This was a fun read, and often subtly funny, but not laugh-out-loud hilarious the way many reviews had led me to believe.

If you're a fan of science fiction television, Red Shirts works best as a send-up of the predictably bad writing and semi-contempt for causality those shows often embrace. Beyond that, there's just not a lot here. Once you strip away the meta-narrative tricks and call-and-response nerd humor, the characters are pretty two-dimensional and the plot is pretty simplistic, even episodic for the most part (as you might expect from an episodic television show). The three codas at the end feel tacked on, and don't really contribute much to a feeling of finality or closure.

Give this a shot if you're looking for a fun, quick read between meatier material. My high expectations might have ruined it for me.