May 3, 2017

Someone Help me put on this Redshirt: On Scalzi



I really liked reading this book.

I had read an earlier book by Scalzi, one of his first ones, and it was really close to another book that was a classic of the genre, so I was worried about someone being the kind of guy who was happy being successful as a derivative author.

But this book is derivative in a good way. It takes the Star Trek tradition of killing a minor character and both plays it for laughs and as an introspective look at the genre itself. It would be hard here to get into too much detail here and not give it away, but if you like the work of Vonnegut and Calvino, you’d be at home here.

The last third is a bit much though, since it takes the trope, turns it inside out, and looks at its desiccated corpse. What was once clever becomes sign-posted. 

It’s really good, just stop at page 230.

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