This is a bit of a strange one. Prior to Redshirts, my only experience with Scalzi was Old Man's War which, gun to my head, I would probably declare my favorite science fiction novel, narrowly edging The Forever War. Ask me tomorrow and that's probably the other way around. Anyways, the point is, I adore that novel and I had extremely high expectations going in. 
 Throughout the first 100 pages or so I asked myself a few times if this was the same guy who wrote, what I consider, that masterpiece. Sure, there was some great humor...A few charmingly goofy characters to root for...But it just felt...hackneyed. Worse, it felt like a half-assed Star Trek episode. 
 Well (view spoiler)[that's exactly what it is! (hide spoiler)] 
 Once Scalzi makes it clear exactly what his intentions are, it absolutely cranks into another gear. He explores many classic sci-fi themes and ends up with quite an original take on the genre. For some, it'll probably be a little too meta, or come off as cheesy. While I would respect that opinion, I thought the second half of Redshirts was a lot of fun and went in a few directions I did not anticipate at all. 
 In the end, I'll remember Redshirts as some sort of crossover between (really very funny) biting satire and a metaphysical exploration of our entertainment mediums. I'm not even sure that last sentence made sense but, hey, it's what came out of the box.