![]() ![]() The ideas Scalzi plays with aren’t completely original – Galaxy Quest did the Star Trek pastiche sublimely, and the idea of characters interacting with their creators has a long history, which Scalzi himself acknowledges in one of the three short stories that work as a sort of coda at the end of the novel. Redshirts just won the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel, and it’s easy to see why. So when new ensign Andrew Dahl is assigned about the vessel and quickly spots this trend, he realises things aren’t quite as they should be, and that his and his friends’ lives depend on him figuring out just what is going on, and how to stop it. ![]() Even more mysteriously, the senior officers have a tendency to survive anything that’s thrown at them, no matter how fatal it should be. This cleverly written novel is set in a universe suspiciously similar to that of the USS Enterprise – and, in the same way that that TV show was famous for sacrificing anonymous extras on away missions (the ‘red shirts’ that inspire the title), the starship Intrepid has a curiously high mortality rate among young crew members. You don’t have to be a Star Trek fan to love Redshirts – though it certainly doesn’t hurt. Posted by Justine Solomons on 25 September 2013, in Recommendations ![]()
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