Redshirts, by John Scalzi

Posted by: Redhead on: June 7, 2012

• In: John Scalzi
• 32 Comments

Redshirts by John Scalzi

published in June 2012 by Tor Books

where I got it:  borrowed ARC from a friend

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If you grew up watching Star Trek TOS or TNG, if you fell in love with discovering new worlds and new civilizations on the back of suspiciously shoddy science, if you wondered were those relief ensigns on the bridge came from (ensign closet?), if you derided TNG for its pathetically formulaic and episodic set up (Data is training his cat in the opening? He’ll totally still be training the cat in the closing, and wow they sure solved that mystery fast!) yet still loyally watched and rewatched every single episode, Redshirts is the book for you. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long, long time. The franchise that Bakula nearly destroyed and Tim Allen inadvertently nearly saved has been saved again.

Way to wreck the franchise, Bakula.

Ok, you don’t have to be quite as much of a trekkie geek as I am to enjoy Redshirts. Scalzi starts out spoofing science fiction shows that feature terrible science, but ends up faithfully honoring the spirit of those same shows while at the same time boldly going completely meta and self-aware.

I found Redshirts to be hysterically funny, completely off the wall, full of sarcastic wit and absolutely brilliant. Also? it’s fucking hilarious.

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just got the posting he’s been dreaming of – the xenobiology lab on the Intrepid, the flagship of the Universal Union. After inadvertently volunteering for future away missions and then getting settled in, Ensign Dahl notices something very strange: every time a senior officer visits the lab looking for away mission volunteers, his lab-mates make themselves conspicuously and busily absent. Even worse, Dahl learns, the more senior officers on each away mission, the higher the likelihood of an ensign or junior officer getting injured or killed. The more Dahl gets to know the patterns of the ship, the stranger everything begins to look, and everyone else seems OK with the status quo.

Should he investigate? Or should he just shut up, avoid as many away missions as he can, and make peace with the fact that eventually a sandworm or flesh eating virus or stray phaser shot or exploding control panel or something will eventually kill him? What the hell is he, a redshirt or something?

(if you knew the planet was over run with sandworms or flesh eating viruses, why the hell would you send someone down in an unarmed shuttle without environments suits anyway? Also, whoever thought it would be hilarious to wire explosives into onboard control panels has a really sick sense of humor)

A few quick words on characterization and dialog. Regarding characterization, don’t expect a lot here, this isn’t that kind of book. If you’re pissed off that you don’t know enough about the characters, you’re missing the point. Regarding dialog – it is hysterically hilarious, and full of swear words, including much in the way of “that doesn’t make any fucking sense!” and “whoever writes this shit is an asshole”. Seriously.

we have to go through the Chompers? srsly?

Some of you already know where this is going, and for those of you who don’t I will hint no more on the surprise. It’s the kind of surprise that at first has you question the intentions of the author, then has you shaking your head, then has your mouth drop to the floor as the lightbulb goes off in your head, and then has you telling everyone you’ve met (even peeps who have never heard of Star Trek and wouldn’t know a tricorder if it clocked them in the head) to read this book as soon as possible.

A few other reviews that I’ve read of Redshirts mention that Scalzi didn’t put as much work into it as he could have and recycled some characters from previous books for this one. I can’t speak on that, as this is the first Scalzi that I actually finished.  Yes, believe it or not, I am NOT on the Old Man’s War bandwagon. Picked it up when it first came out, barely got 100 pages into it because the story didn’t grab me and I didn’t care for the main character. Picked it up a few years later, had the same experience. Old Man’s War is supposed to be some kind of modern day Starship Troopers? That’s fine, but Heinlein must do something for me that Scalzi doesn’t. For those of you who are totally on the Old Man’s War bandwagon and I may have told you I read it way back when? well, I did try. twice.

So, did Redshirts get me on the Scalzi bandwagon? I ain’t drinking the kool-aid yet, but I’m willing to see what flavor it is.

Tags: future, meta, philosophical, science fiction, spoof