A review by wardenred
Redshirts by John Scalzi

adventurous funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

“What we’ve been told,” Collins said, “is that as the flagship of the Dub U, the Intrepid takes on a larger share of sensitive diplomatic, military and research missions than any other ship in the fleet. Because of that, there is commensurate increase of risk, and thus a statistically larger chance crew lives will be lost. It’s part of the risk of such a high-profile posting.”
“In other words, crew deaths are a feature, not a bug,” Cassaway said, dryly.

I suspect I would have enjoyed this one even more if I were a Trekkie (I know enough of Star Trek to grasp the core concepts, but I’ve always been more of a Babylon 5 person with a bit of Farscape on the side). As it was, I definitely found it easy to grasp the core concepts, but I kept feeling, especially in the latter half of the story, that there might be a lot of references that I was missing out on. Or maybe i was overthinking. That’s possible, too.

Anyway, even with limited knowledge of the source of satire, I did enjoy it a lot. A lot of the dialogue is simply priceless—I kept chuckling around as I read, even though I wouldn’t call the writing outright comical. Rather, wry and quirky, and that’s the kind of humor  that often gets me the most when done well. I also really liked how most of it was structured (except for the parts I lowkey hated—more on that later). There was this sly, steady build-up to the big meta revelation that made me completely forget what was coming even though I was aware of this aspect of the book going in. I was just so caught up in the weirdness of the ship and all the quirkiness and how the characters interacted. The prose style took a tiny bit of getting used to, but overall, the story pulled me in fast. The mix of adventure, mystery, and that “story about a story” aspect never stopped being entertaining.

My one gripe with the book is the ending.
I kind of wish it ended with chapter 23, but without its last paragraph. Even the full version of chapter 23 wouldn’t be *too* bad. I mean, it would be a truly terrible wtf moment, but it would also be kind of in line with the metafiction part of it all, and at least it would be a memorable last paragraph. But the entire (tiny) chapter 24 being basically AHAHA JUST KIDDING was annoying and created a weird sense of ambiguity—I now legit have no idea how it ended, if I should trust that one paragraph or the JUST KIDDING chapter, and it frustrates me. And the three codas that came afterward, while one of them did contain some fun musings about writer’s block and the like, added next to nothing to the story itself.


All in all, up until the very ending I was thoroughly entertained, and I’m definitely seeing why my friends kept insisting I read something by John Scalzi. His brand of wit appeals to me a lot, and I intend to pick up more of his works later in the year.
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