The Half-Price Books I bought this in had it filed under the astronomy section. Someone's not actually checking the interiors. Tsk, tsk.
This is actually two stories collected into a single edition, I think. Infinity Makes Better Drives, and Better Than Life. The stories primarily focus on a few people on the spaceship Red Dwarf. Lister, a hapless, lazy drunk who joined the crew hoping it would get him back to Earth after he somehow woke up on Saturn's moon Mimas after a birth day debauch, and Rimmer, who is an even more hapless, unlikable, pitiable schmuck trying to become an officer in the Space Corps, but lacking any aptitude (in anything) whatsoever. Add to that the ship's computer Holly, a talking toaster, a cleaning droid named Kryten, and an intelligent being evolved from cats (named Cat), and that's what you've got.
It's largely a series of farcical disasters, as things just keep going wrong. Of course, for Rimmer, things have been going wrong since roughly the moment he was born, and for Lister, since at least that birthday. But it grows to include mass crew deaths, navigational problems, unexpected planets, virtual reality addiction, and the ship's computer struggling with getting old. There's also an emotion-draining shapeshifter that comes into play in the last 40 pages, which I didn't really enjoy. Granted, watching these idiots try to deal with that problem in their best approximation of competence was in-line with everything else, but it wasn't really a problem created by themselves, which most of the others were, in one way or another.
Also, the other problems feel vaguely ridiculous, whereas "space monster" didn't somehow. Maybe because it's such a personal level problem, while the others are somehow on a grander scale that's hard to grasp. The planetary collision isn't going to affect any more people than the shapeshifter, but it's still different. For the most part, the book's very funny, makes things absurd without going to the point you stop caring what's happening.
Naylor mostly manages to skirt the line with Rimmer between making him someone you can be both annoyed with and feel bad for, without veering too far in either direction. I say mostly because there were a few times I really just wanted him to die (again). You can only watch someone completely screw-up every single thing they attempt, while absolutely refusing to consciously acknowledge that's what they're doing, for so long, you know?
'Luck.
If Napoleon had been born Welsh, would his destiny have been the same? If he'd been raised in Colwyn Bay, would he have been a great general? Of course he wouldn't. He'd have married a sheep and worked in the local fish and chips shop. But no - he'd had the luck to be born in Corsica, just at the right moment in history when the French were looking for a short, brilliant Fascist dictator.'
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4 comments:
I found it interesting how the books differed from the TV series. Not just in terms of the special effects budget difference between the BBC and a novel, but in terms of characterisation and tone. The books seem more bleak, despite still being comedies.
I have this faint memory of seeing a very small part of one episode once. It must have been some point after Cat was introduced. So I can't compare.
Looking back at the stories, I can see the bleak aspect of it, but I don't know if I felt it while I was reading. There always seemed to be some immediate problem that took precedence over it being just the six or so of them traveling alone through space, with humanity dead millions of years in the past. Although now I wonder if they ran into the rest of Cat's people. The ones who split into two religious factions and traveled into space long ago.
I haven't read them in over twenty years so they may not be as bleak as I remember! In one of the books, they find Earth, except everyone has moved on and the planet is being used as a rubbish tip -- decades before Wall-E -- and I think Lister is stranded there. I remember that feeling quite bleak, even though there were plenty of jokes.
Perhaps it's because the books are more able to explore some of the concepts that the TV series has to rush through because it's a half-hour episodic sitcom.
Trash Heap Earth does happen, but it feels like it transitions away from it too quickly. Or maybe I'm too negative already so the idea of Earth being turned into a rubbish bin doesn't faze me.
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