Redshirts (Hugo Award Winner - Best Novel)

by John Scalzi

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 delighted when he's assigned to the ship's Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn't be better ... although there are a few strange things going on:

(1) every Away Mission involves a lethal confrontation with alien forces

(2) the ship's captain, the chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these encounters

(3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.

Suddenly it's less surprising how much energy is expended below decks on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned an Away Mission. Andrew's fate may have been sealed ... until he stumbles on a piece of information that changes everything ... and offers him and his fellow redshirts a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives ...

• ISBN10: 0765334798
• ISBN13: 9780765334794
• Publish Date: 15 January 2013 (first published 5 June 2012)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 27 April 2023
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Tor Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[leahrosereads]

Preface: Not a trekkie or even someone who's actively seen all of the franchise, but I've seen enough and I like John Scalzi, so I thought - what the hell - I'll read this and hopefully love it.

First off: not enough aliens. The back led me to believe more aliens and more death caused by aliens would be read about, so that was disappointing.

Everything else made up for it. This is hilarious and felt like such a homage to Star Trek, and I respect that a ton. The writing is fantastic, and I loved the 3 codas at the end.

But, still not enough aliens.

[nannah]

My first thought reading this was that it didn't read like an adult novel (except for very sci-fi words). The prose, tone, wording, and crafting of thoughts is very simplistic & juvenile. And this is coming from someone who reads and loves more YA than anything.

As with his other stuff I've read, John Scalzi's strength is in his dialogue, and definitely not in his prose, which kind of sucks, which makes sense that there's not really a lot of it. But unlike Lock In, which I adored, the whole only-dialogue technique didn't seem to work with this book, even if it's a comedy. The whole thing seemed kind of flat.

Initially, I thought the book was pretty fun, and I was really invested in what the mystery surrounding the f-ed up ship was going to be (even if the book had another one-girl-only-boy-group-thing which I despise). Halfway through, though, it ran into one too many subplots and complications, and the whole book began to seem nonsensical--and not in the way it was intended, I'm sure. Especially when the great reveal tried to use that plot device twice (if you read the book you'll know what I'm talking about).

What really destroyed the book for me though was its resolution . . . which happened on page 231 of 314. The rest of the book is divided into three "codas" that have no real relevance to the book, and just seemed unnecessary. They might have worked better after some incredibly touching novel or something where they were actually needed, but hanging behind as they were, I was yawning trying to just get to the end.

[adamfortuna]

Having seen every Star Trek episode and being a huge fan of Galaxy Quest, this one was amazing. The story revolves around a space ship (like the Enterprise) where a surprising number of crew members are dying on away missions -- especially those lower on the totem pole. Once the bit characters begin to realize this trend they divise ways to take advantage of the situation.

Much of what made this great was how meta it was. Almost like a darker version of Glaxy Quest.

[wyvernfriend]

Surely, if you were a crewmember on a spaceship, an intelligent person who is hired for intelligence and capability and you noticed that there was a high statistical likelyhood of dying if you were in this role, you'd start to wonder how to increase your chances of living? This is what this is about, and I did enjoy the read. My husband loved it, then again he is an actual fan of Star Trek and he now wants a copy of this to hug close.

I probably didn't get some of the references, but I still enjoyed the read and the codas. It was an entertaining book. I really must read more Scalzi.

I only really read this now because I was bringing it back to work and forgot to bring a book of my own, and forgot to charge other devices that would distract from a two bus trip to work and also forgot my headphones. I was going to wait until my husband bought his own copy.

[elvinagb]

Being a red shirt on a space vessel is viewed as a certain chance at an early, likely gruesome death and the characters in this book discover that they have a chance to change their destiny, however improbable it might seem.
I love science fiction and this book does not disappoint.

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

When people talk about a book being “meta”, I have to admit that I often wonder what they are talking about because it really doesn’t say anything about the book itself but it is a good way to sound pretentious. John Scalzi’s Redshirts is so meta; I think the author must have had a lot of fun writing this novel and playing with the red shirt concept. For those people that don’t know what a Red shirt is; it’s a concept made famous by Star Trek in which the character wearing the red shirt on a mission was always the one that died for dramatic effect.

The book Redshirts follows a copy of characters who decided why there was a high mortality rate for the people on missions with high ranking officers. Through their research they found that the only other ship with the same mortality rate was the USS Enterprise. This drives the story in a comedic dig at science fiction television shows.

This book starts off so strong, it has an interesting premises but it turns out all downhill from there. I really think this book would have worked a lot better as a short story and I think Scalzi was just adding filler in to make the book longer. I did enjoy the meta elements of this book and I found it was an entertaining look at the Star Trek storylines but once you hit the halfway point you might as well stop reading. Think of it as Star Trek parody meets Stranger the Fiction jammed together in a very sloppy way.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book and I think that was one of the best parts of my experience of this book. The audio version was read by Wil Weaton adding a whole new element of meta to this book. As a geek, I’m a fan of Wil Weaton and this was the main reason why I read this book. Redshirts could have been an entertaining book, but I don’t think it really came together as well as I was hoping for. Luckily it was a very short book; which could have been shorter. The comedy and meta elements of the novel were worth checking out but the rest of the book didn’t work.