Redshirts

The long awaited Scalzi-Star Trek spoof featuring Wil Wheaton is out. Or at least the Wheaton-read audiobook is out. And I'm of a split mind. I liked the story. It was not drop to the floor laughing humor (although there were some moments of that). But the story and the codas did the characters well. It was not outright Trek spoofery, but it did joust with some of the lazier conventions of the science fiction television genre and did so well.

I was less enamored of Wheaton's performance, but some of that had to do with the writing. When a lot of characters were interacting, Wheaton did not really distinguish the character voices. The performance here was a little stiff. In his defense though, the dialogue was short and choppy and constantly identified the character speaking. (e.g. " What?" said Bob. "What?" said Fred. "What?" Said Bob. I challenge anyone to make that flow better as a spoken word product.) I think Wheaton really shined on the codas.

Still, I think I will be gifting a couple of these books to friends. It is a fun read.