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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.
sandstone78: Expendable also follows the lives of space exploration crew members who are considered expendable. The protagonist, Festina Ramos, has a large, port-wine-colored birthmark across her face; as "everyone" knows in the setting, people form less of an emotional attachment to ugly people and therefore care less when they die, making them perfect candidates for almost-certain-death missions.… (more)
RobinWebster: Tigerman and Redshirts are fun, fast-paced, quirky, high-stakes adventures. Both authors navigate ridiculous scenarios with confidence and zest, avoiding silliness through characters with believable, relatable emotions and motivations.
PitcherBooks: Happy Bureaucracy 1 (a stand alone) was among the best SFF dark humor satire that I've read. It's difficult to hit just the right note with that genre but Fitzgerald did so with this novel.
It is rare to find such a fun SFF stand-out. The last book of this specialty genre that I found this enjoyable was Red Shirts by Scalzi.… (more)
This was a really fun ride. Part campy sci-fi that you already know, part breaking the fourth wall, part philosophical introspective about life. Just what I needed to pick up right now though ... fun, easy to read, and didn't disappoint. ( )
Another book with a twist! I seem to be reading a lot of those these days.
This starts as funny sci-fi poking fun at campy TV shows but turns into something else entirely and ends on a surprisingly sweet note.
I liked it and reading it this weekend (soon after the movie shootings in CO) the message of living a meaningful life and being happy and expressing love for those who are most important to you hits especially hard.
The final words from Jenkins are perfect. Now i have to go find my husband and hug him. ( )
Fun little romp with an interesting philosophical question woven through it: how would you react if you found out that your life was being scripted (badly), or how would you react if you found out that you were inadvertently scripting people's lives? Add in some Star Trek in-jokes, and you have a sweet story with a chewy center. ( )
Amusing premise where the characters realize to their horror that they are expendable supporting characters on a bad sci-fi show...then unite to try to do something about it. Starts off strong but the joke wears thin after awhile, and it gets too metafictional. The last few chapters have a completely different tone than the light humor of the rest of the book; I didn't like them in my first read, but found them to be rather moving on a re-read. ( )
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
Samantha smiles again and puts her arm around Nick as they walk.
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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Wikipedia in English (2)
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