It takes an incredible amount of talent to write genuinely readable comedy, especially readable GENRE comedy. It's easy(ish) to be funny for a chapter or two, but to keep a reader going without getting sick of the joke is a sign of real skill, and John Scalzi is at the top of his game in Redshirts.

Whether or not you're an avid Star Trek fan (I fall into the Not category), the concept of the ill-fated red shirt wearing crew member is firmly ensconced in the collective pop culture unconscious. So what if these poor bastards caught on to their own expendability? How would they react and deal with the hazards of their profession? And why is there a damn Box that goes ding?

This is a brilliantly meta novel, and as mentioned above (Box what goes ding), Scalzi doesn't hesitate to poke fun at the tropes that pop up again and again in sci/fi shows and books. Yet, it's the kind of ribbing a real fan gives a genre: not mean-spirited, just in on the joke and enjoying every moment of it. While there's a good portion of Redshirts that's just damned funny, it also has its poignant moments. The codas especially were unexpected, but a fun literary exercise. Without giving away mad spoilers, I will just say that Scalzi has really thought through the implications of his narrative. It's this extra thought that elevates Redshirts above standard genre parody.

I've been a little "meh" about my reading lately - picking up books only to take forever to finish them, or putting them down and forgetting about them. I finished Redshirts over the course of an afternoon, neglecting just about everything else I was supposed to be doing. That's just about the highest praise I can give a book - so I encourage you to seek this one out once it's out in stores!

Really, instead of a written review, this should just be video of me laughing so hard while reading this at lunch that I started laugh-sobbing, much to the amusement of those around me. And I was only on chapter three - the chapter that involves, so help me god, a dead squirrel hand-puppet. If you've read Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess) before, I don't have to tell you she is absolutely hysterically funny. If you haven't, then, prepare yourself for one hell of a ride through her demented carnival ride of a life (roadkill puppets and all).

This is a book so funny that I found total strangers reading over my shoulder. Hell, even my boyfriend who is definitely NOT a reader has made me swear he's next on the list to read my galley copy. At this point, I have friends ready to shank me if I don't get them a copy. It is that. damn. good.

What sends this book above and beyond is the way the author has dealt with the tragedies in her life. I respect her so much for being up front and almost casual about her struggles with mental and physical health. It's refreshing to read about mental illness in a way that doesn't exoticize or stigmatize the sufferer - for Lawson it's just part of everyday life. So beyond making her readers snort-cry, she's doing them a real service, and what else could you ask for? I mean, besides a giant metal chicken called Beyonce?

This is, in the parlance of its setting, a cracking good read. Set in 1912, it has a pleasantly dark cast throughout the whole story, giving the reader the impression of hunting madness alongside Sebastien in the Smoke. There's an authenticity to "The Bedlam Detective" that belies some of the more extreme plot points - the characters don't come off as modern people in fancy historical dress. From Sebastien's casual dismissal of native cultures to the imperial fancies of Sir Owain, the impression the reader gets is purely early twentieth century.

While the mystery was enough to keep me turning pages, it was the overall atmosphere that had me finishing this in a matter of a few hours (a rare occurrence for a full-time bookseller and part-time student). The descriptions of the ill-fated Amazon voyage that put all the players into motion is so ineffably creepy, and there is a point towards the end of that part of the tale that I don't want to spoil, but it genuinely made my skin crawl in horror.

It's certainly not High Literature, but it is a damned fine read, and I have high hopes for a series.