Yay!  Finally the program is back up offering a monthly free ebook from publisher TOR (Macmillan).  Download before 11:59 PM ET, March 20th, 2020 from here.

Like last year, they seemed to stall the program the first few months of the year.  There's also a booklikes bookclub to read these freebies at TOR Monthly free ebook book club.

Publisher page for more info on the book is here.

A+++

I am so angry with myself for not listening to this audiobook sooner!  This is the perfect spoof/breaking-the-fourth-wall scifi story.  Think Star Trek with the ridiculousness and shenanigans amped up to 1,000.  And then the "protagonists" realize that they're the extras in a badly written scifi television show and they are all doomed unless they can do something about the writing  of the show.

The characters were perfection.  They were instantly likeable and interesting.   I was rooting for them from the moment they realized they were as good as dead if they were unlucky enough to be added to an away team.  And THEN they learned the insane truth that they're fictional characters.  The race was then on to figure out how to get the show cancelled so that they all didn't die tragic deaths.

The writing was fantastic.  I could have listened to ten more hours of it, especially with Wil Wheaton's amazing narration.   This gets all the stars and I highly recommend it!

"Let us violate cakes together"


In "Redshirts" by John Scalzi



(*day dreaming*)

I applied for a job to be a licensed fiction writer of sorts last year - it was working on flavour text and copy for the Star Trek Franchise. The interview was heavily focused on my ability to write within the constraints of their authorial voice and existing publications - as stringent as working for any publication with a house style. That's not quite, I admit, the same thing as writing tie-in novels - but the attitude of IP holders to how licensed authors should write I experienced seems very much to be more like writing for a journal or newspaper than writing fiction - the job I applied for would very much have been technical or copy-writing about subjects that were fictional. Definitely a "specific skillset" as this Scalzi’s novel shows once again - but in retrospect I'm quite glad I didn't get the job.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

My head hurts from trying not to cry over this book while listening to it at work, even though I already knew what would happen. Pff.

The idea that

still bugs me, though.

In some ways the first coda is even better in audio than it was in the print version. Wheaton reads all the x's used in place of identifying information. Example: "Mr. Ecksecksecksecksecks." My favorite was the very forceful "ECKS ECKS ECKS ECKS" at the part indicating that a restraining order would not be filed at this time.