Redshirts

A Novel with Three Codas

By: John Scalzi

Narrated by: Wil Wheaton

Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the facts that (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces; (2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations; and (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.

Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.

©2012 John Scalzi (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

So enjoyable in so many ways

Great story told in a wonderful way. If you enjoy science fiction in any form, I expect you'll enjoy Redshirts too.

Great book better performance

a funny and then moving performance by Wheaton. The story is initially fun and nostalgic for any Trek fans out there, and then rife with cleverness and entertaining conceits.

Just stop half way through

This book is a fun tongue-in-cheek parody of Star Trek, specifically the Original Series. As a Star Trek fan, I enjoyed the book, until about half way through.

Near the half way point, the book takes a substantial turn and the characters leave the spaceship that they called home up to that point. I really did not care for the book after this turn and was disappointed that it consumed the remaining half of the book.

Also, the book "ends" with about two hours left, with a few Coda stories that take place after. The Coda stories do not continue the enjoyment from the first half of the book and are fairly forgettable.

Wheaton is a good reader, but it was sometimes difficult to differentiate character voices.

Overall, I liked where this book started, but the author should have taken the resolution elsewhere.

AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY

Another good Scalzi

Any additional comments?

Star Trek fans will love it. Without giving too much away. The travel to the past was good fun.

Great stories, bad transition

the book was going great. and then makes an incredibly abrupt turn, at the expense of the original story. while enjoyable in its own way, it left the original story to be wrapped up in a few sentences. that was unexpected and annoying to me.

Meta-enjoyable

Great genre-subversion story, and very funny. If you don't like meta-meta-fiction then this is not the book for you. The narration was very entertaining; what Wheaton lacks in distinction between voices, he more than makes up for with enthusiasm and tone that matches the material perfectly. Another reviewer said his penchant for dropping the "he said" and "she said" to the point of distractedness and at first it bothered me too but I got over it. The codas are a little too long but mostly funny.

done just right

It took me two tries to get into the book, but once I got past a slightly slow and confusing start, it was great fun. It encapsulates everything you've always wanted to yell at the Enterprise security ppl.
The ending was a little eye-rollingly self-referential though.

Entertaining, but doesn't develop well

Would you consider the audio edition of Redshirts to be better than the print version?

Wheaton's narration is great, I enjoyed the audio production

Would you recommend Redshirts to your friends? Why or why not?

Overall I would recommend it, because the story is interesting enough, but it won't stay in my mind for long. The codas were overly long and unnecessary.

Have you listened to any of Wil Wheaton’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This is similar to Wheaton's over performances.

Any additional comments?

Some interesting treatments of the ideas, but best suited to a short story.

Throughly immersive

love doesn't begin to come close to how I felt about this book, my only complaint is that I desperately wanted more

It was pretty alright

What did you love best about Redshirts?

Great idea for a story, and it was pretty hilarious at times.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Redshirts?

Time travel!

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Wil has a pretty distinct voice which was nice because of the familiarity; but he didn't change his voice ever for different characters. Long strings of dialogue just kind of mesh together and are hard to follow. Lots of he said, she said, he said, he said.

Any additional comments?

I didn't really like the Coda's.