Book Review - Redshirts

Redshirts by John Scalzi is a Star Trek satire. It makes fun of the TV show because you know if the episode started with an away mission and there was an unfamiliar ensign wearing a red shirt, he/she would be killed off before the first commercial break.

In Redshirts, the ensigns start to figure out what's going on. They even have calculated odds of survival depending on which of the senior officers are on the away mission. It's really amusing at times.

Though, the characters felt a bit incomplete. All we really knew was some the basic background story (this guy knew an obscure language, that guy came from a rich family, etc), pretty much the same you'd get in a TV series.

But it's not. It's a book. The characters had no hopes and dreams other than to stop the weird fatality rate among crew members. Like all people, they wanted to control their fate and not have it written for them by some lazy writer who didn't know how to write drama.

There's no stakes involved - other than the not dying pointless away mission deaths anymore. If they managed to stop the deaths, what then? They go about being ensigns again. Eh, boring.

The book would've been really interesting if there was a subplot going on. Like the protagonist falls in love, but is worried about him/her dying on the next away mission and must find a way to stop the mysterious deaths or watch the loved one die by ice shark attack. There needed to be some reason the ensigns wanted to live, other than, well, wanting to live. Everyone has hopes, dreams, plans, and a future. Not in this book though.