Great Books: Redshirts

It’s always a treat when you stumble across a writer whom you really enjoy and have never encountered before. John Scalzi is writing science fiction with a mischievous twist, and I recently listened to two audiobooks (both narrated rather well by Star Trek’s Wil Wheaton. I bet he has strongly mixed feelings at being described that way).

The first, “Redshirts”, tells the story of a group of below decks crew on the Universal Union starship Intrepid, who discover that there is something funny going on with security guys who beam down to planets on away teams, that is, they all keep getting killed really stupidly…

The second, “Agent to the Stars”, is about a race of sentient blobs who decide to hire a Hollywood agent to mastermind their debut with the Human race. I’m surprised that this one has not been snapped up for a movie.

Both are great fun, tip their hats towards all the standards of modern science fiction, and are genuinely funny. And yes, Wil Wheaton does a really good job with the characterisations too.