Redshirts

Redshirts: A Novel With Three Codas
by John Scalzi

I loved Scalzi's collection of online essays from his blog -- Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded, but had never read any of his many science fiction novels. This proved to be a marvelous introduction to his work. Redshirts starts out as a fairly light-hearted tongue-in-cheek treatment of the Star Trek tradition of the guys in "red shirts" (usually security officers) being prone to getting killed on away team missions. Ensign Andrew Dahl is one of a group of new crewmen assigned to the flagship starship of the Universal Union. Andrew and his friends soon recognize that crew members that go on away team missions with the ship's senior officers are almost always likely to suffer fatalities, even when the missions are benign. Dahl's efforts to uncover why this is true, and how he and his friends can potentially survive provides for a lot of laughs, and a good old-fashioned time travel adventure tale, and by the end of the book, some serious emotional storytelling has peaked through the humor. This book should appeal to fans of Star Trek (even if it isn't actually a Star Trek novel), fans of humorous science fiction, fans of thought-provoking science fiction, and especially fans of the Star Trek parody film Galaxy Quest. [Scalzi is an author who writes in a variety of different styles. This rather humorous novel differs dramatically from his more serious books in the Old Man's War series. If you like this, you might want to try Scalzi's novel Agent to the Stars.] -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library [Subscribe to Scott's monthly booklist newsletter It's All Geek to Me! - on the Books, Movies & More newsletter sign-up page].

[ Publisher's official Redshirts web site ] | [ official Whatever blog by John Scalzi ]
 
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