Review

Synopsis

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, with the chance to serve on “Away Missions” alongside the starship’s famous senior officers.

Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to realize that (1) every Away Mission involves a lethal confrontation with alien forces, (2) the ship’s senior officers always survive these confrontations, and (3) sadly, at least one low-ranking crew member is invariably killed. Unsurprisingly, the savvier crew members below decks avoid Away Missions at all costs. Then Andrew stumbles on information that 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 remains one of my all-time favorite books so if you’re looking for an unbiased recommendation then you’re probably looking in the wrong place. I have some issues with the novellas in the back of the book but I consider the main story to be damn near perfect. Mind you, I am exactly the sort of person who would love this book as both a Star Trek fan as well as a satirist. If you don’t think making fun of weird ideas in Star Trek and cliched storytelling would amuse you then this is probably not the book for you but it is entirely my jam.

The premise is the Universal Union capital ship Intrepid is a death trap. Well, sort of. Nothing bad ever happens to its bridge crew that they don’t bounce back from. Murderous alien worms, horrifying parasites, terrifying plagues, and encounters with hostile alien planets. However, the rest of the crew dies at a horrifying and often nonsensical rate. They do stupid things that get them killed despite being trained professionals on a spaceship. Sometimes even when they’re incredibly smart and careful, events contort themselves to killing at least one of them a mission.

This is not good news for Ensign Andrew Dahl who shows up for work on the Intrepid with three new friends, only to find this “minesweeper in Baghdad” level of attrition is just the tip of the iceberg for weird stuff going on board this vessel. There’s a weird black box that can solve virtually all scientific problems in exactly thirty minutes (no more, no less) that none of the crew actually understand the workings of. There’s a guy living in the ship’s maintenance ducts trying to warn them of the insane rules that mean the difference between life and death. Finally, and this is something even Andrew hesitates to mention, does it feel like this is all a rehash of a mid-20th century TV show?

Redshirts is a delightful deconstruction of the various cliches that authors rely on in genre fiction. It would be easy to describe this as Rosencratz and Guldenstern are dead meets Star Trek but then you’d have to know both of these works to get what I mean. More likely, Trek fans will probably think this resembles Galaxy Quest and Lower Decks, which is also true. But beyond a parody of Star Trek, it is also a critique of laziness in storytelling.

The humor doesn’t require you to have a degree in Trekology to laugh but does need to be you to be familiar with the concept of “The Red Shirt” which is a character that exists to die horribly in order to make dangers seem more real while not harming the main cast. This is a joke that was common enough to show up in the TV show Lost so it shouldn’t be too big of a demand of readers.

I love this book and its oddball character development as well as the investigation of the surreal circumstances around our heroes. Despite this, I do think the book has some flaws. The four leads are largely interchangeable and all pretty much sound identical in dialogue. I would say that the denouement goes on way too long after the actual plot arc is finished. These stories aren’t necessary and kind of bog down the perfect ending of the main manuscript. They also get a little too much into the “behind the scenes” of the concept that is the least interesting part of it. I also feel like they could have done more with the ridiculousness of the terrifying premise of being trapped by the ludicrous logic of a badly written sci-fi show.

There’s also the elephant in the room of the fact that this book lives and dies by snarky observational humor. People who love this sort of thing that became popularized by the MCU and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are going to enjoy it. Those people who are sick of someone saying, “Wait a second, how does a box cure a plague in under an hour?” are going to be infuriated. Which is fine but the book is not going to be for you then. Metatextual criticism is a love it or leave it sort of thing.

This is definitely a book I would recommend the audiobook version over the written text due to Will Wheaton being the narrator. While his reputation has been largely redeemed in Trek circles due to many projects that show his range, I think the meta humor of this project should have done it by itself. Just his bewildered reaction to everything, especially as Dal, is fantastic but there’s also a deep love of the genre that goes into every character. A true must for every Trekkie and even those who are Trekkie adjacent.