Redshirts – John Scalzi
I’ve been meaning to read the work of mega-prolific writer John Scalzi for quite a while, and was never able to get around to it, despite having purchased several of his novels last year. Then, by a happy chance, audible.com had Redshirts available for less than $5 during their Black Friday sale and I thought, “What the hell…I’ll pick it up.” I went into Redshirts confident that I knew the central plot based only on the title and the synopses I’d skimmed of it a while earlier. Turns out that my assumptions only captured one layer of this impressive and fun meta-novel. I usually shy away from meta-izing things, but it feels appropriate here because the term doesn’t really capture what’s going on in the book. Before diving into the layers that make up Redshirts, I’d like to talk a bit about the narration, which contributed to some of the
