If anyone asks you why Lister and Rimmer would make such a good romantic pairing, tell them it’s because they’d be -
HOT….
Funny
Sweet
Complicated - Rimmer being a hologram
Dark - Lister’s sad situation as the last human & Rimmer’s neurosis
Slow burn
A real ‘love against the odds’ pairing
They both had childhoods that weren’t ideal
And because (frankly) the show semi-encouraged it through episodes such as Blue and Demons & Angels and by having two middle aged men STILL sharing a bunk bed when they really don’t have to.
I’ve finished Titan and overall I enjoyed it, on a par with previous novels but in a different way. I certainly welcomed the fact that Titan was a bit less dark than the previous books and perhaps (for me) a bit more in the way of humour. You could tell this story had a co-author because it did feel a bit different to the previous novels in tone.
Spoilers ahead
Chris Barrie’s reading of it was great, practically no flaws or misreadings that I noticed. I especially liked his voices for Carzon and Ingrid. This time around, his voice for Rimmer was more spot on, whereas with the previous audiobooks I felt he made Rimmer sound a bit too nasally, although he may have done that to separate Rimmer’s voice from his narrator voice if you know what I mean.
Overall the writing for Lister and Rimmer’s (early days) relationship was spot on, with Lister caring about Rimmer just enough to want to go and find him when things get dangerous but not showing much in the way of warmth towards him - he’s Lister’s bunkmate, not his friend. I could have done with a few minutes break from Rimmer’s relentless whining :) I’m sure we got a few minutes break in the tv series, a few minutes in each episode where he was almost normal…..
The main plot was a bit hit and miss for me but then I’m NOT a big sci-fi fan. I’ve watched early Star Trek and seen the original Star Wars films ( and enjoyed them ) but I don’t seek out sci-fi because a lot of it goes over my head, as did bits of Titan, especially how Cat ended up in the story. And yes, Lister being his own father (sort of) gives me a headache.
Loved Carzon as a character, no doubt a replacement for Kryten and I think it worked pretty well - a way of having Kryten in the novel without having Kryten in the novel. I especially enjoyed his like / dislike relationship with Rimmer and the fact that he practically says that he finds Rimmer ‘entertaining’ and wonders whether Lister is a lucky man to be able to wake up with him every morning :) It’s interesting that Holly chose Rimmer to be a hologram in order to keep Lister sane - ie entertained?
I also loved Ingrid. When I first heard that Rimmer was getting a “weird romance” I wondered whether it would be a proper romance with a standard kind of female love interest or whether they’d be a twist. Of course there was a twist, with Ingrid being a tough and quite violent character, just staying on the right side of not being a bad guy - much like Rimmer himself. And Rimmer’s interest in her was probably quite believable, given that he likes people in authority - or more to the point, tries to impress people in authority.
Considering that Kryten didn’t really have a role in the story, I wondered whether it would be the same for Cat but happily it wasn’t. Yes he only comes into the story past the half way point but it’s more than he could have got and what he does get is fun, very Cat.
I’ve said before that whilst I like Kochanski as a character, I don’t love her and my view hasn’t changed. Yes she’s attractive and nice and competent but none of that makes her fun or interesting to me. I appreciated her being given things to do away from Lister though and her telling Lister at the end of the story that whilst she loves him, they’re not right for each other was perhaps a more truthful take on their relationship.
I enjoyed the snippets we got with Peterson and Hollister, though like others I noticed that Peterson and Lister didn’t spend any page-time together. I suppose they would have just been getting drunk and therefore any such scenes wouldn’t have added anything to the story - they were essentially drinking buddies.
Rimmer’s hair in the very first episode looks quite odd, the make-up department were clearly trying to flatten Chris Barrie’s curls. Thankfully his hair never looked that flat again.
I’ve nearly finished Titan and for the most part I’ve enjoyed it, just a few minor complaints. I’ll certainly be listening to it again in the future.
Just listened to the first couple of chapters of Red Dwarf Titan, enjoying it so far. It’s quite funny, the banter between Lister and Rimmer is good and Chris Barrie’s voice has barely changed since the last audiobooks he did - he’s still good at it.
In order to avoid spoilers for Titan - which are doing the rounds now - I’m going to spend tomorrow looking at other Red Dwarf media, such as old convention Q&A videos on Youtube - when I’m not at work anyway. It might be the only way to avoid temptation… 😬
Just 3 days to go until Red Dwarf Titan 😀 which I’ll be listening to as an audiobook, read by Chris Barrie himself. As long as it’s funny and none of the characters go the same way that they did by the end of Backwards & The Last Human 🫤 I’ll be happy.
If there’s a touch of Rimster great but I’m not banking on it. I know about the slight spoiler regarding Rimmer’s character that book author Andrew Marshall himself released in an interview. Goodness knows what he meant by “weird” - I have a few possibilities in my head - but hopefully I’ll enjoy that too. I’ll listen to it over several days, don’t want to finish it too quickly.
So I was in the middle of weeding in the garden when a grasshopper suddenly jumped out of nowhere. It’s not often you see one of these in a British suburban garden, although I do have some long grass. I left it alone, wildlife being perhaps the biggest reason why I garden.
Regarding the new novel Titan having a co-author - in this case Andrew Marshall - I remember Rob Grant once saying that when writing for comedy, it’s best to have 2 people writing the jokes rather than 1 because if both of you laugh then the joke is more likely to be funny, whereas if only one of you laugh then it might not be. Thus, I’m hoping the new novel will benefit from having two authors.
In my opinion, I wonder if Doug Naylor’s solo writing from series 7 onwards sometimes failed because of that reason? I know Doug had co-writers for some episodes of Red Dwarf but if he was essentially ‘the boss’ over those writers, then it might have been harder for them to criticise any jokes than it would have been for Rob - his equal partner.
Whenever I watch series 7, I just don’t laugh as often as I do during series 1-6 (series 10 does get back on track in the humour stakes for me, mostly) so Rob’s words ring true
