Redshirts [Versión Kindle]

"Redshirts" is founded on a fairly clever conceit. Anyone even vaguely familiar with the original "Star Trek" television series is surely aware of the disposable crew members who were slaughtered in sordid ways when the Enterprise visited strange, new worlds. They were frequently ranked "ensign" and clad in red shirts. In each episode, the viewer could reliably predict the fate of the "away team" members, often by shirt color alone. Scalzi affectionately lampoons this and various other conventions of the sci-fi television series.

In his novel, new crew members aboard the Universal Union flagship Intrepid recognize some alarming patterns, not the least of which is that those of their ilk don't tend to live long... or prosper (sorry!). They slowly discern that there's a "Narrative" dictating the outcomes of their missions. While the more senior crew members have adapted by avoiding recognition and staying off the proverbial radar, the new crew members decide to challenge the "Narrative".

While Star Trek provides fertile ground for this type of satirical treatment, there really isn't enough substance for a novel. The primary narrative of "Redshirts" is only 231 pages, but that's at least a third longer than necessary given the story. The plotting is uncomplicated and straightforward despite the metafictional elements which Scalzi, to his credit, took a bit farther than expected. Characterization, another good potential use of space, was nonexistent. This wasn't a clever metaphor on Scalzi's part (i.e., symbolic that "redshirts" aren't fully-fleshed out characters in the series) but because, rightly or wrongly, he chose to focus on the ideas underpinning the story instead of character-building. Additionally, the dialog was largely stilted and awkward, blatantly contrived to demonstrate Scalzi's sardonic, snarky wit. Practically every conversation was a succession of setups and one-liners. Admittedly, they could be funny, but the overall affect was ruined by the unnatural delivery. It was also distracting that each quotation ended with "he/she/[name] said". I tried to discern some clever motive for this but couldn't escape the conclusion it simply resulted from laziness.

After the overly long principle story is finished, three codas follow. They're short stories told in first, second, and third-person respectively concerning minor characters from "Redshirts" proper. In these short stories, Scalzi chooses to deal with some heavier themes. In fact, there are several powerfully written and affecting passages.

The first coda is similar in tone to the standard narrative. It takes a shotgun approach to humor and tries way too hard. It's occasionally funny, but the effort's too transparent. And, although it can be easily overlooked, the story doesn't logically flow from the earlier narrative. That said, it does provocatively assert the need for artistic integrity.

The final two codas are much more successful, the last near flawless. Given the light and jocular nature of the rest of the work, the emotional punch these stories deliver is all the more jarring. Eschewing humor entirely, the tone is much more serious as Scalzi considers life and its choices and obligations. In the final 26 pages of the book, he suddenly and unexpectedly humanizes the story, concluding the book on an exceptionally high note. While Scalzi deserves considerable credit for the final two codas, one can't ignore that the bulk of the work, though clever and moderately amusing, was mostly mediocre.

John Scalzi has some great stories, but Redshirts is not one of them. When I heard about Redshirts last year, I was very psyched. A typical Scalzi novel is filled with wit and humor and given the premise, Redshirts sounded like it was going to be full of that and so much more, while potentially delivering a fascinating story. Instead, we are treated to a curse laden short story that got stretched into a novel, and because it was still short and lacked depth, had three afterthoughts attached. What does it say when the codas contain more character depth than the novel itself? Sad, but true.

A Scalzi protagonist is typically consistent between his novels: pun master, sarcastic, stubborn, and usually acts on behalf of the greater good. With Redshirts, all major characters felt like they were the same person because they all acted the same. Despite the novel's short length and that I read it in two days, I found myself getting confused with some of the main characters, not only because they all acted the same, but also because several names started with the same letter. Some disparity would have been appreciated.

I really had high hopes, and while Redshirts is a very quick and easy read, ultimately it is only mildly amusing. It does not feel like Scalzi put as much focus as he has with his other novels. Redshirts is a respectful nod to Star Trek, but it constantly separated itself from any Star Trek kind of atmosphere with the often unnecessary and excessive swearing. Despite that, I welcomed the absurdity of the story's twist, which handily added to the attempted humor of the story, but it is still that same story that ultimately fails to deliver. Compared to Scalzi's other works, it is pretty easy to recognize why Redshirts falls short with the story, characters and humor.

Set on a bad 21st century rip-off of Star Trek, the young ensigns aboard the starship Intrepid discover that their ship has an astonishing turnover of junior officers. They soon set out to investigate why so many of their shipmates are destined to die, while the senior officers (and one dashing young lieutenant) survive unscathed. The answer leads to a breaching of the fourth wall and a quest that draws its cues from a certain Star Trek cliche that I won't reveal here.

There were two ways John Scalzi's Redshirts could have gone: 1) it could have been a brilliant and clever deconstruction of the plot contrivances of Star Trek; 2) it could have been a one-note satire, too smug and self-satisfied for its own good. Unfortunately, Redshirts takes path #2.

I really wanted to like the novel (and three codas) -- in the hands of a stronger writer, this idea could have become a multilayered satire, but Scalzi is unfortunately not up to the task. Instead, the Star Trek jokes are obvious, and the pseudo-Trek universe of the Intrepid is significantly less inspired than the film Galaxy Quest, to which the novel has more than a passing similarity. Unlike Galaxy Quest, which was a loving send-up of Star Trek (and indeed is more entertaining than the Next Generation films), Redshirts seems at times to have a smug contempt for the source material. It focuses on the bad science and plot problems of Trek, rather than the sociopolitical commentary and iconic characters that made Trek great.

In many ways, Redshirts feels like something Scalzi wrote for fun and never intended to publish. It lacks the creative heft of much of his other work and is probably not worth purchasing at full price. It's not terrible, but it's not worth the brief amount of time it takes to read it.