John Scalzi

Redshirts

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. By the award-winning author of Old Man's War.

A Novel with Three Codas

Vicky  Nuñez 

Scalzi has quickly become one of my favorite scifi writers in a very short time.
His novels are brilliant and laughed out loud funny. And Redshirts isn't the exception.

Redshirts it's about a group of friends who are assigned into the Intrepid, the flagship of the Universal Union, and they all start to notice the strange behavior of everyone on board, especially around its Captain and a few others.

It is brilliant and it will make your head spin. 

Also, it gets really meta.

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, with the chance to serve on "Away Missions" alongside the starship's famous senior officers. Life couldn't be better...until Andrew begins to realize that 1) every Away Mission involves a lethal confrontation with alien forces, 2) the ship's senior officers always survive these confrontations, and 3) sadly, at least one low-ranking crew member is invariably killed. Unsurprisingly, the savvier crew members below decks avoid Away Missions at all costs. Then Andrew stumbles on information that transforms his and his colleagues' understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is...and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives. Redshirts by John Scalzi is the winner of the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Laura Mauler

A fun read, even for those of us who have limited knowledge of Star Trek.

I love Scalzi's stuff like this and as I am a not-so-secret trekkie and a sci-fi nerd, who strongly suspects this book might have inspired the podcast guys who inspired the Lower Decks cartoon, all my interests sort of collided at once, with a particularly shitty week to deliver me this deeply unserious book at the right moment to make me happy. And living on this ball of space garbage things that make me happy get 4 stars. 

Apiecalypse Jen

Aubrey Hicks

For Trekkies and science fiction fans in general - this is quite fun. The audiobook, read by Wil Wheaton is utterly enjoyable once you get past all the "Dahl said"s. In the beginning the way the dialogue is written can be distracting, but as soon as the story gets a hold of you ... you're hooked! I really loved this.

A entertaining spoofy SciFi adventure that fizzled out and dragged on by the end

 for years now. I’ve read other Scalzi works, so I had some idea of what to expect. But it still took me a few years to get around to reading this. I went with the audiobook narrated by Will Wheaton which I think definitely amplified the experience.

The story is based on the longstanding joke about how Star Trek episodes always killed off the nameless guys in redshirts and never any main characters. This story takes a creative and cheeky twist on that troupe and asked, “What happens when the redshirts no longer want to be cannon fodder?”

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just transferred to 

, flagship of the Universal Union. But he quickly realizes that something weird is happening on the ship and that the low level crew members have an absurdly high mortality rate. Determined not to needlessly die, Dahl tries to get to the bottom of the mystery.

There were some entertaining and humorous bits. Nothing laugh-out-loud hilarious though. And there were also a lot of jokes that had that trying-too-hard feel that comedy novels often have. So sometimes I chuckled, and sometimes I wore that weary expression I get when people tell bad puns.

It was overall a solid, entertaining story with a satisfactory enough ending. 

The problem was that the story didn’t stop there.

 At the beginning, it said it was “a novel with three codas.” I didn’t know to what they were referring, so I just continued on with the book. It turns out there are three… let’s call them interrelated short stories… at the end. These three “codas” jumped all over the place in terms of writing tense, voice, and style. And frankly, they were boring. It went from a corny but entertaining novella to a series of self-indulgent and self-aware writing exercises. It was too meta, too pretentious, and too boring. They were the kind of thing you suffer through in college writing groups from that one dude who is convinced he’s the next Salinger (but isn’t). Even with the codas, the whole thing was only 320 pages, but the last bit dragged on interminably. 

unless you are left with burning questions at the end of the story section, don’t bother with the codas.

There were some fun parts, and I’ll still read more Scalzi in the future. But I won’t go out of my way to recommend this book.

Colleen

A entertaining spoofy SciFi adventure that fizzled out and dragged on by the end


I’ve been meaning to read Redshirts for years now. I’ve read other Scalzi works, so I had some idea of what to expect. But it still took me a few years to get around to reading this. I went with the audiobook narrated by Will Wheaton which I think definitely amplified the experience.

The story is based on the longstanding joke about how Star Trek episodes always killed off the nameless guys in redshirts and never any main characters. This story takes a creative and cheeky twist on that troupe and asked, “What happens when the redshirts no longer want to be cannon fodder?”


Ensign Davis thought, Screw this, I want to live, and swerved to avoid the land worms. But then he tripped and one of the land worms ate his face and he died anyway.


Ensign Andrew Dahl has just transferred to Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union. But he quickly realizes that something weird is happening on the ship and that the low level crew members have an absurdly high mortality rate. Determined not to needlessly die, Dahl tries to get to the bottom of the mystery.

There were some entertaining and humorous bits. Nothing laugh-out-loud hilarious though. And there were also a lot of jokes that had that trying-too-hard feel that comedy novels often have. So sometimes I chuckled, and sometimes I wore that weary expression I get when people tell bad puns.

It was overall a solid, entertaining story with a satisfactory enough ending. The problem was that the story didn’t stop there. At the beginning, it said it was “a novel with three codas.” I didn’t know to what they were referring, so I just continued on with the book. It turns out there are three… let’s call them interrelated short stories… at the end. These three “codas” jumped all over the place in terms of writing tense, voice, and style. And frankly, they were boring. It went from a corny but entertaining novella to a series of self-indulgent and self-aware writing exercises. It was too meta, too pretentious, and too boring. They were the kind of thing you suffer through in college writing groups from that one dude who is convinced he’s the next Salinger (but isn’t). Even with the codas, the whole thing was only 320 pages, but the last bit dragged on interminably. unless you are left with burning questions at the end of the story section, don’t bother with the codas.

There were some fun parts, and I’ll still read more Scalzi in the future. But I won’t go out of my way to recommend this book.

So I’ll leave you with this quote:

Is it good? It ain't Shakespeare, but then, Shakespeare wrote Titus Andronicus, so you tell me."

RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 4 Stars
Writing Style: 4 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 3 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 3 Stars
Level of Captivation: 3 Stars
Originality: 4 Stars

Brandy

Very enjoyable. Made me laugh aloud many times. If you like silliness & sci fi television, I'd highly recommend it.

Matthew Royal

I think this book is revered among nerds because it's an introduction to self-referential literature. Sort of a Never Ending Story for Star Trek fanboys. It was fine.

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.

Ron Bronson

Maybe I'm just too much of a Trekkie to appreciate Redshirts and its satire.

A really fun and funny twist on the usual space sci-fi.

Stefanie Viens

Jeff James

Somehow Redshirts is incredibly deep and emotionally powerful while also being a goofy metafictional scifi genre parody. No shit.

Ryan LaFerney

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.

Scordatura

** spoiler alert **
           A bit of a disappointment. I like Scalzi's books and I love Star Trek so I should love this but I felt the plot was a bit too clever and meta for my tastes. The characters didn't really come to life for me (I even kept confusing some of them) which is rather ironic for a book about characters that are easily killed off and forgotten.
The codas were interesting however and made up for a lot. They showed more interesting views on the story's events and characters than in the main plot.

Herman Steuernagel

What if you realized you're not one of the main characters of the story?

This was a by no means a literary masterpiece, but it was fun, entertaining, and an amusing premise. I'd definitely recommend for casual Star Trek fans, or those who want a quick, light-hearted Sci-Fi read.

Janice Hopper

The best parts of this book are the 3 codas You do need to have read the first part to understand the codas though, unfortunately. 

I didn't really enjoy the main story. The central point, about the power of Narrative across space & time, is one that I find compelling. But it didn't really grab me here.

I found the characters indistinguishable from one another. Maybe that's some kind of meta-statement about personalities and the many worlds theory across space/time or something. It just didn't work for me here. 

I love John Scalzi's blog. I think I like it better than his fiction.

Kelsey Lynn

So, for my Hugo read through, I jumped ahead a bit. My Boyfriend had just finished this, and really wanted to talk to someone about it so, in between They'd Rather be Right, and Double Star and Skipped like 63 books ahead and read this guy.

 For those who haven't read my reviews, I'm sorry, they're complete stream of conscience nonsense, I can't promise what I'm saying will make sense or come to any worthwhile conclusion. But it might? So you should read them anyways. This has no spoilers (I think) cause honestly, I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, I just want to give some impressions so you can either compare your thoughts and feelings with them if you've read it, or be intrigued or turned off if you haven't.

 This book was enjoyable and frustrating, and enjoyable again. John Scalzi is an interesting author that is obviously very knowledgeable about writing and Science Fiction, however that doesn't mean he's terribly good at it. It's a case of you might know everything about brain surgery but not have steady enough hands. He obviously knows what makes an interesting story, and what isn't the greatest and he's good at humour. This book was a very interesting idea. 

 It was a very pointed statement on how campy SciFi shows are written, and essentially what the existence for those characters might be like. It was a quick read for it's interesting idea and I really wanted to know what happens, However the writing became painfully obvious in it's flaws when it came to the characters. They were all the same. Every single one of them was a snarky 20 something year old boy, even the girls, sometimes I didn't know who was talking save for ___ said. When it came to the non main characters I didn't even know their genders and went a large portion of the book convinced one was female and it wasn't. A lot of this might be my fault, coming from reading They'd Rather be Right, and having to have my brain turned on high to understand what was going on due to borderline over writing, this one felt very under written. However I'm pretty sure even if I had read a less over written book prior to this, the characters in this book would still be the same. Not only the same but just projections of the author himself. 

This isn't always bad, I read The Martian by Andy Weir, and it also had a case of the same character for every character and loved it, absolutely loved it. 

 I think what was also difficult for me is some things just worked out too well, call me cynical but there were times in this book where If it was happening to me I'd be like "Uh, no, get away from me" rather than "Ok, that seems plausible" (view spoiler)[and have almost the whole finale of the book work out perfectly even though it was a very far fetched plan, and work out quickly. It didn't need to fail, but... (hide spoiler)] it felt very weakly developed and written. Because some things just fell together too easily, it just wasn't very exciting in these parts. I found myself turning to my boyfriend and going "Wait, is that the end to the main story? Oh... That's disappointing" Then it went into this three part after effect thing, with three chapters of things that were affected by the story. At first I didn't like this, it felt odd and forced, and felt like he had maybe written these short stories and then got inspired to do a full book and needed to put them somewhere. Especially with the first one, which I didn't like, and really really had to push myself to not skim. However the second one and third one impressed me. 

 I realized that John Scalzi does know what he's doing, he's very intelligent when it comes to story writing, he knows how to cover his butt when it comes to plot holes and importantly he thinks about all the implications and results that come from actions. This is a great skill, and I can see why he's involved in so much for consultation and such, he knows what makes a good story, he's just not that great at executing it himself. That's ok, it happens a lot, if he can improve his characters it'll be far less obvious. I mean look at Micheal Crichton, he writes like a screenplay but dang are they (mostly) interesting and enjoyable.

 The third story thing completely redeemed it for me, I don't know, it left me feeling happy and satisfied rather than grumpy as I had been. That's smart writing, that is an example of setting your portfolio up with your best pieces in the front and back, and the lesser ones in the middle, that way you end on a good note and that's what sticks with you. (Sorry for the obscure art reference here, I'm an illustrator and this is what my brain thought of)

All in all I enjoyed this book, it's not a favorite, it won't stick with me, but it's concept and idea were intriguing, its writing wasn't that great but also very interesting in itself, reading someone who is very knowledgeable about what he's doing but not the greatest makes for an interesting read haha. This book really is beginning to solidify the idea that Hugo's are about ideas, he brought something interesting and new to the table and even if it wasn't executed perfectly.

 I'd recommend this book, warn anyone, however, that this is more of a turn your brain off and just enjoy kind of book. If you get to wrapped up in some of it's shortcomings (I almost did) you'll miss out on a very fun read.

Ley Stanton

First off, how you dare you just do that thing at the end with Andrew AND THEN NOT FOLLOW THROUGH WITH ANY INFORMATION. Second off, that was an amazing book and I don't even know how to put my thoughts into words right now. Bravo, Mr. Scalzi.

Half Yeti, All Man

I thoroughly enjoyed the main story, brief as it was. It wasn't the greatest writing ever, but it was enjoyable and had a nice flow. Had it been the whole book, I would have rated it an easy four stars. To be honest, however, I could have done without the codas. For me, they seemed to walk a fine line between unnecessary and pretentious. In the end, they added nothing whatsoever to the story.

Logan Keith

I was excited for this book, and enjoyed the first half/two-thirds, but the last part was a disappointment. When the reader finds out what’s happening and how they’re going to fix it, plus how they go about fixing it feels a bit like the book is jumping the shark. Maybe that was the intent, but I didn’t enjoy it very much.

Ken Yuen

A story that takes a look at all the Star Trek tropes.

Elizabeth Hisserich

Scott Vandehey

Scalzi takes a simple joke of a premise — What if all the redshirt crew members on Star Trek knew they were scripted to die on away missions? — and manages to turn it into a full-size and astonishingly fun book. I expected this to be full of in-jokes and Trekkie humor and to give it a thorough “meh” rating, but I was pleasantly surprised by the length he was able to take it.

Southern Today Gone Tomorrow

Writen by John Scalzi, this is any nerd or Reddit user’s dream come true.

This book follows a group of, you guessed it, Redshirts on a very Star Trek like ship. And yes, they do always die. 

Quick witted and dry, the humor leads and drives the story – yes, both ends – and keeps you smiling. The end does get very stretched and almost feels like a fan fiction piece, but it brings the story back home. 

I recommend this book to everyone. It isn’t the best book, but it is a joy to read.

Ken Gagne

GalaxyQuest was a funny movie for a general audience and hilarious for lovers of Star Trek. Conversely, I can't imagine anyone but Trekkies who will appreciate John Scalzi's latest book — but boy, will they love it!

Set on a fictional starship, the book parrots almost every element of the Star Trek universe — or, more precisely, the television show. When lowly ensigns start to realize that they're always the ones to die on away missions, and "main characters" never do, they start to look into exactly why. What they discover is as surprising as it is riveting.

I've read a few of Scalzi's other books and knew him to have a sense of humor, but it's never been as obvious as it is here. When an opening chapter can have the following happen to our then-protagonist: "But then he tripped and fell and a worm ate his face and he died anyway" — you know you're in for a good time. Yet after the story is done, three codas told from three different perspectives, making for a total of 70+ pages of "bonus" material, do more than pad out an otherwise relatively short tale. These chapters adopt a completely different tone, hitting a variety of emotional cues and balancing the story out.

Redshirts is a quick and fun read that you'll be sorry to see end. I highly recommend it to all geeks.

Heather Killeen

This is a fantastically funny book, for any sci-fi fan I feel like this is a must read. Extremely sarcastic and ironic while ultimately about finding happiness both in life and in a genre riddled with plot holes. I listened to the audiobook with Wil Wheaton narrating. Although he didn't do voices for different characters and that made me mix them up constantly, his intonation and sarcastic tone were completely spot on and had me laughing out loud.

Redshirts

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