Redshirts

A Novel with Three Codas

By: John Scalzi

Narrated by: Wil Wheaton

Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

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, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the facts that (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces; (2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations; and (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.

Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely 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.

©2012 John Scalzi (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Conflicted review

I actually tried reading Redshirts earlier this year, but had to stop. Wow..this is far too much dialogue for me and shelved it. Strange seeing that I do enjoy conversations in real life. Frankly, I do a lot of it in the real world, as we all do.

Reading Scalzi to me is like going to a packed restaurant and sitting in the middle of the table with people I know and people whom I am getting to know. I like it. Yet…the amount of dialogue that is being peppered around the table in between drinks and eating a Rueben sandwich does not always sink in…because there is so much. Reading his novels is like that for me, severe multitasking.

Yet in an audiobook I find his works very enjoyable. What does that say about me? I DNF the novel, yet give four stars to the audio version. I also have Agent to the Stars waiting to be read…I think it will sit on the shelf and I’ll listen to it.

Ironically, I myself am giving to much dialogue in this brief review. Ha!
Time for another Reuben sandwich then in the real world.

it's like it was written for Wheaten, and he read the hell out of it!

Thanks Scalzi and Wheaton for such an enjoyable listen! I enjoyed the story and look forward to seeing if Scalzi posted what inspired the ending.

Slow to start but wow!!

Slow to start but stay with. The twists are very worth it and listen to the CODAs. Omg

Impactful but annoying

Why are half the protagonists *ssholes? Why does everyone act like it's ok to sucker punch someone because you don't like that they might be right, why does everyone jump to the conclusion they do instead of "some reality warping trickster is messing with us" or try destroying the alien artifact? Bleh.

I wouldn't have recommended this book except it gets satisfying and resonates when it starts diving into the side characters in the last third... Even if it p*sses me off to no end that we don't get to see the amazing thing one of them wrote.

The Codas

The three codas at the end hit way harder then the rest of the book, partially because the rest of the book provides the context to let then hit that hard, and while the bulk of this book has little to much he said she said spoken thoughtout the end was perfect

The most fun I’ve had in years

This was perfect. A creative story, humorously written and narrated. I laughed outloud throughout with the brilliance of it. Truly, brings my love of Star Trek to a whole new level. Highly recommend!

Fun

This was a cute story by one of my favorite authors. So many layers to this one.

Fun Read

I really liked the mystery of the events. The ending was good but I loved the first half of the book.

A very “meta” book, tho who doesn’t root for the redshirts?

A slow start, I thought, but ultimately a pretty rewarding story. We laughed out loud, always a good sign!

'Twist' is seen coming, but enjoyable

Not unique in this complaint; it seems to be Scalzi's style to lean very, very heavily on 'said' when portraying conversation. It's probably something easily overlooked (although editors should have spotted it) on the written page, but in audio form, it's quickly grating and then irritating. I'd have forgiven some refinement in the presentation to mitigate this in deference to the listener, but it is what it is. It's a trait evident in all of Scalzi's material I've listened to, so it's a problem at the source rather than elsewhere.
Setting that aside, I liked the story (although the twist is obvious from early-on - not sure if that was intentional), characters and presentation, so it's a minor grumble. I'm just surprised it persists in all of his material.