Hello!
I’ve had a slightly odd week, as I’ve got some sinus/inner-ear thing that’s making me feel woozy and spaced out… perhaps appropriately, as this week I’m writing about a series set in deep space: Red Dwarf.
In case you hadn’t guessed, this week’s review is on Red Dwarf- not just the book but also the TV series.
Red Dwarf by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
The (first) book of Red Dwarf is subtitled Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, however the TV series is probably better known.
In the near future, Dave Lister has ended up on Mimas, one of Saturn’s moons*, due to a drunken birthday night out. He ends up joining the Space Corps in order to make his way back to Earth, and is assigned to the mining ship Red Dwarf. However, on discovering that he will need to work for several years aboard the ship before it returns to Earth, he gets himself into trouble so he’s put into stasis. When Holly, the ship’s computer, releases him it feels like he stepped into the stasis booth only a moment ago – but they are three million years in the future, and the rest of the crew are dead.
Lister is not entirely alone. With him are Rimmer, a hologram (a man who never met a Space Corps directive he didn’t like, and can recount entire games of Risk that he played at cadet school) and the Cat, not a human but felis sapiens (loves his own appearance, obsessive about his suits). Shortly after they are joined by Kryten, a service mechanoid who loves cleaning and the soap opera Androids and believes in Silicon Heaven.
The original TV series ran from 1988 to 1999, and was rebooted (appropriately) on the channel Dave 10 2009. It explores space and the delights of living with other people who drive you mad… and it’s very, very funny.
Rimmer is obsessed with neatness and his own inadequacy; he detests Lister who is happy as a slob, biting off his own toenails and living on curry. Their personality clashes provide for some great comedy – add in Kryten and the Cat and you have comedy gold.
I re-read the book for this review, and I have to (slightly reluctantly) admit – I like the original TV series better. I think Grant and Naylor’s writing is more effective in the short form of TV episodes. The book starts off slowly – we don’t meet Lister until chapter 3 and he doesn’t see Red Dwarf until chapter 8 – and has a slightly different writing style, and some of it veers into a slightly different storyline. Having said that, there are parts of the book which – if they hit your funny bone – are astoundingly, laugh-out-loud-until-your-diaphragm-hurts funny. My favourite parts are chapter 7 when Lister meets the Space Corps recruitment officer (spoiler: he has a possible attitude problem) and chapter 12 which dives into Rimmer’s approach to exam revision – and why he has so far received nine Fs for fail and two Xs for unclassified. I realise this might not sound particularly entertaining, but trust me - read it!
Ultimately, if you are a fan of the humour of the TV series, it’s worth reading the first book – enjoy chapter 12 in particular! If you like the style of the book, there are further instalments: Better Than Life, also by Grant and Naylor, Backwards, written by Rob Grant, and Last Human by Doug Naylor. Rob Grant has also written a novel called Colony in a similar vein – it might also be worth a go.
Reading the book has brought back lots of memories of watching the series, and as I am a big fan, I’m going to finish by mentioning five of my favourite episodes:
5. Meltdown (series 4, episode 6). The crew travel to Waxworld, an android theme park where the waxdroids include Elvis Presley, Albert Einstein and Adolf Hitler. Rimmer thinks he can whip the droids into shape…
4. Back to Reality (series 5, episode 6). The crew wakes up to find that Red Dwarf is actually a total immersion video game that they have been playing… or is it? Timothy Spall makes a guest appearance and calls them all twonks.
3. Polymorph (series 3, episode 3). A genetically engineered space mutant provides a challenge, causing Rimmer to temporarily embrace his hippy side. “… I propose we hit it hard and hit it fast with a major – and I mean major – leaflet campaign.”
2. Quarantine (series 5, episode 4). This was very nearly top of the list. Rimmer is in a snit about Space Corps directives, and puts the others into quarantine… but he’s the one infected with a holo-virus. Can the boys from the Dwarf survive? Sprouts and gingham feature in this episode and there’s also a mention of the Potato King.
1. Marooned (series 3, episode 2). The crew abandons ship as Red Dwarf approaches five black holes. When the chips are down, Lister has to burn their belongings to survive… and will he give in and eat the dog food… or the Pot Noodle? A classic episode, with an absolutely perfect storytelling camera shot. You have to watch it to see!
* A bit of space trivia: Mimas was discovered in 1789 by English astronomer William Herschel, using a 40-foot reflector telescope. In case you wondered. It has a massive crater on its surface, about 60 miles wide, which is about a quarter of Mimas’s diameter.
This week’s List: 10 more TV series set on spaceships
… continuing the TV series theme!
1. Firefly – my absolute favourite, possibly even better than Red Dwarf? (Although not as funny.) Serenity is a Firefly-class ship, and in the 26th century this is space with a dash of the wild west.
2. Star Trek: Next Generation. I love Captain Picard, who can say “to boldly go” with more gravitas than James T Kirk.
3. Star Trek: Voyager. The ship is stranded in the Delta Quadrant and trying to make its way home. And it has a female captain – Kathryn Janeway.
4. Blake’s Seven, set aboard the ship Liberator, controlled by an AI called Zen. Original series aired in 1978.
5. Andromeda. The ship is the Andromeda Ascendant, also known as Rommie. The series stars Kevin Sorbo.
6. Battlestar Galactica. The Battlestars are a class of armoured carrier in service to the Colonial Fleet. Another one from 1978 - a big year for sci-fi series.
7. Lost in Space – an even older classic, the ship was the Jupiter 2, which was saucer-shaped. The series ran from 1965 to 1968.
8. Farscape. Moya, the ship, is a living entity and the other characters live inside her.
9. We can’t forget about Doctor Who – and the Tardis. Is she technically a ship? Perhaps… she moves through space (as well as time) so I’m going to include this! (Favourite doctor: a tie between the 10th and 11th doctors.)
10. The Expanse, an American sci-fi series based on James S Corey’s novels, with the ship Rocinate. I haven’t seen this yet, but I love the novels, so will look out for it.
Also this week…
Watched RIPD with the kids – the first time we watched this we didn’t rate it very highly, but over time it has grown on us!
Coming up…
I read The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley and will be reviewing that next.
Have a good week, and happy reading 😊
Vic
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