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Wednesday, 20 May 2015 10:08 pm
Book Review: Redshirts
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sleepyjohn00 recommended this John Scalzi comedy to me. By some chance, I had put the novel on the shelf next to one by Patrick Rothfuss, who's one of the people praising Redshirts on the back cover. He says he'd never laughed harder at a book. Of course, Rothfuss doesn't do much in the way of humor himself, so I took his taste with a grain of salt.
For those not well acquainted with Trekkie culture, a "redshirt" is a minor character likely to die horribly and/or bizarrely for the sake of cheap drama and soon be largely forgotten. More often than not, such characters on "Star Trek: The Original Series" were security officers, whose uniforms included literal red shirts. I had assumed that this novel would make fun of ST:TOS in particular, but the afterword assures me that the same cliches have turned up in many sci-fi series since (and Scalzi dismisses rumors that he had in mind "Stargate Universe," for which he was a creative consultant).
( Summary )
Redshirts is pretty funny, especially in dialog. It almost makes me want to rewatch ST:TOS (or move on to a poor imitator) to keep an eye out for the dumber aspects. Reading went quickly. But I can see why the story isn't any longer: However intriguing the concept, there's only so much you can milk from it. Understandably, the characters aren't very fleshed out; we don't even learn the first things about appearances unless absolutely necessary. And I had to get used to more frequent use of the F-word, including in its literal sense, than usual for my reading.
Scalzi's no Terry Pratchett, but I may try him again some time. In the meantime, I feel ready for another tome, so I picked up Neil Gaiman's American Gods. So much for taking a break from the F-word.
sleepyjohn00 recommended this John Scalzi comedy to me. By some chance, I had put the novel on the shelf next to one by Patrick Rothfuss, who's one of the people praising Redshirts on the back cover. He says he'd never laughed harder at a book. Of course, Rothfuss doesn't do much in the way of humor himself, so I took his taste with a grain of salt.For those not well acquainted with Trekkie culture, a "redshirt" is a minor character likely to die horribly and/or bizarrely for the sake of cheap drama and soon be largely forgotten. More often than not, such characters on "Star Trek: The Original Series" were security officers, whose uniforms included literal red shirts. I had assumed that this novel would make fun of ST:TOS in particular, but the afterword assures me that the same cliches have turned up in many sci-fi series since (and Scalzi dismisses rumors that he had in mind "Stargate Universe," for which he was a creative consultant).
( Summary )
Redshirts is pretty funny, especially in dialog. It almost makes me want to rewatch ST:TOS (or move on to a poor imitator) to keep an eye out for the dumber aspects. Reading went quickly. But I can see why the story isn't any longer: However intriguing the concept, there's only so much you can milk from it. Understandably, the characters aren't very fleshed out; we don't even learn the first things about appearances unless absolutely necessary. And I had to get used to more frequent use of the F-word, including in its literal sense, than usual for my reading.
Scalzi's no Terry Pratchett, but I may try him again some time. In the meantime, I feel ready for another tome, so I picked up Neil Gaiman's American Gods. So much for taking a break from the F-word.