It takes an incredible amount of talent to write genuinely readable comedy, especially readable GENRE comedy. It's easy(ish) to be funny for a chapter or two, but to keep a reader going without getting sick of the joke is a sign of real skill, and John Scalzi is at the top of his game in Redshirts.

Whether or not you're an avid Star Trek fan (I fall into the Not category), the concept of the ill-fated red shirt wearing crew member is firmly ensconced in the collective pop culture unconscious. So what if these poor bastards caught on to their own expendability? How would they react and deal with the hazards of their profession? And why is there a damn Box that goes ding?

This is a brilliantly meta novel, and as mentioned above (Box what goes ding), Scalzi doesn't hesitate to poke fun at the tropes that pop up again and again in sci/fi shows and books. Yet, it's the kind of ribbing a real fan gives a genre: not mean-spirited, just in on the joke and enjoying every moment of it.

While there's a good portion of Redshirts that's just damned funny, it also has its poignant moments. The codas especially were unexpected, but a fun literary exercise. Without giving away mad spoilers, I will just say that Scalzi has really thought through the implications of his narrative. It's this extra thought that elevates Redshirts above standard genre parody.

I've been a little "meh" about my reading lately - picking up books only to take forever to finish them, or putting them down and forgetting about them. I finished Redshirts over the course of an afternoon, neglecting just about everything else I was supposed to be doing. That's just about the highest praise I can give a book - so I encourage you to seek this one out once it's out in stores!