Redshirts
A Novel with Three Codas.
Locus Award 2013, Hugo Award 2013.
From the bestselling, award-winning author of Old Man’s War, a novel that answers the question: What happens when all the expendable ensigns on the exploring starship start comparing notes?
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 fact 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 belowdecks 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.
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John Scalzi
John Michael Scalzi II (born 1969) is an American science fiction author and online writer, and former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is best known for his Old Man's War series, three novels of which have been nominated for the Hugo Award, and for his blog Whatever, at which he has written daily on a number of topics since 1998. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fanwriter in 2008 based predominantly on that blog, which he has also used for several prominent charity drives. His novel Redshirts won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel. He has written non-fiction books and columns on diverse topics such as finance, video games, films, astronomy, and writing, and served as a creative consultant for the TV series Stargate Universe.
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Reviews and Comments
This book won the Hugo? For some reason, I expect books that win prizes like that to be something mindblowing. Guess what: this wasn't. Hannu Rajaniemi's book was, for example, even if I only understood half of it. So this was something of a funny adventure / metastory, somewhat likable characters, easy to read, but I didn't find it to be anything special. Old man's war had ideas and it was a better book imho.