Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
2 journalers for this copy...
This is not an ordinary book: it's a BookCrossing book! BookCrossing books are world travelers - they like to have adventures and make new friends...and every once in a while they even write home to say what they've been doing.Extra copy from Goodwill; larger photo here.
Great stuff; I also recommend the audio version, read by Wil Wheaton. If you get why that would be amusing, you should enjoy this book.
Other copies on my BookCrossing shelf: 12886712 • 14846410
Monday, May 21, 2018: RABCK headed for New Hampshire. I love this one - hope you like it too!
ETA 6/11/18
USPS tracking 9549 0104 3303 8141 4610 08
I'm counting this for Davros-10's 2018 TV Challenge because it's heavily influenced by Star Trek (as one might suspect from the title) although the series is not actually named in the book.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I'm so glad you've found this book!
Please take a moment to make a journal entry and let this book's previous readers know that it's safe with you.
How and where did you find the book? What did you think of it? What are you going to do with it next?
It's now your book, for you to do with as you please: keep it, pass it to a friend, or maybe even leave it where someone else can find it!
If you've ever wondered where your books go after they leave your hands, join BookCrossing and you may find out: you'll be able to follow your books as new readers make journal entries - sometimes from surprisingly far-flung locations.
BookCrossing: making the whole world a library!
ETA 6/11/18
USPS tracking 9549 0104 3303 8141 4610 08
I'm counting this for Davros-10's 2018 TV Challenge because it's heavily influenced by Star Trek (as one might suspect from the title) although the series is not actually named in the book.
I'm so glad you've found this book!
Please take a moment to make a journal entry and let this book's previous readers know that it's safe with you.
How and where did you find the book? What did you think of it? What are you going to do with it next?
It's now your book, for you to do with as you please: keep it, pass it to a friend, or maybe even leave it where someone else can find it!
If you've ever wondered where your books go after they leave your hands, join BookCrossing and you may find out: you'll be able to follow your books as new readers make journal entries - sometimes from surprisingly far-flung locations.
BookCrossing: making the whole world a library!
The package arrived safely today, just ahead of a rainstorm. Thanks so much for the wishlist books! The summary for this one made me think of Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards!, another book that's an homage to the characters whose purpose in the story is to get killed to show the *important* characters (and the reader) how dangerous the situation is... (It also reminds me of the hilarious Star Trek homage/parody film Galaxy Quest, which features a character who spends a LOT of time fretting about his fate as an obvious redshirt!)
And yes, I can see how Wheaton would be a great choice to read the audio version!
Later: Very entertaining set of riffs on the "redshirt" concept, from the early scenes in which the designated victims meet assorted unpleasant fates - even when it requires the combined foolishness of several otherwise-clever characters to make the deaths possible - to the more advanced part of the story, where the redshirts who've realized what's going on find some surprisingly innovative ways to attempt to change their fates. In between, we get to see how office politics might play out in a world where the senior folk are aware of the redshirt issue, and work out how to hide from any interaction with the main cast so as to avoid becoming redshirts themselves.
I think my favorite character was Lt. Kerensky, the "Chekov" expy whose role was to take loads of damage but NOT to actually die; this trait is used by the redshirt team once they work out how the "Narrative" functions, and it's vastly entertaining, if not always very pleasant for Kerensky...
The whole book is full of fiction tropes, some useful and some ridiculous, including bits where people suddenly remember chunks of back-story that are only relevant for the current situation, and which they never knew before (and may have forgotten by the next major incident, assuming they survive that long). And then there's The Box, the magical diagnostic gizmo that will create cures or decipher illnesses - but only at the very last moment.
The story gets even more meta when the characters discover another spaceship with a similar and oddly unlikely mortality pattern to their own: one "Enterprise"...
Despite the levels of complexity - and reality - involved here, the story does come up with a resolution, or perhaps several depending on how you read the multiple codas. Great fun!
[There's a TV Tropes page on the book, which I'm saving to read after I've finished the book!]
And yes, I can see how Wheaton would be a great choice to read the audio version!
Later: Very entertaining set of riffs on the "redshirt" concept, from the early scenes in which the designated victims meet assorted unpleasant fates - even when it requires the combined foolishness of several otherwise-clever characters to make the deaths possible - to the more advanced part of the story, where the redshirts who've realized what's going on find some surprisingly innovative ways to attempt to change their fates. In between, we get to see how office politics might play out in a world where the senior folk are aware of the redshirt issue, and work out how to hide from any interaction with the main cast so as to avoid becoming redshirts themselves.
I think my favorite character was Lt. Kerensky, the "Chekov" expy whose role was to take loads of damage but NOT to actually die; this trait is used by the redshirt team once they work out how the "Narrative" functions, and it's vastly entertaining, if not always very pleasant for Kerensky...
The whole book is full of fiction tropes, some useful and some ridiculous, including bits where people suddenly remember chunks of back-story that are only relevant for the current situation, and which they never knew before (and may have forgotten by the next major incident, assuming they survive that long). And then there's The Box, the magical diagnostic gizmo that will create cures or decipher illnesses - but only at the very last moment.
The story gets even more meta when the characters discover another spaceship with a similar and oddly unlikely mortality pattern to their own: one "Enterprise"...
Despite the levels of complexity - and reality - involved here, the story does come up with a resolution, or perhaps several depending on how you read the multiple codas. Great fun!
[There's a TV Tropes page on the book, which I'm saving to read after I've finished the book!]
Journal Entry 4 by 
GoryDetails
at Thistle Pig Restaurant in South Berwick, Maine USA on Thursday, August 2, 2018
GoryDetails at Thistle Pig Restaurant in South Berwick, Maine USA on Thursday, August 2, 2018
Released 5 yrs ago (8/2/2018 UTC) at Thistle Pig Restaurant in South Berwick, Maine USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
I left this book on a bench in the entrance of the Thistle Pig on this warm day, after a really lovely lunch; hope someone enjoys it![See other recent releases in ME here.]
*** Released for the 2018 Keep Them Moving release challenge. ***
*** Released for the 2018 One Word Title release challenge. ***
