Books › Redshirts
Hugo Award for Best Novel 2013
Redshirts
451 pages
A hilarious, meta-fictional romp that turns a classic sci-fi trope on its head before delivering a surprisingly emotional gut punch.
What it feels like
Reading this feels like being let in on a massive, cosmic inside joke that slowly morphs into an existential crisis. The narrative moves at a brisk, dialogue-heavy clip, plunging you into the absurd paranoia of being a disposable background character in someone else's poorly written story. Initially, the mood is pure satirical romp, wry, irreverent, and deeply aware of its own genre tropes. But beneath the snappy banter and workplace comedy lies a creeping sense of dread about free will and the nature of reality. The prose is sharp and unpretentious, acting as a perfect delivery system for the meta-humor. It is a delight for anyone who loves sci-fi but loves poking fun at it even more, ultimately rewarding the reader with a surprisingly tender exploration of agency and what it means to be the main character of your own life.
- Mood
- absurd
- paranoid
- zany
- heartfelt
- Tone
- wry
- satirical
- irreverent
- meta
- earnest
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- free will and determinism · workplace survival · the illusion of reality · narrative tropes · existential dread
- The writing
- Snappy, highly accessible, and heavily reliant on rapid-fire dialogue to drive the momentum.
- The arc
- Begins as a hilarious, paranoid workplace comedy and deepens into a surprisingly moving meditation on agency and grief.
- Who it's for
- Sci-fi fans who love trope subversion, workplace comedies, and anyone who has ever yelled at a screen when a nameless extra gets killed.
Content notes
- character death
- existential dread
- mild violence
- grief
About the book
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, with the chance to serve on "Away Missions" alongside the starship's famous senior officers.
Life couldn't be better...until Andrew begins to realize that 1) every Away Mission involves a lethal confrontation with alien forces, 2) the ship's senior officers always survive these confrontations, and 3) sadly, at least one low-ranking crew member is invariably killed. Unsurprisingly, the savvier crew members below decks avoid Away Missions at all costs.
Then Andrew stumbles on information that 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. Redshirts by John Scalzi is the winner of the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Description from Open Library.
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