On the HahaFiction shelf
Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers
by Grant Naylor
Red Dwarf · Book 1 · 1989
A pub crawl leaves Dave Lister stranded on one of Saturn's moons. He joins the mining ship Red Dwarf hoping for a route home, but ends up three million years into the future as the last human. His companions include a dead crewmate's hologram, a deteriorating computer and a creature descended from his cat.
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What makes it funny?
On Mimas, even parking is an escalation: the cars bounce through the streets and drivers stack them on other cars. The futuristic technology has done little to improve anyone's judgment.
The comedy at work
Lister's slovenly habits and Rimmer's hunger for status keep them at odds. Sardonic asides and verbal inventions carry the jokes beyond their arguments, giving a grim future a persistently flippant narrator.
Try this if…
The novel starts the story afresh and expands the characters' backgrounds, so familiarity with the television series isn't required. It suits readers who enjoy science-fiction ideas filtered through petty grievances and domestic squabbles.
Good to know
The ending leads into the next novel rather than resolving everything. Fantasy Book Review also flags a detailed scene of drunken vomiting among the physical jokes.
More funny space opera
Sources & further reading
- Fantasy Book Review
Review
- Library edition record
Library catalog
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