Its a prestige posting, with the chance to serve on Away Missions alongside the starships famous senior officers. Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456.

Tor Essentials presents new editions of science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure. This unexpected turn is what stays in my head, and this is what I talk about and mention to my friends.Book Synopsis Redshirts is John Scalzis Hugo Award-winning novel of the starship ensigns who were expendable.until they started comparing notes. It's here, at the end, that some of the deeper ideas are developed about story and narrative and how they interplay with real life. Perhaps the coda was the really interesting part, and the adventure only a lengthy backstory. But when I put the book down I almost think of it the other way around. So far it's all great fun, up to the action-filled resolution.Īt first I thougt this was an unnecessary addition, a way of extending a story that is already good, stretching it to 300 pages. That's why some of them decide to do something about it, and get to the heart of the problem. Why the many unnecessary deaths?Īctually, many things happen on the Intrepid that should not be possible, including exceptions to the laws of nature.Īmong the crew of the Intrepid, some have coping strategies, but these don't tend to work very well. They realize that something is really strange.

The starting point of John Scalzi's Redshirts is that the redshirts on the starship Intrepid start thinking about their weird situation. Similar things have been known to happen in other TV shows. They were really very often killed or injured, to create dramatic tension without sacrificing any of the important characters. You know about the original redshirts of course? The extras (in red shirts, duh!) that used to accompany Captain Kirk on the missions to weird places, in the original Star Trek series. What I expected was a lighthearted kind of revenge for all the Redshirts – a way of poking fun at some kinds of stereotypical TV writing. The structure of this novel is a bit unusual, and could have failed completely. In fact I was a little surprised when I put it down, surprised that this turned out to be a story that lingers in my head. This book was exactly what I expected it to be.

John scalzi red shirts