A Very Short Review
Sep. 3rd, 2012 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodygranuaileThis week I read John Scalzi's new book Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas. If you know what a Redshirt is, you can probably guess that this is a science fiction novel that has something to do with the Redshirt trope. If you have seen Galaxy Quest, you will know everything you need to know about this novel when I tell you that the most spot-on, succinct review of it I have seen so far is some dude on Twitter saying that "Redshirts is the best Star Trek novel, just like Galaxy Quest was the best Star Trek movie."
Basically, it is a lot of metahumor about bad scifi TV shows. The main characters in the book are a bunch of ensigns on a ship who realize that they are extras in a bad science fiction TV show and try to exploit the show's bad science to figure out a way to stay alive. It is fun and silly and it is an affectionately-enough done parody that it avoids sounding too pretentious and superior. It is also fairly short and is a good read for the week when you have ack-I'm-moving-and-am-so-stressed-I'm-going-to-die-brain.
PS Scalzi's blog is frequently awesome; you should be following it.
Basically, it is a lot of metahumor about bad scifi TV shows. The main characters in the book are a bunch of ensigns on a ship who realize that they are extras in a bad science fiction TV show and try to exploit the show's bad science to figure out a way to stay alive. It is fun and silly and it is an affectionately-enough done parody that it avoids sounding too pretentious and superior. It is also fairly short and is a good read for the week when you have ack-I'm-moving-and-am-so-stressed-I'm-going-to-die-brain.
PS Scalzi's blog is frequently awesome; you should be following it.
