Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas
Tor Books
Publication date: June 2012
ISBN: 9781429963602
Digital Book format: ePub (DRM-Free)
“Redshirts” is a humorous tale of the ‘common man’ in the science fiction genre. Parodying the non-stars who are always the first to go on episodes of Star Trek, Scalzi tells the funny, entertaining story of Ensign Andrew Dahl, a low-level crew member who begins to realize how expendable the underranks are -- both on the ship and in the story…
Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to theUniversal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of theUniversal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting,and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to theship’s Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on thefact that (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethalconfrontation with alien forces, (2) the ship’s captain, its chiefscience officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky alwayssurvive these confrontations, and (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed. Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy belowdecks is expendedon avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission.Then Andrew stumbles on information that completelytransforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what thestarship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-riskchance to save their own lives.