Redshirts

Book Review - Redshirts by John Scalzi - The set up and early chapters of this book were very funny. It is based on the science fiction meme about the Star Trek characters that have the red shirts always dying on away missions. In this book the redshirts realize that they always die and try to keep from going on away missions. Once the book gets going and you are into the actual plot it gets more science fiction focused and less funny. The book as a whole is fine, but it did not really live up to the opening. It finished with three different epilogues. They were also interesting because they concened three characters that were not really a part of the book, but were impacted by the conclusion of the plot. There were wildly different writing styles and while I was interested in the content, and the writing exercise I am not sure about their inclusion. The problem with the book is that it starts as a comedy, becomes serious science fiction, then has three codas that are blog formated comedy, romantic/drama, psychotic/paranoia. Overall still good, just not as good as it could have been.

Click through for the longer review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/redshirts/