Much like the movie Galaxy Quest, this is a great Star Trek novel without actually having Star Trek in it. I enjoyed one of them, but the other two seemed to be just an exercise the author put himself through and, for me at least, didn’t add anything to the story and were baffling.

The book ends with three codas, short stories about some side characters introduced in the book. At its heart, this is what this book is, people who found out their sole purpose is to die, for the simple reason that the person who is writing about them is simply lazy. Some people live every day in search for meaning to their lives, some of us have already found, or at least think we did, the meaning and reasons for living. The characters are interesting, and the winks and nodes in the fictional TV show to Star Trek were very good. I thought the story was well written and crafted very well. The storyline explores the occurrences killing off characters simply to get cheap thrills, or to demonstrate the dangers to the main characters. The extra is the hero in another story, usually their own. The story makes a case in point that the life of a side character in the overall narrative is not any less significant than that of the hero. We are all the heroes of our own stories, even if you happen to be an extra in the narrative. What I discovered was a character driven book, dealing with existential issues, as well as the value of life. I didn’t know what to expect from this book, I enjoyed Star Trek as a kid, and loved the movies (even the hockey first one), but I wasn’t such a big fan as to read the books. Redshirts by John Scalzi is a fun and clever book. The novel won the RT Reviewers Choice Award for 2012, the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and the Geffen Award for Best Translated Science Fiction Novel. Redshirts by John Scalzi is a novel which parodies the Star Trek TV show in which stock characters, often wearing red shirts, dies soon after being introduced.

Redshirts a novel with three codas