Last night [June 15, 2012 or so], John Scalzi rocked Brooklyn (Greenpoint, to be specific) with a batch of readings, Q&A, and a hilarious performance based on his new novel, Redshirts. It all went down at Word, a wonderfully charming little book store (packed to the ceiling with actual books, yay!). Bottom line: Humor and sci-fi can indeed have a self-sustaining symbiotic synergy (surprising skeptical sages).
Redshirts is loosely derived from references in a certain classic TV series to those NPC-esque crewmembers who inevitably take the first hit and instantly die on every away team mission. I was sort-of expecting that fans showing up for Scalzi’s talk would be wearing some sort of regalia. All I had was a red T-shirt and a big Federation pin I’d gotten while working on the set at Paramount during our photography for the Star Trek Interactive Technical Manual (CD-ROM, remember them?). Turns out, I won the prize for the best ‘outfit.’ More like… the ‘only outfit.’