Redshirts

by John Scalzi

Other authors: See the other authors section.

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3,720	365	2,465	(3.76)	1 / 370
Enjoying his assignment with the xenobiology lab on board the prestigious Intrepid, ensign Andrew Dahl worries about casualties suffered by low-ranking officers during away missions before making a shocking discovery about the starship's actual purpose.

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	Group › Topic	Messages	Last Message
	The SF&F Book Chat: Chat about... Redshirts by John Scalzi	3 unread / 3	Scorbet, February 2013

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▾Member reviews

English (359) German (1) Dutch (1) Catalan (1) All languages (362)

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Showing 1-5 of 359 (next | show all)

This was fun. And was surprisingly existential in a couple of places. (

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KittyCunningham | Apr 26, 2021 |

When Dahl is assigned to The Intrepid, he joins the spaceship crew along with a handful of new recruits, who quickly form a tight bond. They realize that each of them is replacing a crew member who was recently killed in some horrible and weird way, like ice sharks, and that it can't be just bad luck that makes the lower level crew members pretty much guaranteed death while a small core of long-time crew are guaranteed to survive anything. Dahl and his friends know they each have an expiration date unless they figure out what's going on.
What would happen if the expendable redshirt crew members of Star Trek knew they were slated to die just to show that crew members could die, and what if they very much wanted to live. I really liked this sci-fi comedy. (

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mstrust | Apr 24, 2021 |

That went places I didn't expect but I really liked it. I didn't like Wil Wheaton's narration at first but I got past that & liked it at the end. (

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jlweiss | Apr 23, 2021 |

I liked this book very much. It's original and entertaining. (

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A2Seamster | Apr 9, 2021 |

John Scalzi wist ons vroeger al te verrassen met het heerlijke Old Man's War. Flitsende actie, verfrissende humor en een goeie plot.
Toen we ergens in onze ooghoek zagen passeren dat hij voor dit boek zowel de Hugo als de Locus Award kreeg, leek het ons de hoogste tijd om 's mans werk nog eens tot ons te nemen.
Omdat ik zelf het liefst helemaal verrast wordt door een boek (ik lees meestal zelfs geen achterflappen) geef ik niets mee over de plot.
De hoofdpersonages worden geconfronteerd met een statistisch hallucinant aantal doden onder jonge rekruten op het ruimteschip Intrepid. De nieuwste lichting besluit dat haarfijn uit te pluizen en er iets aan te veranderen.
Vervolgens speelt Scalzi met de grenzen van fictie, meta-fictie, schrijverschap, de rol van personages en neemt hij scifi en scenarioschrijven op de korrel. Voor veellezers is de plot misschien niet de origineelste aller tijden, al blijft hij erg leuk, maar de manier waarop Scalzi die in de Coda's van het boek uitwerkt, is dan weer wel erg goed gedaan. Beetje moraliserend in die coda's misschien, maar dat geven we gewoon maar mee, het stoorde ons absoluut niet. Puik gedaan, heerlijk boekje! Gelachen, nagedacht, ontspannen, gedreven: uitmuntende leeservaring! (

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GertDeBie | Mar 22, 2021 |

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▾Other authors

» Add other authors (6 possible)

Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
John Scalzi	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Getty Images	Photographer	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Hayden, Patrick Nielsen	Editor	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Lutjen, Peter	Cover designer	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Wheaton, Wil	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

▾Series and work relationships

Belongs to Publisher Series

Heyne-Science-fiction & Fantasy (52995)

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▾Common Knowledge

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Canonical title

Redshirts

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

2012-06-05

People/Characters

Important places

Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid

Universal Union Capital Ship Nantes

Burbank, California, USA

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Malibu, California, USA

Important events

Related movies

Awards and honors

io9 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of the Year (2012)

SF Site Reader's Choice (2012)

Hugo (Novel, 2013)

Locus (2013.1|SF Novel, 2013)

(show all 7 items)

Epigraph

Dedication

Redshirts is dedicated to the following:

To Wil Wheaton, whom I heart with all the hearty heartiness a heart can heart;

To Mykal Burns, my friend since the TRS-80 days at the Glendora Public Library;

And to Joe Mallozzi and Brad Wright, who took me to space with them.

First words

From the top of the large boulder he sat on, Ensign Tom Davis looked across the expanse of the cave toward Captain Lucius Abernathy, Science Officer Q'eeng and Chief Engineer Paul West perched on a second, larger boulder, and thought, Well, this sucks.

Quotations

"Someone who knows that no matter what, you don't deal upward on the chain of command," Dahl said. The crewman grinned.

"I don't think luck had much to do with it."

"That's it? 'The Box'?" Dahl said.

"If it makes you feel better to think it's an experimental quantum-based computer with advanced inductive artificial intelligence capacity, whose design origins comes to us from an advanced but extinct race of warrior-engineers, then you can think about it that way," Collins said.

"Is that actually what it is?" Dahl asked.

"Sure," Collins said . . .

“In other words, crew deaths are a feature, not a bug,” Cassaway said, dryly.

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Nielsen Hayden, Patrick

Blurbers

Original language

Canonical DDC/MDS

▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (2)

John Scalzi

Redshirts (novel)

▾Book descriptions

Enjoying his assignment with the xenobiology lab on board the prestigious Intrepid, ensign Andrew Dahl worries about casualties suffered by low-ranking officers during away missions before making a shocking discovery about the starship's actual purpose.

▾Library descriptions

No library descriptions found.

▾LibraryThing members' description

Book description

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It's a prestige posting, and Andrew is even more thrilled to be assigned to the ship's xenobiology laboratory, with the chance to serve on "Away Missions" alongside the starship's famous senior officers.

Life couldn't be better... until Andrew begins to realize that (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces, (2) the ship's captain, its chief science officers, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations, and (3) sadly, at least one low-ranked crew member is invariably killed.

Unsurprisingly, the savvier members belowdecks avoid Away Missions at all costs. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues' understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is... and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.

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