RedShirts by John Scalzi —

 

Cover Image
Courtesy of 
Tor Books

I’m still not sure if the title is one word or two, and I just looked it up… I’m sticking with one, though, and I apologize to Mr. Scalzi if I’ve offended. But I don’t get the impression that the author John Scalzi is easily offended, and there’s a slightly off topic reason for that. He’s a screenwriter.

Let me explain. Screenwriters, even the established ones, quickly come to terms with being dismissed or disrespected by the industry that they are essential to. Still, they continue to write. Hence, the thick skin. But why was I suspicious that a screenwriter was at the wheel?

This is my first read from Scalzi, and I have screenwriter roots too, and while reading this lighthearted tale about the crew of a ship with eerily recognizable similarities to a scifi series of the past, who stumble upon an equally eerie correlation to said series, my initial thoughts while reading it were, this feels like a novel written by a screenwriter. So I stopped reading long enough to do some digging—to do some flipping through pages to see that parts of the book were indeed written in some semblance of script format (for novels)—and I shouted, Aha! Screenwriter! 

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I prefer it sometimes, myself. But what it relies on is pared down descriptions and more dialogue than narrative to carry the story. So maybe, for those readers not familiar with the dos and don’ts of the business, be prepared to struggle with who is who and what they look like. You’ll have a general idea, and it gets easier halfway through, but initially, keeping track of the characters might be a small challenge. (There is one character who is introduced as a yeti, and yes, I got immediate Chewie vibes, but alas, he turned out to just be a hairy man.)

There’s also not a lot of character depth to the crew of the Intrepid, but there’s a reason for that that unfolds at the end of the book, where Scalzi pulls a unique hat trick with three codas. Here, he makes us feel for three specific characters who are barely part of the main narrative until the bitter end. And he makes us feel for them hard.

All in all, it’s a clever premise. And yes, if you’re a fan of any of the Star Trek series offshoots (especially Lower Decks), or any scifi series of the last few decades, of which the show in this narrative is not, you might enjoy this one. At minimum, I think it’s a good introduction to the world of John Scalzi.

Click on the cover image above or HERE for a link to buy at BookShop.org.