A nerd before the birth of TOS Red Shirts, I share my thoughts on genre media be it books, movies, TV shows, etc

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Giant Red Shirts


RedShirts by John Scalzi


A fun, quick read.


It niftily skewers the model of TV writing that grew out of shows of the original Star Trek and it's ilk. TV writing often operates under the dictum of, 'Don't need it good, need it Tuesday.'




Definitely a fun read but my biggest laugh was Scalzi's afterword where he boasts that Stargate:Universe, which he worked in, was a better written show than the Star Treks. S:U may have given its Redshirts more meaningful deaths but it had so many other writing problems.


Clever of Scalzi to take an oft discussed TV trope and turn it into a novel.


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Ewan McGregor, Ian MacShane, Stanley Tucci, Bill Nighy, and Bryan Singer.  When you write it down, such a list of talent leads you to believe that this will be a project of some import.  But, alas Jack The Giant Slayer is an instantly forgettable 3D effort that retells Jack and The Beanstalk.  It's rather amazing that a well acted and polished effort can lack any sort of emotional spark.  Goes to prove that story telling is an art and not a science.

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My short piece came back from my beta reader with great results and only a few minor suggested tweaks.  Sent the story off and thinking about the next story.My short piece came back from my beta reader with great results and only a few minor suggested tweaks.  Sent the story off and thinking about the next one.

To date, I've written a mirco-piece of 200 words and a flash fiction piece of 1000 words. Time to tackle a more traditional length of prose.

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