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Enjoying his assignment with the xenobiology lab on board the prestigious Intrepid, ensign Andrew Dahl worries about casualties suffered by low-ranking officers during away missions before making a shocking discovery about the starship's actual purpose.
sandstone78: Expendable also follows the lives of space exploration crew members who are considered expendable. The protagonist, Festina Ramos, has a large, port-wine-colored birthmark across her face; as "everyone" knows in the setting, people form less of an emotional attachment to ugly people and therefore care less when they die, making them perfect candidates for almost-certain-death missions.… (mere)
RobinWebster: Tigerman and Redshirts are fun, fast-paced, quirky, high-stakes adventures. Both authors navigate ridiculous scenarios with confidence and zest, avoiding silliness through characters with believable, relatable emotions and motivations.
PitcherBooks: Happy Bureaucracy 1 (a stand alone) was among the best SFF dark humor satire that I've read. It's difficult to hit just the right note with that genre but Fitzgerald did so with this novel.
It is rare to find such a fun SFF stand-out. The last book of this specialty genre that I found this enjoyable was Red Shirts by Scalzi.… (mere)
Redshirts was an amazing read. Scalzi manages to combine straight-up science fiction parody with his signature fast-paced storytelling and quick-witted characters while also adding layers of depth to his storytelling by adding some thought-provoking twists and turns, and dare I say, raw human emotion. Yes, Redshirts is laugh out loud funny. Yes, it is a meat and potatoes sci-fi mind bender that is often reminiscent of Philip K. Dick (you can tell Scalzi is a fan). But, it also an emotional exploration of what it means to be human. I wasn't prepared for the emotional heft, and I was floored. Damn it man!
What Scalzi does, somehow, is explore the absurdity of the redshirt trope (made famous in Star Trek) without making a mockery of the protagonists themselves, despite the fact that, well, they're redshirts (minor characters who are always killed off). The Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union (based off say The USS Enterprise of United Federation of Planets in Star Trek) is a starship famous for its groundbreaking discoveries, its fearless officers, and its (gulp!) startling mortality rate. Ground missions go awry often and by the time Ensign Andy Dahl comes aboard (one of our chief protagonists), Ensign Dahl and fellow ensigns start to take notice and latch on to fellow redshirt Jenkins' crazy theories about them being extras in a TV show. The theory sounds crazy at first to the ensigns, but after a while, they are willing to believe it and risk everything to procure them the opportunity to at least die on their own terms or at least at a later time, and not on some crazy ground mission dying silly and pointless deaths. Without giving too much more away, the plot speeds along and morphs into a timey-wimey time travel mission for the protagonists (that deals in issues of causality) in order to stop their inevitable deaths on upcoming ground missions.
For as humorous as Redshirts is, it also is a profound read. Scalzi ponders: What is the meaning of free will? Does one get to choose her or his fate? Can we cheat death or at least delay it? What is the cost of a human life? Is life expendable? An ensign only job was to get eaten, shot, stabbed, disrupted, temporally shifted, frozen, desalinated or crushed into a cube. They weren't seen as people, with a significant backstory, with families, with dreams, desires. Scalzi perhaps asks the biggest one of them all (albeit in a very meta sort of way): What is the nature of reality? Perhaps we are just apart of a TV show after all.....or maybe not.
The book's ending is comprised of three codas: short stories spun off the original narrative and told from the point of view of this novel’s own minor characters.
The third, which is a meditation on love, loss and redemption, (not to mention theology and multiverse theories) will tug at your heart.
Damn you, Mr. Scalzi. You wrote a wonderful book.
For fans of: Star Trek, Galaxy Quest, Philip K. Dick, humorous stories, and surprisingly emotional ones as well.
Reread: April 9, 2020. The EXACT BOOK I NEEDED IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW. Thank you Scalzi. ( )
A fun satire on the Star Trek trope (famously (originally?) lampooned by Eddie Murphy) of the high death-rate on away missions for the all-but-anonymous ensigns - the Redshirts. I think I would have preferred a straight satire, but Scalzi decides to find a rationale for why this happens, and, whilst I know it is all post-modern and self-referential, actually, to me, it made it feel more like straight, light science fiction. Or at least it does for 75% of the book, then there are three codas (told, for no reason I could discern, other than affectation, in first, second and third person), elaborating on various themes and sections in the book. Apart from the first, which I really didn't like (it's supposed to be a blog, and has a really shrill tone, which I found wearing) they were okay, but they certainly weren't essential.
Additionally, for me, the decisive plot moment stretched credulity a bit beyond self-consistency, but the whole book is pretty much about skating on some thin ice in that regard, so I'm willing to let it slide.
Funny and touching. Not sure what I liked more, the main story or the 3 codas after. A science fiction novel anyone can read. A great book to give to someone who just wants to try science fiction on. ( )
After reading Metatropolis, I was a little hesitant to read this - but I'm so glad I did. I hardly ever laugh at loud while reading; Redshirts got me a few times. I frequently get tearful while reading; Redshirts got me there, too. It fulfills its satiric premise superbly and with much more intelligence than the back of the book lets on, but it's genuinely moving in a way I never expected. ( )
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen VidenRedigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
Redshirts is dedicated to the following:
To Wil Wheaton, whom I heart with all the hearty heartiness a heart can heart;
To Mykal Burns, my friend since the TRS-80 days at the Glendora Public Library;
And to Joe Mallozzi and Brad Wright, who took me to space with them.
Første ord
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen VidenRedigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
From the top of the large boulder he sat on, Ensign Tom Davis looked across the expanse of the cave toward Captain Lucius Abernathy, Science Officer Q'eeng and Chief Engineer Paul West perched on a second, larger boulder, and thought, Well, this sucks.
Citater
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen VidenRedigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
"Someone who knows that no matter what, you don't deal upward on the chain of command," Dahl said. The crewman grinned.
"I don't think luck had much to do with it."
"That's it? 'The Box'?" Dahl said.
"If it makes you feel better to think it's an experimental quantum-based computer with advanced inductive artificial intelligence capacity, whose design origins comes to us from an advanced but extinct race of warrior-engineers, then you can think about it that way," Collins said.
"Is that actually what it is?" Dahl asked.
"Sure," Collins said . . .
“In other words, crew deaths are a feature, not a bug,” Cassaway said, dryly.
Sidste ord
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen VidenRedigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
Samantha smiles again and puts her arm around Nick as they walk.
Enjoying his assignment with the xenobiology lab on board the prestigious Intrepid, ensign Andrew Dahl worries about casualties suffered by low-ranking officers during away missions before making a shocking discovery about the starship's actual purpose.
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Chat about... Redshirts by John Scalzi
1
What Scalzi does, somehow, is explore the absurdity of the redshirt trope (made famous in Star Trek) without making a mockery of the protagonists themselves, despite the fact that, well, they're redshirts (minor characters who are always killed off). The Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union (based off say The USS Enterprise of United Federation of Planets in Star Trek) is a starship famous for its groundbreaking discoveries, its fearless officers, and its (gulp!) startling mortality rate. Ground missions go awry often and by the time Ensign Andy Dahl comes aboard (one of our chief protagonists), Ensign Dahl and fellow ensigns start to take notice and latch on to fellow redshirt Jenkins' crazy theories about them being extras in a TV show. The theory sounds crazy at first to the ensigns, but after a while, they are willing to believe it and risk everything to procure them the opportunity to at least die on their own terms or at least at a later time, and not on some crazy ground mission dying silly and pointless deaths. Without giving too much more away, the plot speeds along and morphs into a timey-wimey time travel mission for the protagonists (that deals in issues of causality) in order to stop their inevitable deaths on upcoming ground missions.
For as humorous as Redshirts is, it also is a profound read. Scalzi ponders: What is the meaning of free will? Does one get to choose her or his fate? Can we cheat death or at least delay it? What is the cost of a human life? Is life expendable? An ensign only job was to get eaten, shot, stabbed, disrupted, temporally shifted, frozen, desalinated or crushed into a cube. They weren't seen as people, with a significant backstory, with families, with dreams, desires. Scalzi perhaps asks the biggest one of them all (albeit in a very meta sort of way): What is the nature of reality? Perhaps we are just apart of a TV show after all.....or maybe not.
The book's ending is comprised of three codas: short stories spun off the original narrative and told from the point of view of this novel’s own minor characters.
The third, which is a meditation on love, loss and redemption, (not to mention theology and multiverse theories) will tug at your heart.
Damn you, Mr. Scalzi. You wrote a wonderful book.
For fans of: Star Trek, Galaxy Quest, Philip K. Dick, humorous stories, and surprisingly emotional ones as well.
Reread: April 9, 2020. The EXACT BOOK I NEEDED IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW. Thank you Scalzi. (