Red Dwarf:
Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers
By Grant
Naylor
Yes, this is the story. It starts out that
Lister got himself really drunk and ended
up on Miranda, with only a false passport, a woman's MacDonald's uniform,
and no
memory of how he got there. He wants to leave, but has almost
no money. He has to
steal hoppers (hopping Taxi cabs) to earn some money, but he almost
always blows it on
Larger (beer).
One day he meets a man from the Space Corps by the
name of Todhunter. He
wants to go to a restaurant that just happens to be at the same address
as a brothel. Lister
soon realizes this is not the man he claims, but one Arnold Rimmer.
But this sparks an
idea of how to get home. He joins the Space Corps, only to learn
the only available ship,
Red Dwarf, is going to have an 18 month mining trip. Although
there is no turning back,
Lister decides to smuggle a cat on board which puts him in stasis for
the whole journey.
Needless to say, he wakes up three million years
later and starts to go crazy with
loneliness.
Holly, the ship's computer, resurrects Rimmer as
the ship's hologram.
They discover the Cat, and, almost exactly like the show, Kryten.
They salvage the Nova 5 and
find in it a special drive which can take them home.
They repair it efficiently and return to Earth.
But something is not right,
when Lister discovers the symbol U=BTL on his arm.
Better
Than Life
By Grant
Naylor
Lister, Rimmer, and Cat are still in Better Than
Life, even though they know they
are in it and dying outside in reality. Through a series of events (that are far to long to relate and are fun to read on your own),
they decide to leave and
have to figure out a number of puzzles to return to reality.
When they emerge, Lister and Cat are barely alive
and need to rest for weeks.
Not just that, but while they were gone Holly was alone and bored,
so he decided to
repair Talkie Toaster and Talkie talked him into giving himself an IQ
of 6'000 at the
expense of reducing some of his life span. However, Holly makes
a miscalculation and
makes his IQ 12'000 and his lifespan 2.34 minutes. Holly
curses the Toaster and
shuts himself down, taking the engines with him.
After about two weeks, Kryten discovers they are
on a collision course with a
frozen planet. So the crew is bundled up and prepare to leave,
but what about Holly?
They ask him what to do and Holly formulates a plan of sending a flare
into a nearby sun,
causing a solar flare to hurl a planet on a collision course to collide
with the frozen one.
Lister decides he can make the shot himself because
he claims Holly is going to
miss. He makes the shot and succeeds, sending it into a new orbit,
but Lister and
Rimmer in Starbug, crash on the frozen planet.
Rimmer can re-project himself on Red Dwarf and,
promising Lister he'll be right
back, goes aboard the ship for help. Suddenly, aboard Red Dwarf,
time becomes
distorted and they discover they are heading towards a black hole.
They ask Holly, and
he tells them how to cause the engines to move so fast they can sling-shot
around the
black hole.
They go to pick up Lister, Talkie and Kryten going
south on the planet and
Rimmer and Cat searching north. Rimmer finds Lister as an old
man and living with
giant cockroaches. This planet is Earth, covered to the sky in
garbage and beginning only
now, to come to life again. The distorted time caused Earth's
time to move quicker.
They return to Red Dwarf and communicate to Talkie
and Kryten. But they have
a half-dead Lister as well. The real Lister declares they have
a polymorph on board. The
polymorph steals everyone's emotions on board and they decide to kill
it. But Lister is
still old, and even though the polymorph is killed, Lister has a heart attack and dies.
Rimmer consults Holly and he has an interesting idea.
Red Dwarf
Omnibus
By Grant
Naylor
Infinity Welcomes Careful
Drivers and Better than Life put together in one book. Also includes the script to the first episode of Red Dwarf, The End, and the script to Dave Hollins, Space Cadet.
The Last
Human
By Doug
Naylor
Ever since returning from the backwards Earth that
he was dropped off on to save
his life, Lister has been in a deep sleep only to be awoken by Kryten
because they are
almost at the rendezvous with Red Dwarf. He has trouble remembering,
but the sight of
Kochanski (came with Lister from the backwards Earth), the Cat, and
Rimmer
(especially Rimmer) helps him out.
However, they discover another Starbug, complete
with dead Kryten, Cat, and
Rimmer, and Kochanski is in stasis. They theorize they are in
the wrong universe. The
other Kochanski asks them to find the missing other Lister and then
dies.
They go to find him, but end up in forbidden GELF
space and are arrested. They
are set free after some, ahem, arrangements. Kryten learns the
other Lister is in Cyberia,
a place where, like BTL, you are sent to Hell the way your mind makes
it. The crew has
to make arrangements with a different tribe, the Kinatiwowie, to break
in. The GELFs
supply different needed items and some simulants to protect them (since
simulants are
invincible to 99% of all weapons).
They half-successfully succeed and Lister is left
alone with his other self. He
discovers that his other self killed the crew and is very evil.
The other Lister, now known
here as Lister 2, buries Lister alive and leaves with Starbug.
Kryten discovers later that this is not Lister and
disposes him, thanks to the
Kinatiwowie. They set course for a planet they think Lister might
be on.
Lister is found and sent to Cyberia, then after
a couple of months, is released if he
agrees to test a planet that will pass through the universal barrier.
He agrees and is
allowed to spend 24 hours with a symbi-morph, who will do whatever
Lister pleases.
The symbi-morph, Reketrebn, is upset and does not
want to be a sex slave to
Lister, because she is not yet "broken" from her previous master.
Lister assures her his
attentions are benign, and they escape together, only to end up on
the experimental planet
anyway.
There they meet Michael McGruder.....Rimmer's son.
He was given a lifespan of
thousands of years, if he agreed to do a special mission. McGruder
is a toughed-up,
Space Corps Special Agent (reminiscent of Ace Rimmer) and was brought
up thinking
his father was just like him, if not better.
They have trouble with the Rage which is the planet's
guardian, but needless to
say, Starbug crashes on the planet.
Lister thinks he is saved, when Lister 2 shows up again,
covered in weapons and armed to kill.
Backwards
By Rob
Grant
This is another version of what happened after BTL.
It starts out as a chase.
Lister is being chased around by cops on the backwards Earth and Cat,
Rimmer, and
Kryten are brought in. (Kochanski isn't in this story)
They manage to get back to Starbug, only to find
it damaged. Kryten makes an
error and forgets time runs backwards, so they miss they're flight
window and have to wait 10 years for the next.
The next section is basically describing Ace Rimmer's
dimension and how he
jumps to this universe. It's very complicated, but I can say
this about Ace...what a guy!
Starbug manages to make it through the next flight
window, but it is all in vain.
Holly had grown so impatient, he had stopped watching the sensors and
agonoids
(simulants) invade the ship, tear out Holly, and remodel the ship to
become a human
death trap. One agonoid kills all the others (or so he thinks)
and waits.
Meanwhile , Ace's ship hits Starbug and causes a
breach and almost sends
everyone hurling into space. But he helps out and Rimmer is,
of course, appalled by this
newcomer. Lister, being a teenager, decides he can fix the hull
himself and goes outside.
An agonoid that was sucked into space by the back
stabbing agonoid manages to
grab Lister, and is about to kill him, when Ace rockets himself and
the agonoid into deep
space. Ace loses the rocket pack and, in fury of losing Lister
forever, the agonoid kills
him.
Kryten gets sucked out into space and is recovered
by the other agonoid. Kryten
manages to eject him into space, but not before the agonoid transmits the Armageddon
virus ('Gunmen of the Apocalypse') into the computer...sending them out of control through space.
'Red Dwarf
Quiz Book' and 'A Question of Smeg'
By Sharon Burnett and Nicky Hooks
It's a quiz book about Red Dwarf. It includes Jigwords, Word Searches, Crosswords,
Number searches, and more. Oh, and quizzes.
Red Dwarf
Programme Guide (Also in Revised edition)
By Chris
Howarth and Steve Lyons
This has character profiles, all the stories, a 'every word associated with Red Dwarf' dictionary, a 'every person who had anything
to do with Red Dwarf' dictionary, all the freebies and books. Also
has the US pilot for Red
Dwarf in it.
Plus tons of pics.
Primordial
Soup
By Grant
Naylor
This has the "least worst" scripts or 'Polymorph', 'Marooned', 'Dimension Jump', 'Justice', 'Back to Reality', and 'Psirens'.
Son of
Soup
By Grant
Naylor
This is the sequel to Primordial Soup. It has 'Me2',
'Kryten', 'Backwards', 'Camille',
'Holoship', and 'Gunmen of the Apocalypse'.
The Man
in the Rubber Mask
By Robert
Llwellyn
Imagine a guy who thought he would never make the big time. Imagine a guy who still believes he hasn't made the big time even though he is the favorite character aboard Red Dwarf. Now imagine getting the chance to participate in a million dollar payroll Amercian Red Dwarf with fans seeping everywhere and an un-creepy agent. Now imagine that it doesn't work and you have to go home. Read the book with an author who truly understands.
Red Dwarf
Space Corps Survival Manual
Random Abstract Memory
I will update this as I learn of more books.
By Paul
Alexander
Formatted like the acclaimed
"Mr. Bean's Diary", the author makes it seem like this is actually a
Space Corps manual that the crew have written
in. Although this author has a bizarre sense of humour
(like surviving off crew member's bottoms) it
delivers quite a comic punch to those who have always
wanted to know what the crew thought. I wonder if the actors contributed...
By Hattie Hayridge
One night, a 40 year old woman was rushed to the hospital with a suspected case of appendicitis. She came back home with a baby girl and named her Hattie. Join her as she grows up contemplating the old washroom's mysteries, the new washroom's flush, and boyfriends who run up trees to avoid a second date. Travel with her as she is chased by elephants, sleeps on top of a decaying dog (in a sleeping-bag of course), hits old ladies accidentally with tent poles, eats pork 'n' beans over top of an overflowed toilet on an overflowed cross-continentinal train. Listen to her relate her continual secretarial jobs working for nutcases and cookie-obsessed men. Join her as she begins to get comedy gigs at places with insane bubble comics and constant hagglers. Hattie relates her story through life to Red Dwarf where computers have hair too long. She does have quite the strange life. If you don't believe me, ask the monkeys who mugged her...