As Maia Duvall tells him, "That's a good story."
The same is true of the novel that relates these events. John Scalzi's latest book, Redshirts is a good, no, a great, story.
[mild spoilers after the jump]
Which, by the way, is also worth noting: Redshirts is not just a novel for Star Trek fans. Sure, you'll get more of the jokes if you've seen it, but the novel is self-contained enough that it is enjoyable, funny, and thought-provoking even without this outside knowledge.
One of the things that I enjoyed most about Redshirts was the way in which it asked larger questions about religion, fate, and free will, without hitting you over the head with them. The "poke fun at Star Trek" premise makes the whole novel rather light-hearted, but Scalzi carefully includes details that bring substance to back up the humor. Dahl's former occupation as a Forshan seminary student is no accident, and his understanding of faith, belief, and a higher power ends up being central to the development of the plot.
Another aspect of Redshirts that I really enjoyed was its metafictionality. I like metafiction when it's done well, and Scalzi's novel does it very well. He doesn't mix the world of the novel and our world just for laughs, or to show how clever he is--no, the metafiction of the novel is a vital element of the plot of the novel. Furthermore, Scalzi uses it to raise some very provocative questions about the nature of fiction.
The only thing I wasn't sure about in Redshirts were the three codas, and in particular, the first one. I know that these codas are a key part of the novel, even making it into the full title of the book on Amazon (Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas), but for me, it meant that the story of Dahl and his shipmates ended sooner that I was ready for it to. I also wasn't sure that the tone of the narrator of the first coda matched the personality of him that the earlier part of the novel had established, and as a result, the move to this first coda in particular felt a bit abrupt. Scalzi does some cool things with shifting narrative points of view throughout these codas, though, and the final one brings everything together in a resolution that is heart-warming and satisfying.
Overall, Redshirts, like all of Scalzi's fiction, is well-written, funny, and easy to read, and it also raises provocative questions about the nature of fiction, faith, and free will. A wonderful novel for both Star Trek fans as well as those who have no idea what the T. in Captain James T. Kirk stands for.
By Jen Miller