Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

Red Dwarf is the funniest science fiction book I have ever read, featuring a cast of unforgettable characters. First there is Lister; he celebrated his 25th birthday by taking part in a Monopoly-based pub crawl on earth and somehow ended up stuck on Mimas, one of Saturn's moons. He desperately wants to return to earth but cannot raise the funds; tiring of living inside a storage locker and stealing taxis to earn money, he decides to sign up for service with the Space Corps and jump ship as soon as he is back on his home planet. First Technician Alfred J. Rimmer is a truly remarkable and hilarious personality. Rimmer is basically in charge of keeping the vending machines operating on the ship Red Dwarf, and Lister finds himself working under and bunking with this incredibly strange and rather pitiful underachiever. Rimmer is the proverbial born loser, failing at virtually everything he does. He desperately wants to pass the astronavigation exam and become an officer, and he works incredibly hard at preparing for the test despite the fact he has already failed it 11 times (actually, two of those times he got an X for unclassified, such as the time he wrote "I am a fish" 500 times on each answer sheet after panicking and convincing himself he did not actually exist). Rimmer's preparation consists of establishing incredibly exact, inclusive schedules for studying; the problem with this approach is that his constant revisions of the schedule take up all of his preparation time, and he usually ends up cramming three months' of study into a few hours just before the exam begins. Lister annoys Rimmer to no end. As fate would have it, an explosion ends up killing everyone on board Red Dwarf. Lister, having been put in stasis for smuggling a cat on board, is reawakened by the ship's computer Holly three million years later when the radiation levels have returned to safe levels. Holly also resurrects the quite dead Rimmer as a hologram, and the fact that he has died does nothing to help Rimmer's attitude. Lister and Rimmer are soon joined by a highly evolved yet fastidious, incredibly vain feline descendant of the cat Lister originally smuggled on board. This incredibly strange crew attempts to return to earth, and their efforts are as funny as they are ill-fated. Lister is a simple man just trying to get by in life, wishing for nothing more than a basic, happy family existence such as that of George Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life. Rimmer's inferiority complex and stubbornness are unmatched.. His failings and pessimism are comically ridiculous yet somehow plausible, and one can't help pitying a man who fails in life, in death, and even in his own fantasies. I have not seen the Red Dwarf series, so I cannot compare this book to its television counterpart. I can declare this book hilarious; anyone with a sense of humor (even those who hate science fiction) will, I believe, enjoy this book immensely. If you read this book apart from its sequ

No sense ruining a good story by telling you how it turns out. Better to describe it, so you can tell whether or not it fits your tastes. This is a hilarious, laugh-out-loud sort of book, appealing to the same tastes as the "Mash" series does, but in a dry, British sort of way. It's written in a deadpan, tongue in cheek style not unlike Terry Pratchett, but more sci-fi, like Douglas Adams. In fact, it has quite a bit in common with "Hitchhiker's", and I think that Marvin and Kryton would probably get along marvelously well. Perhaps this is something of a developing genre, the male comic adventure in space unquest. If that's the case, I might lump in "Venus on the Half Shell" (Kilgore Trout, nee Farmer).For those of us who catch this through BBC Prime or PBS, and didn't have the opportunity to watch the original broadcasts in sequence, this book is a boon. Believe it or not, starting in the middle, I was able to watch a dozen episodes before reading this book and discovering that little incident with the stasis field. Talk about your "AHH! That explains it!" moments. You have a whole new incentive to watch that late Saturday night PBS rerun when you actually know the complete story. It just seems like coincidence layered on top of infinite impossibility..... until you recognize the cosmic plan at work here.If you buy this book, you might as well buy the sequel, because you won't want to stop, and that way you won't get stuck wanting to know how it turns out and not being able to find part 2. For me, the book was very true to the TV show, and neither one ruined the other for me. If you've seen all the shows in sequence, then maybe the book won't be as much of a treat-but my guess is that most literate fans of the show will like the book. You don't need to have seen "Red Dwarf" to enjoy the book. I loaned it to a co-worker with a sense of humor and he's having a great time with it-without ever having seen the series.

I've lost count of how many times I've read my now dog-eared copy of this novel. I have school memories of class mates reading the book under their desks during lessons, because they couldn't put it down! I even convinced my brother to read it, who like Lister, had never read a book in his life. The reason- It's a masterpiece! It's not often you come across a book that can be cool, clever, imaginative, sensitive and hilarious all at once. And it's not common for sci-fi novels written in third person to have such emphatic impact on the reader either. But Grant and Naylor are sublime crafts men of characterisation, invention, language and comic timing. Every sentance sparkles with a unique magic and its superlative from beginning to end. My favourite moments include the delightful first meeting of Lister and Rimmer in a taxi hopper on a cespit moon called Mimas. There's other joys such as Rimmer's bizzar revision techniques, Lister lost-puppy love for Kochanski, and a heartbreaking chapter describing Krytens blind servitude for the long dead Nova 5 crew. Then there's "Better than life", an ingenius concept that wasen't done justice in the episode of the same name. But more than anything else, I LOVE the ending. It is perfectly unexpected and bitter-sweet. The last sentance will give you goose-bumps. I swear to you.

Red Dwarf, for people stuck in the states- happens to be the one of the greatest science fiction shows to ever show up on telly-and had the distinction of being the most ratings in viewship for BBC2. For viewers who have had problems understanding this brilliant series, or understanding some of the accents- this is a great book to help understand the series and the psychology behind Cat, Kryten, Lister, not to mention the charachter you love to hate- Arnold Rimmer! I have had this book and the sequel for about 4 years now- and I find I read them each about once a month. They have been known to cheer me up completely when I am blue-lets face it- your trouble are nothing compared to poor dave lister stuck for the rest of his life with Rimmer. And the idea of Felis Erectus is brilliant. Red Dwarf is like potato chips- once you start, you cannot stop. I loved the two books by Grant Naylor- unfortunately, the two written solo by them, available in the UK- dont have the magic, nor has series Seven that the two writers have had together. But still and all- a must read for anyone who likes to laugh and likes a bit of "soft core", science fiction, or an insight to the human psyche.Or just want a wonderful book to read on a weekend. This would be one of the ones i would choose, with out question. Hail to the small rouge one!

Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers is the first of the four downright twisted and hilarious novels from Rob Grant & Doug Naylor, the collective British writing team, and their sci-fi/comedy creation, Red Dwarf. This novel covers all there is to know of the first three seasons of Red Dwarf in the best fashion possible: one collective and condensced novel that doesn't lose any of the comical and ingenious writing that the episodes had to offer. The storyline is simple and easy to follow, the subplots and background conversations and meetings are everything that a Red Dwarf fan could ever want. From the first meeting between Dave Lister and Arnold Rimmer on Mimas to three million years in the future, from your own death (and how to cope with it) and disaster, not to mention the crew's desires in "Better Than Life" and their overall hatred with a passion for each other, this book has everything! They say that Red Dwarf is the best thing to hit sci-fi since the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- they were damned right! British comedy is definately among the best in the world!!!