Redshirts

A Hugo winner that deserved the award in my view. It starts off as a hard science fiction story about an accident, and then a series of accidents on the starship. At some point the characters figure out that they are actually the embodiment of fictional characters on a TV Science Fiction series - a poorly written series. They are getting tired with the way things progress in their lives and conclude that the only way to change things is to go back and speak to the writer and actors who portray the characters they are, The story takes place around the year 2550 and was written in 2012 so they have to steal a space shuttle and skim by a black hole so as to be transported back in time. They succeed and go back confronting the writer, producer, and the extras who created the roles for the people they have become. Somehow all the characters accept the truth of that crazy scenario and they even manage to save the life of the producers son who was brain dead because of a motor cycle accident. They go back to the future taking the soon with them and leaving his double in the 21st century. In the future the technology is good enough to salvage him from his injuries. The book then ends with three codas with various characters from the twenty first century figuring out how to cope with being dopplegangers. The story is part time travel, part comedy of errors, and part giving people the opportunity to live their lives in two different ways. It is funny as well as mind bending.

This book was great because it totally started out as a satire of Star Trek that you didn't have to know anything about Star Trek to actually enjoy. Then it became a standalone sci-fi story in it's own right, before taking its final form: a quasi-philosophical work that asks, "Are the characters that we create real?" And the best part is, that it does all of this while maintaining a comedic undertone that keeps it feeling light and whimsical while still making you think.