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Loading... Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas (edition 2012)by John Scalzi (Author)I found it pretty predictable and the parody elements not all that funny. It's like Kaiju Preservation Society, something makes me feel like he's trying too hard. Too hard to have characters perform cute tricks and spout cool quips. Too hard to make sure we know that he knows all the Star Trek things. Not for me. from James: There's a lot here to like: parodies, Star Trek, SciFi, and/or meta-stories (including meta-data, meta-physical, meta-phoric...). John Scalzi tackles it all. It's a quick read with just the right amount of characters, story and philosophical wanderings to keep it light and interesting. Even while you're reading, you're aware of your place in the story. A couple of times, the "science" of time travel and other "explanations" become ridiculous and hard to follow, but I'd argue that's part of the point (part of the joke, even). Embrace it and go along for the ride. I recommend it. I was happily reading away, laughing uproariously at Scalzi's wit, totally into the plot--getting all of the nerdy sci-fi allusions. But, then it began to get wonky close to Coda 1. Then I had to skip around because the magic of the book was gone--I was so disappointed. Coda II nor Coda III recooped the lost momentum; it was dead. Sad... It's pretty rare (in my experience) for a book to be both laugh-out-loud funny and thought-provoking. But this book is. I've been thinking about some of the issues explored here for years. What if, for every work of fiction created in our world, there was a parallel world where that fiction was real? But I've never traced all of the ramifacations of the idea. Scalzi looks at what would happen if the fiction isn't very well written. Would the characters start to question why their world is so strange, or even ridiculous, and perhaps come to the conclusion that they were characters in a work of fiction? As Scalzi himself points out, Jasper Fforde has explored some of these same questions. The structure of this book is original. About the first two-thirds is the novel, the final third is...different. And unpredictable. I was very pleasantly surprised at the number of times I said "Oh, I wasn't expecting that" while reading it. (Of course, in the very nature of it there were many things that were predictable. Oh, well.) This is simultaneously an enjoyable satirical romp, a plea for better (read: less lazy) writing from our science fiction (and other) writers, and a meditation on the nature of "The Narrative" and its relation to reality. I literally laughed (real out loud laugh, not LOL recognition of humor) and cried. In fact, I was close to sobbing. The book has everything: parody of bad science fiction tropes, philosophy, action ... What happens when a spaceship crew starts to suspect that they are fictional? And worse, they are Redshirts, like the poor extras on Star Trek Classic? Yes, it goes all Meta, but it's done well. Scalzi adds 3 "codas" in 3 persons as well as 3 personas. If you aren't keen on more crying, you might want to avoid the last two. Also listened to the audiobook read by Will Wheaton. He's a very good reader, if not in the class of Nigel Planer and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith - so no voices. I started listening to the book and then had to go to work ... and got anxious that I didn't know what was going to happen next, so I had to grab a hard copy of the book, which was luckily checked in. So I recommend both. If it's your sort of thing. You know: Sci Fi, humor, Meta ... The title & concept comes from Star Trek, where it seemed like every week some walk-on actor, usually dressed in a red shirt (sometimes blue) was killed on one of those away missions to an alien planet. Scalzi starts from there, and looks at life from the red shirts point of view -- when some newcomers join the Intrepid rumors are flying about the crew members they replaced. In the beginning, for me, the characters were a bit indistinguishable from one another, which made it not as interesting as it could have been; the satire wasn't as sharp as I had expected. The book starts from that premise, and when you think that Scalzi has worked himself into a jam, the book takes a turn, becoming kind of a Six Characters in Search of An Author, as the redshirts work their way out of their fate. Though a bit convoluted, the last half works well. 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. I re-read this 4/8/20-4/10/20 and GR felt the need to erase my review from 8 years ago. Yeah I'm totally pleased about that. Luckily I had it backed up. --- Right off the bat this book did not disappoint me. Not even a little bit. No I would say this book made me incredibly happy. I grew up in a house enamored with Star Trek in its various forms, so the term 'red shirt' has a very real meaning to me. Mind you in the later series of Star Trek, once Red became the Command color, this held less true, but it still stuck. So the idea of playing around with it--having a new crew member start to notice the peculiarity when it came to crew deaths around the high ranking officers...well any fan of Star Trek can say 'Oh I remember that!' Is this a perfect book? No, despite being a parody of Star Trek (and similar genre shows), to get the full force of the humor, irony and duh moments the reader should be at least peripherally aware of the show, or of shows like it (really any scifi/genre show--Stargate, Farscape, Buffy). The ridiculous dramatics the person in charge goes through when a simple 'Get us out of here!' would suffice. The seemingly endless lives the 'main cast' seem to have (not just their 'lives' but also how they get out of being court-marshaled or brought up on charges). The utterly ridiculous science. Yeah its a good idea to have a basic grasp of why having Andy Dahl notice these otherwise ordinary occurrences in his universe and remark on them being 'weird' as being significant. The first two-thirds of the book are basically the set-up. Andy notices something, says 'Isn't this weird?' and pretty much everyone gives him a blank look. His friends, the crewmates that came aboard with him (who all fit certain stereotypes themselves--the flirt, the outcast, the genius, the 'average' guy) also begin to notice the weird occurrences around them and together they begin to investigate (to various degrees of incredulity). The last third is what happens when you learn too much. How do you deal with that information? What is the 'right' course of action? Who claims responsibility when sometimes stuff really is that awful and there's no one to blame? I haven't read Scalzi before, at least not his fiction. His blog (Whatever) is awesome, his book YOUR HATE MAIL WILL BE GRADED is hilarious, and he's worked as a consultant on at least one show I love to pieces (Stargate: Universe), but this was my first taste of his books so I was apprehensive. But I shouldn't have been. Everything I love his blog is in full force here--the humor, the weird little observances of human nature, the easy readability. Scalzi doesn't just write a comedy, or genre book, he writes a book that looks at how people justify their actions and rationalize the weird. 'Its not my fault, I warned you' is a recurring (in various forms) theme. Or 'You know, so hand the burden to someone else' also seems to pop up countless times. The crew onboard the INTREPID ignore the high turnover rate of new members because if they noticed then they'd have to think about their culpability. The motto is basically 'Watch out for yourself first, then a select few and maybe others if you have time'. I want to go into the last third of the book. I want to discuss the exploration Scalzi goes through in order to make the first two thirds make sense. I can't though because that would be the biggest spoiler you could imagine. Its Snape Killed Dumbledore or Vader is Luke's father level. It will change how you read the rest of the book and alter the experience. So instead I'll leave you with this: do you know why you do the things you do? 3.5. Redshirts is a fun read, and its exploration of a ridiculous premise is pleasingly analytical. I really like stories about side characters and extras, from "The Zeppo" to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Here the prose and characters are intentionally lightweight, but Scalzi's wit and comic timing make them work; fans of military SF and space opera will appreciate the send-up of terrible science fiction writing. Deducting a half-point or so because I really disliked the three codas that conclude the novel. With the story over, the book has lost its narrative drive, so when Scalzi proceeds to switch focus to minor characters and make us feel something about them, it felt plodding and uninteresting. (Explorations of the same characters would have worked okay as interludes embedded in the novel, but the plot structure didn't allow for that.) Definitely going to read more Scalzi, as this is probably not a representative novel (even if it did win the Hugo). He was on my to-read list in the first place because of his blog, an absolute gem in the SF/F publishing world. ...of course scale and deepness nowhere near "Thursday Next" series. But still this was very entertaining and light read for weary head. And then... I would never try watching Star Trek TV again (Thank you!). I seriously revamping everything I thought or known on the topic of writing characters death (Thank you!). And I really should write to this list something "third" but can easily fight a need to do this by writing something like this around it (Thank you!). It was fun. Update: I finished with the "epilogues". Really. I did not expect that. Redshirts By John Scalzi I love good, smart satire-type books and this goes even beyond that. Like Star Trek, the old ones especially, lots of extra characters on the screen die. This gets weird, but, the writers in the past effect the characters in their REAL life in the future. They have to find a way back to stop the slaughter. Fun and crazy Redshirts was an amazing read. Scalzi manages to combine straight-up science fiction parody with his signature fast-paced storytelling and quick-witted characters while also adding layers of depth to his storytelling by adding some thought-provoking twists and turns, and dare I say, raw human emotion. Yes, Redshirts is laugh out loud funny. Yes, it is a meat and potatoes sci-fi mind bender that is often reminiscent of Philip K. Dick (you can tell Scalzi is a fan). But, it also an emotional exploration of what it means to be human. I wasn't prepared for the emotional heft, and I was floored. Damn it man! What Scalzi does, somehow, is explore the absurdity of the redshirt trope (made famous in Star Trek) without making a mockery of the protagonists themselves, despite the fact that, well, they're redshirts (minor characters who are always killed off). The Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union (based off say The USS Enterprise of United Federation of Planets in Star Trek) is a starship famous for its groundbreaking discoveries, its fearless officers, and its (gulp!) startling mortality rate. Ground missions go awry often and by the time Ensign Andy Dahl comes aboard (one of our chief protagonists), Ensign Dahl and fellow ensigns start to take notice and latch on to fellow redshirt Jenkins' crazy theories about them being extras in a TV show. The theory sounds crazy at first to the ensigns, but after a while, they are willing to believe it and risk everything to procure them the opportunity to at least die on their own terms or at least at a later time, and not on some crazy ground mission dying silly and pointless deaths. Without giving too much more away, the plot speeds along and morphs into a timey-wimey time travel mission for the protagonists (that deals in issues of causality) in order to stop their inevitable deaths on upcoming ground missions. For as humorous as Redshirts is, it also is a profound read. Scalzi ponders: What is the meaning of free will? Does one get to choose her or his fate? Can we cheat death or at least delay it? What is the cost of a human life? Is life expendable? An ensign only job was to get eaten, shot, stabbed, disrupted, temporally shifted, frozen, desalinated or crushed into a cube. They weren't seen as people, with a significant backstory, with families, with dreams, desires. Scalzi perhaps asks the biggest one of them all (albeit in a very meta sort of way): What is the nature of reality? Perhaps we are just apart of a TV show after all.....or maybe not. The book's ending is comprised of three codas: short stories spun off the original narrative and told from the point of view of this novel’s own minor characters. The third, which is a meditation on love, loss and redemption, (not to mention theology and multiverse theories) will tug at your heart. Damn you, Mr. Scalzi. You wrote a wonderful book. For fans of: Star Trek, Galaxy Quest, Philip K. Dick, humorous stories, and surprisingly emotional ones as well. Reread: April 9, 2020. The EXACT BOOK I NEEDED IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW. Thank you Scalzi. A fun satire on the Star Trek trope (famously (originally?) lampooned by Eddie Murphy) of the high death-rate on away missions for the all-but-anonymous ensigns - the Redshirts. I think I would have preferred a straight satire, but Scalzi decides to find a rationale for why this happens, and, whilst I know it is all post-modern and self-referential, actually, to me, it made it feel more like straight, light science fiction. Or at least it does for 75% of the book, then there are three codas (told, for no reason I could discern, other than affectation, in first, second and third person), elaborating on various themes and sections in the book. Apart from the first, which I really didn't like (it's supposed to be a blog, and has a really shrill tone, which I found wearing) they were okay, but they certainly weren't essential. Additionally, for me, the decisive plot moment stretched credulity a bit beyond self-consistency, but the whole book is pretty much about skating on some thin ice in that regard, so I'm willing to let it slide. After reading Metatropolis, I was a little hesitant to read this - but I'm so glad I did. I hardly ever laugh at loud while reading; Redshirts got me a few times. I frequently get tearful while reading; Redshirts got me there, too. It fulfills its satiric premise superbly and with much more intelligence than the back of the book lets on, but it's genuinely moving in a way I never expected. |
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