Redshirts

Content Ratings

Mild Romance

Several characters have casual or developing romantic relationships; the content is brief and affectionate rather than sexually explicit.

Mild Themes

The novel explores the nature of narrative, the ethics of using characters as disposable cannon fodder, and what responsibility creators bear to those whose lives they invent; the codas are surprisingly affecting.

Mild Violence

Characters die in absurdly contrived away-mission accidents played partly for satirical comedy; violence has weight in the novel's emotional second half but is handled with tonal balance.

Synopsis

New crew members of the Universal Union flagship Intrepid begin to notice that junior officers die at an absurd and statistically impossible rate whenever senior officers go on away missions, and set out to investigate the terrifying meta-fictional reason why. A witty, affectionate parody of Star Trek and the conventions of television science fiction that also becomes a genuinely poignant meditation on narrative and the value of fictional lives. A Hugo Award winner.