Scalzi's parody of the genre clearly comes from a place of love, as someone who not just enjoys good sci-fi, but enjoys all of it, even when it's of the so-bad-it's-good variety. Scalzi perfectly captures and parodies all the wonderful tropes of bad sci fi that fans of the genre have come to expect and appreciate in ways: inexplicable explosions where none should be, constant escalation of dire situations that were seemingly avoidable, science labs that can magically cook up cures and solutions with juuusssstt enough time to spare, and of course, the never ending supply of expendable redshirts. I think that are just as fictional as we were supposed to be.' ( )Ī book that initially reads a pure satire of science fiction television, or more specifically bad science fiction television, Redshirts finishes as an actually heartwarming and deeply philosophical tale. He says 'I think there's no television show. That kept me from predicting they would finally realize that they were actually characters in a book. I obviously knew he was a character in a book, but I also knew the plot of the book was that the characters find out they're only extras on a TV show. The main character of the book, who was only an extra on the TV show, says 'we're all supposed to think we're real people who found out we were extras on a TV show' but of course the reader knows all of them are actually characters in a book. As far as I'm concerned, quantum physics could have been written by a hack.'īut the best part is the end, where it gets even more meta.

For example, 'Does quantum physics count? Because I don't understand that crap at all. The characters try to figure out when their lives branched off from actual reality by looking for crazy nonsense. This conceit lets the authors poke fun at crazy parts of the real world. And the TV show they're living isn't even well written. But the story is meta: the characters in the book eventually figure out that their lives are sometimes taken over by what they call 'the Narrative' and the laws of physics stop working, they take actions that they would not normally take, and people die. It starts as a spin-off of Star Trek, and there are fun easter eggs that reference elements of that show.

Redshirts by John Scalzi