If there is any topic writers like to write about more than any other, it's writers. Hemingway wrote about writers; John Irving writes about writers; now, John Scalzi has written about a writer.

("But wait!" you protest, "I thought this story was about a bunch of redshirts?" It is, until...well, dammit, read the book!)

It's worth reading, but as I read it, I kept picturing Scalzi sniggering gleefully while he typed the story up on Google Docs. The last chapter overtly confirms this image. I've never been a huge Star Trek fan, and I have a feeling there's a lot of little things I missed — nods to particular episodes, characters, situations, etc. That said, the influence of the redshirt extra has permeated science fiction television, and television in general, enough that I appreciated the scenario. I get the joke, even if it's a bit protracted.

The codas are the best part of the book, and my only complaint is that you have to read the previous pages to get to them. I don't mean this in the "we have to drive 400 miles to grandma's house" sense, but rather in the "the codas would be completely unintelligible without the preceding, smidge-above-mediocre story" sense. I'm not sure if that makes the overall book good or merely passable. Damn you, Scalzi!