I had to go back and check (I read the ARC a while ago), but yes. I also liked the playing around with the 3rd person/2nd person/etc too, which I guess plays into the whole meta/4th wall thing.
As a matter of personal taste, this wasn’t the direction I wanted the book to go. I wanted an in-universe approach and explanation to the redshirt phenomenon.
Read Expendable by James Alan Gardner, if you haven't already!
My own review is on my lj, but I'm sort of with you. I didn't start writing my own version, but otherwise, yep. I also found it more crack-a-smile amusing than laugh-out-loud funny. And since I don't know Michigan fandom, the specifics of the in-joke references to Michigan fandom were lost on me.
I have gotten frustrated in general with Tuckerizations and in-joke references lately: as I know more people in the genre and am able to spot more of them, I find them more frustrating rather than fewer. When I know who they're talking about, I am thrown out of the story more. When I don't, I can often still spot them making an indigestible lump in the book. After reading three books in a row this spring with really overt Tuckerizations and in-jokes, I became more resolved to avoid them.
::Note to self - don't send Mris a copy of my next book::
The ones that bug me are the really overt ones, like you say. If they blend into the story well enough that you don't notice unless you're part of the joke, I think they work sell. (And I think the line about Jer fit pretty well into the story.) At the same time, they can definitely jar you out of the world of the story, especially if they're less than subtle.
I have just had the feeling that a lot of authors I otherwise like are more confident in their own subtlety in these matters than they ought to be, so possibly I should be less confident in my own subtlety in these matters also.
To be fair, it probably doesn't matter to 95 percent of readers. They only stand out to me when I know who is being Tuckerized, or when it presents a story element that otherwise doesn't fit in, like "Jer is a dick." That didn't really make sense within the story.
The way Scalzi managed to make his story break *two different fourth walls* was just excellent. I really enjoyed it.. I got the ebook and read it in less than four hours
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Read Expendable by James Alan Gardner, if you haven't already!
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I highly recommend it.
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I have gotten frustrated in general with Tuckerizations and in-joke references lately: as I know more people in the genre and am able to spot more of them, I find them more frustrating rather than fewer. When I know who they're talking about, I am thrown out of the story more. When I don't, I can often still spot them making an indigestible lump in the book. After reading three books in a row this spring with really overt Tuckerizations and in-jokes, I became more resolved to avoid them.
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The ones that bug me are the really overt ones, like you say. If they blend into the story well enough that you don't notice unless you're part of the joke, I think they work sell. (And I think the line about Jer fit pretty well into the story.) At the same time, they can definitely jar you out of the world of the story, especially if they're less than subtle.
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John Scalzi: Wallbuster. I think he'd like that.
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