Last week, I finished reading Redshirts by John Scalzi. I finished this one of rather quickly, being the slow reader that I am. It only took me about three days to finish it. That should be a sign of how much fun this book is. However, I will admit that the book is targeted towards a very specific audience. For some, this may be a bad thing, for others a good. I see it as a good thing. Scalzi is only writing what he would like to read. But he knows the audience he is writing for, mainly because he belongs to it. So, in writing for himself, he is writing for his fans. You can't go wrong there.
The story itself is quite an adventure, and really meta at the same time. I don't want to ruin it for anyone, but as you may have guessed, the main focus of the story is on the redshirts, the sacrificial victims of many science fiction shows and stories. They're the ones who always have to die to raise the stakes for the storyline. In Redshirts, the main character, Andrew Dahl, finds out that many on his ship, the Intrepid, have some weird superstitions about the lead crew. And he is fast to learn that there is some grounded fact behind those superstitions. But the truth, he learns, is a lot more crazy. And if any of you are big, giant, nerdy fans of science fiction, you will definitely have some cheery, gleeful noises emanating from the deepest parts of your geeky little hearts. I know I sure did.
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