Dr. McCoy Disproven
As to the genre… I, J.
Hardspear de la Azotea don’t “get” the whole science fiction slash satire or
fantasy slash satire thing. Or usually I
don’t. I don’t “get” Douglas Adams. I don’t “get” Terry Pratchet. Howevurrr…
Redshirts by John Scalzi is different.
It is meta. Maybe meta is
different from satire. As I started to
listen to the Audible version of Redshirts, I thought, “Oh no. Here we go again”. Before long though, I became totally enmeshed
in a geek get-off sort of way. It is
impossible not to if you have any affinity for Star Trek.
As to the plot… “In this galaxy there’s a mathematical
probability of three million Earth-type planets. And in the universe, three
million million galaxies like
this. And in all that, and perhaps more...only one of each of us”. -Dr. McCoy, Star Trek, “Balance of Terror”.
Well…
not according to John Scalzi! According
to John Scalzi, in some weird alternative time-line there CAN be more than one
of us. Just ask Ensign Andy Dahl and his
other low ranking, red-shirted compatriots.
The Three Codas… Towards the
end, the cadence of the book changes from a fast paced and funny warp 9 to a
slower, thoughtful, thrusters only velocity.
As I liked things nicely wrapped up, I would not have minded six or even
more codas.
The narrative and the narration…
Wil Wheaton reads with élan and gusto and excitement. The last coda he reads with emotion and
compassion. Many of the Audible reviews
comment on the distraction of the overuse of character perspective
indication. It’s complicated… How do I
explain. In the narration there are
conversations between characters where the sentences are short and all of them
end in “he said, she said” or “Dahl said, Duval said. This is especially rampant at the start of
the book, but grows less. I have not
seen the complaint in reviews of people who read the book as opposed to
listened to it. Maybe the book is
written to read like the script of a TV episode, I don’t know. I just thought it added to the book’s overall
quirkiness.
As to quality, yes it is worth to
use your monthly free credit. As to length,
it was a bit short. I usually try to get
more minutes for my money. (Remember, my
monthly Audible subscription costs 130 South African Rands)
