Remember in the old Star Trek series, Kirk, Spock, and Bones would beam down to the planet with some unnamed security officer in a red shirt?  The moment he appeared on screen, you knew he was going to die at some point, just to show you how dangerous the situation was (without having to sacrifice one of the main characters).

Red Shirts by John Scalzi gives us the opportunity to see what a ship with that kind of turnover would really be like.  If away missions were always a death sentence for the poor schmuck who accompanied the bridge officers, anyone who lived long enough to figure it out would find a way to be unavailable for such missions.  They'd also make sure to pawn off such a dangerous task on new, and unsuspecting, crew members.

Andrew Dahl is one such new crew member.  From the get go he starts to realise the people on board the Intrepid are bug nutty.  Always disappearing when a senior officer arrives to put together an away team, and having weird superstitions about how to survive if they do get stuck on an away mission.  Dahl and his fellow newbies start to piece the puzzle together and find the truth is stranger than fiction!

This is a great story, full of laugh out loud moments, as Dahl and his friends struggle to figure out, and then fix, the seriously high mortality rate aboard their ship.

The Good: "Where are my pants?"
The Bad: Story ends at about 3/4 of the book.  The rest is made up of "Coda's" done in different styles.
The Ugly: Hanson's relevance to Dahl's second revelation... just bugs me.  I like the idea, but the execution... hmm

Two thumbs up.  Even if you don't read the Codas (which do serve to tie up loose ends) it's highly enjoyable.  I finished everything but the last 2 codas in one day.  The codas themselves are enjoyable, but feel kind of like a writing assignment.