TOS Cliche Inspires Original SF Novel
- Thread starter Ryan Thomas Riddle
- Start date
There are also red shirts to go with.
James Alan Gardner's "League of Peoples" series of novels is also loosely based on the redshirt cliche - in the series, the Explorer Corps is made up of people whose jobs are to be the first to go down to alien planets and make sure they're safe for others. When an Explorer is killed in the line of duty, it's called "going 'Oh shit'" because those are usually the last words heard over the communication system. Other characters' reaction is generally, "That's what 'expendable' means."
The idea of the Explorer Corps came from a play - for several years, Jim was a member of a theatre company called FASS at the University of Waterloo, who write and perform a musical comedy every year. (I was a member from 1989 to 1993, which is how I first met Jim.) The theme of the following year's show is decided at the annual general meeting, and one year the theme that was chosen was Star Trek. One of the characters was a redshirt by the name of Ensign Expendable - hence the title of the first book in the series.
The entire series consists of seven books: Expendable, Commitment Hour, Vigilant, Hunted, Ascending, Trapped and Radiant. I'm not sure if any are still in print, but they can generally be found at used bookstores. I highly recommend them. (And would even if Jim weren't a friend. He's a very good writer.)
The idea of the Explorer Corps came from a play - for several years, Jim was a member of a theatre company called FASS at the University of Waterloo, who write and perform a musical comedy every year. (I was a member from 1989 to 1993, which is how I first met Jim.) The theme of the following year's show is decided at the annual general meeting, and one year the theme that was chosen was Star Trek. One of the characters was a redshirt by the name of Ensign Expendable - hence the title of the first book in the series.
The entire series consists of seven books: Expendable, Commitment Hour, Vigilant, Hunted, Ascending, Trapped and Radiant. I'm not sure if any are still in print, but they can generally be found at used bookstores. I highly recommend them. (And would even if Jim weren't a friend. He's a very good writer.)
Similar threads
