Redshirts: The laugh out loud meta sci fi adventure

Good 3-star book. To be honest, I don't think Scalzi expected - or aimed for - more. “This timeline sucks...” Well, if you figured that out, then why not fix it? THIS PARAGRAPH CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you had chosen a different college? Stayed with your high school sweetheart despite all the hormonal mistakes both of you made up to and after graduation? Only wound up having 1 kid instead of 2? Now imagine that all of that is controlled by someone else determining your fate. That despite time, distance and the laws of physics, that someone - even a TV screenplay writer from way back in the past - is dictating your existence. Well, that's 'Redshirts' for you. Put it differently: what do you get if you mix the screenplays from 'Stranger than Fiction' starring Will Ferrell (a plot that Scalzi acknowledges) and 'Galaxy Quest'. Again, welcome to 'Redshirts', the book that finally let's the poor slobs from the original Star Trek finally realize getting the red uniforms is not a good career move. Deadly in fact. THIS PARAGRAPH DOES NOT Look: this wee pamphlet of a book was fun, don't get me wrong. The characters become quickly sympathetic and it IS kind of funny, particularly if you know better than to take the whole Trekkie (or Star Wars or whatever) thing too far. It has a good amount of action, some real plot twists and even throws in some mild surprises along the way. Oh and the philosophy, goodness gracious, don't forget the philosophy (even if it may not be based on Earthly ideals). Is it a book that should be compared to Douglas Adams' 'HHGTTG'? Oh hell no. It's not even as good as the original 'Red Dwarf' books-slash-series. But it is fun and I will be trying out other Scalzi books in the future. His writing style moves along quite smoothly and I appreciate the hommage to the genre without making the various A-LIST crew members too obvious in terms of who(m) they're supposed to represent. My advice? Find a used copy and read it on the bus on the way to and from work. Somewhere, in a galaxy far, far away where no man has gone before with either phasers or the Force, your doppelganger will thank you.

For a lot of the length of this book, I liked it but didn't love it. It felt comfortable and easy, which isn't automatically a problem with fiction but which can mean something is enjoyable rather than compelling. Without spoiling anything, the last quarter of the book is where it rises from comfortable genre-aware meta-pastiche (which is, I should say, fun and pleasant in its own right) to be something properly emotionally engaging and satisfactory. This raised it from like to love.

Heard this on audiobook and thought it was a reasonably funny read,. I got the book as I was tired and wanted something silly, BUT IT HAS NOT BEEN PROOF READ. Hopefully this is just on the Google version: but there are no apostrophes or any other punctuation apart from full stops and the odd misused comma. People even switch names occasionally. The authors handling of dialogue is poor to the point of misleading and he basically forgets about characterisation. I want a refund.