Discussion

[Thomas]

OK, so by general consensus, REDSHIRTS by John Scalzi is up next
Its a fun ride.
:)

[Thomas]

Well the object is not for anybody to get stressed out… I think that if we need some more time especially because were going to coming up against the holidays here pretty soon I'll think anybody would really be that upset about it if we took some more time to read these books.

[Geoffrey]

LOL getting this thing done pretty fast it's a really quick read.

[Christine]

I just finished it and am in tears. What I thought was going to be a send-up of all that is SF on television ended up being a lovely meditation on fate, pre-determination, whatever you call it. Are all of Scalzi's books this well thought out?

[Geoffrey]

This is the first one I've read. If anyone has gone further with this author let us all know. Which book(s) would be a nice continuation from Redshirts?

[Darlene]

Christine wrote: "I just finished it and am in tears. What I thought was going to be a send-up of all that is SF on television ended up being a lovely meditation on fate, pre-determination, whatever you call it. Are..."
Christine, that's a really lovely perspective and you are absolutely right. I am so busy slurping up books sometimes I don't really do much deep thinking about it, but it WAS a lovely meditation of pre-determination. This is why I enjoy book groups, getting the perspective of people who think more deeply than I, help me be a deeper thinker. how many times can I write deep thinker? geesh. Thank!

[Maudie]

I also found this to be more compelling than I expected. I was expecting it to be completely goofy, but I liked the goofy/compelling ratio. :)

I did feel that maybe one or two plot points got short shrift, unless the point of the "who are you?" conversation with Hanson just went way over my head. It seemed that that scene was leaning towards Hanson as the over-arching narrator, but I didn't feel that the point was made, or not made to my satisfaction, anyway. I'm willing to do some of the work in coming to a conclusion like that, but I'd like the author to meet me at least halfway, and I don't think he got there.

But having said that: I've recommended this one to my 15-year old nephew (my last recommendation to him was Ready Player One and that was a HUGE hit), but I'm not sure if he needs more Star Trek knowledge than he's currently got to enjoy this. My gut feeling is that there's enough Star Trek-iana just out there in the ether, that he won't really need to have ever watched it to get the gist. (I'm not a big Trek fan myself, but I watched the original with my dad way way back in the day...)

[Erica]

This is one of my favorite books. I read thinking one thing about it- that it would be full of comedy- and discovered that it wasn't really about that at all and found parts quite moving, and wanting more from the characters in the form of a sequel. I'm a series junkie though as often when I read a stand alone book I'm sad at the end b/c it means I can't read about these characters anymore