I’d rather not go into the details, on account of spoilers, so I’ll just say that I’m sure Scalzi had a great time writing the book. Things get even stranger (and more metatextual) when the crew start thinking about the ‘rules’ of the setting. The crewmen and women of the Intrepid are very much aware of their ship’s ridiculously high fatality rate, and so they do everything they can to avoid the captain and other officers at whatever cost. Thankfully, Scalzi soon moves past the cheap gags (mostly), and starts playing around with the ideas behind the setting. If Scalzi left it at that, Redshirts would be amusing, but hardly anything new (much less Hugo-worthy). Scalzi is particularly good at that last part, bringing over some of the grit and horror from stuff like Old Man’s War to a cheesier Sci-fi setting, which makes it all the more jarring. It starts out pretty much as you’d expect: there’s a starship called the Intrepid, there are away teams, and there are lots and lots of gruesome fatalities. I have to admit, I was a little bit leery of the book at first. It’s always good for a cheap gag, either through a character referencing it, or maybe a little bit of black humor when you need to off some expendable extras to up the stakes. It’s a joke as old as Star Trek, that has ingrained itself in pop culture. Aim for the guy who’s not in the opening credits!
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