Review: “Redshirts: A Novel With Three Codas”

The clock continues to tick if you’re planning on voting for this year’s Hugo Awards. The clock runs out at 11:59 PM Central (Texas) time in two days, Wednesday, July 31st. You can vote online, but you need to be an attending or supporting member of LoneStarCon 3 in order to vote.

As is my wont around this time of year I’ve been trying to read all of the nominated novels. My review of “Throne of the Crescent Moon” by Saladin Ahmed is here, and yesterday I reviewed Kim Stanley Robinson’s “2312”. Today I’ll review John Scalzi’s “Redshirts: A Novel With Three Codas” (Tor Books). (As always, I’ll try to avoid any major spoilers for those of you who haven’t read it yet.)

Just so we all know where we stand, full disclosure and all, I’ll make it clear here for those who don’t already know – I am a huge fan of John Scalzi and his writing. I discovered his “Old Man’s War” series a few years back and it’s one of my all-time favorite SF series (and I’ve read a lot of SF and fantasy.) I’ve started reading his other books and I haven’t been disappointed yet. I’ve met him at conventions and book signings.

I discovered his “Whatever” blog about two years ago. Mr. Scalzi’s writing on “Whatever” is one of the key factors behind my decision to start this blog. He takes on some tough subjects there and has a voice as clear, reasonable, and sane as anyone else I see these days, except possibly Paul Krugman. I highly recommend you read “Whatever”.

“Redshirts” (I’ll refer to it by the shorter title) is a standalone novel, not related to any of Mr. Scalzi’s other works.

It is in many respects a comedy, although there are aspects of it that will sneak up on you and possibly leave you in tears. This is a quality that I have often found in the best entertainment (think television shows such as “M*A*S*H” or today’s “Modern Family”) and seeing the same range of emotions brought out in an SF novel is a wonderful experience.

The book’s title and basic premise come from a central meme of Star Trek, particularly the original series from the 60’s. If an away team beams down to an alien planet facing belligerent aliens and a hostile environment, danger all around, phasers set to stun, you’ll always see Kirk in a gold shirt, Spock and another senior officer in blue shirts, and some nameless security dude in a red shirt. Guess who gets eaten by the bug-eyed monster?

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union flagship Intrepid. It’s a sweet assignment and he quickly makes friends with a handful of other junior officers who are transferring onto the Intrepid. But they all soon find out that things are odd on board.

Dahl’s in Xenobiology and his lab mates seem to almost magically disappear just before senior officers appear in the lab. Dahl’s new friends all notice that everyone on board is almost obsessed with away teams – and how to avoid them. As they start to put the pieces together, they realize that being picked to go on an away mission is not the dream job they believed it would be when they were at the Academy. As the lowest ranking member of the away team, their life expectancy will be very low.

It quickly also becomes apparent that everyone else already on board has also figured this out. At least, everyone except for the senior officers. But while the existing crew has found coping mechanisms to avoid being picked for an away team, Dahl and his friends decide to try and find out what the hell’s going on and how to change it.

The story grabs you and sucks you in quickly. Since we’re starting with a good chunk of story framework that we’re already familiar with, it doesn’t take long to get our bearings. And then Scalzi starts changing it up and messing around with the characters and the readers. “Meta” is a term I’ve seen used often in describing “Redshirts” and it’s quite appropriate.

But “Redshirts” is much more than meta. It’s very clever in showing us how the various pieces of the puzzle are discovered, how the various threads tie together, and how the problem is ultimately resolved. Scalzi’s style is breezy, witty, and funny. You’ll quickly get quite attached to our plucky protagonists as they try to save their asses and solve the mystery of their existence.

The “novel” portion of “Redshirts” is short for a novel and it’s a quick, fun read. Following that are the three “codas”, smaller stories that are tangential to the main novel, but not a part of it. They each give us a much deeper look into what happens next to one of the relatively minor characters from the “novel” section. And if you’re anything like me, they’ll break your heart.

After 231 pages of snappy repartee, quick comebacks, and raucous adventures, the three codas smacked me right in the feels. It was a very, very good thing.

I most highly recommend you get a copy of “Redshirts” and relish it. I suspect it may be a book you’ll read over and over. When you’re at that next party and someone asks if you’ve read anything good lately, you’ll have an answer.

If I were voting for this year’s Hugo Awards Best Novel, it would probably be a toss-up for me between “2312” and “Redshirts”. In my mind it’s a choice analogous to the Academy Award voting for Best Movie, where the film that was the “deepest” and most “serious” almost always wins over the terribly entertaining movie that made $500M, sold a zillion tickets, and had people seeing it three or four times.

“2312” was deep and serious, but “Redshirts” would have to win my Hugo vote simply because it was just so much fun to read.