Redshirts
Redshirts (2012) – John Scalzi
It would be very difficult to read Redshirts without being at least a little bit spoiled. Due to the style of John Scalzi’s writing and the title of the book it exposes some of it secrets before you even start. Which is disappointing because I found the most enjoyable aspect of this book to be the mystery. Anyone who has ever seen or possibly even heard about Star Trek the original series knows about the fate of many of the extras on the show. They want there to be some weight to the danger involved in what they do on the show, but they can’t kill any of the main cast. So instead they kill one of the ill fated red shirt wearing crew members. So right away you can tell Redshirts is going to be some sort of parody or meta commentary on this trope of the main cast having plot armor and the extras existing merely to be killed for the drama.
Despite the nearly telegraphed plot of the book my main complaint is that there wasn’t enough of it dedicated to the set up. Perhaps the author found that because this part of the book was so obvious that he should spend less time on it. However, I think he should have leaned in even more and spent more time in the normal star ship setting before there was anything suspicious going on. Then slowly over time things get weirder and weirder until it becomes impossible to ignore. Instead it goes head first into ridiculousness in order to set up the second part of the book.
I found the second half of the book to be very dragging and too self gratifying in its importance. It goes on and on about how writers and authors should care deeply about their work, but I don’t feel like I saw that same level of dedicated that was preached about in this book itself. It felt like the last third of the book was a letter to writers and authors and seeing as how I am neither I couldn’t relate to it. Perhaps someday I could attempt to write something, but that day is not this day.
As a big Star Trek fan I felt somewhat obligated to check this book out. The book was enjoyable for what it was, but I find that it could have been so much more. The concept was great and I would have loved to read something similar that was a little bit more serious and a little less preachy.
