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 fact 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 expendedon 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.
Redshirts by John Scalzi. Narrated by Wil Wheaton. Published by Audible Studios, June 2012. Run time of 7 hours and 41 minutes.
Straight up Sci-Fi isn’t always my jam. There are a few exceptions- Galaxy Quest, The original series of Star Trek, Star Wars, maybe a few others here or there. When it comes to books, I can’t really think of many non-horror scifi SCI-FI examples off the top of my head? Book club picked this to read for March and I wasn’t too upset… I have read a few things by this author before and I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read. 🙂 And the audiobook is narrated by Wil Wheaton, who I love / hate. So while I’m not the biggest sci-fi fan, I was curious to give Redshirts a try.
I didn’t hate Redshirts. I didn’t love Redshirts. It was middle of the road for me.
The humor is great and Wil does a great job delivering the witty lines. I enjoyed the parody of Trek. It’s hard not to laugh at those parts of the book. 😀
The first half of the book is pretty fun, for the above reasons. Redshirts started to lose me in the second half of the book though. It felt like the parody went into warp speed ,or they’ve gone to PLAID (if you get to that reference, we can be best friends now! ). I guess I just got worn out with the parody-ness of things..
The 2nd half of the book felt like everything plus the kitchen sink is thrown in to cliche tropeville. Yeah, yeah, I know! It IS a parody story…. but there still needs to be a balance! Instead Redshirts piled on too much and the story ends up being muddy and a little bit confusing? 
The very end conversation (right before the codas) just left me scratching my head. D: Did I miss something? What did it mean??
My biggest complaint is the use of too many proper nouns during conversations!!!! Almost ever time someone talked it was ” So and so said”.
It was like this:
“Blah blah” Dahl said.
“Blah blah blah.” Mia said.
“Blah blah.” Dahl said.
“Blah.” Mia said.
UGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!! TOO MUCH!!!! Too much ” __________ said.” in a row!! No “______” responded, or ” ______” replied…. not even a reverse “Said _____”. >.< UGH! You’re killing me, Smalls!! Just….. NO. No. I HATED this.
By the time Redshirts was over, I was just feeling a little netural on it. It was entertaining but also a little too over booked to the point of messy. And the over usage of proper nouns in conversation just slayed me. This book is alright. I’d still read something else by this author.
Creature From The Book Lagoon 