chief Science Officer), you really get to know Dahl and his reasons for taking a position on the Intrepid and that you don’t really want him to die, or any of the other ill-fated crew members.
And this really isn’t just a satire fixated on just Star Trek or bad sci-fi; it feels like it could be aimed at any media that uses cheap deaths to get a somewhat emotional reaction. The whole second half of the book isn’t so much breaking the fourth wall as Scalzi taking a hammer and gleefully smashing it and then dancing over the broken bits. I like that the surviving redshirts aren’t even trying to stop their deaths anymore, but feel like that they have more to contribute than just being a poor bastard who gets hit. I even like the three codas that deal with the show’s creators trying to grapple with the fact that what they write is real, in a sense. It’s delightfully meta, and there’s a few decent jokes with the actors. My only real…problem, I guess is that the main parody is very much focused on spoofing classic Trek—the really bad science, the overdramatics, the cheap death—and then you find out that the show everyone’s stuck on is being produced in 2012. It feels like I’m nitpicking, but I would have preferred the present day parts being closer to the original Trek production, if only because there’s been some fantastic sci-fi television in the last few years. It just seems like Scalzi wanted to move it to the present day to get in one not-very-funny Comi-Con joke.

This isn’t the strongest out of Scalzi’s work that I’ve encountered so far, but it’s still entertaining and a fun little jab at television plotting. It’s a must for Trekkers, and I’d even give a check-it-out for all around sci-fi fans.
( )

Interesting concept, but got a little too meta at the end... ( )