Megapopular writer John Scalzi's Whatever blog is often described as one of the few websites with a readable comments section, thanks to his strict policy of culling offensive posts — a process he refers to as "wielding the Mallet of Loving Correction." He's also known for posting oddly manipulated photos of himself and putting bacon on his cat. He writes novels, too, such as the Hugo-nominated Old Man's War, about elderly citizens given fresh young bodies and sent into space to fight aliens.

Scalzi is at heart a humorist — his novel The Android's Dream opens with a chapter-long fart joke — though the difficulties of marketing humorous science fiction have often caused publishers to downplay that. But Redshirts, which is being advertised as a Star Trek parody, may signal that Scalzi has achieved a profile sufficient enough to be beyond such worries. Redshirts concerns low-ranking crew members aboard an interstellar starship who start to notice a disturbing pattern — folks like themselves never seem to make it home safe from alien worlds, whereas high-ranking officers always seem strangely untouched by the danger.