Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers
Encyclopedia
Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers is a best-selling science fiction
comedy
novel by Grant Naylor, the collective name for Rob Grant
and Doug Naylor
, co-creators and writers of the Red Dwarf
television series, on which the novel is based. First published in 1989, the novel presents the plotline of the TV series as a cohesive linear narrative, providing expanded backstory of the Red Dwarf world and more fully developing each of the characters, particularly Lister
and Rimmer
. The book incorporates elements and scenes from the first and second season episodes The End, Future Echoes, Kryten, Me² and Better Than Life. In 1990 the book was followed by a sequel, Better Than Life
.
The book has also been released in a 1992 Omnibus Edition and as an Unabridged Audiobook, read by Chris Barrie
.
is still rife, and most of Earth
's natural resources have been depleted. Most of the solid planets and moons in the solar system have been colonised. Having ended up in a supply port on Saturn
's orbiting moon Mimas
after celebrating his 25th birthday by binge drinking
on a Monopoly Pub Crawl in London
, Dave Lister is trying to earn enough money for a shuttle ticket home by stealing taxis and picking up fares while sleeping in a bus station locker. However, since Lister ends up either losing the money by getting mugged or spending the money getting drunk, its obvious he won't be getting home any time soon.
One night, Lister picks up a Space Corps officer calling himself 'Christopher Todhunter' (who is obviously wearing a fake moustache) asking to be taken to a plasti-droid brothel
, only for the droid to malfunction and nearly rip of his private parts. However this gives Lister inspiration, and he quickly signs up with the Space Corps intending to get himself signed to a ship and going AWOL once it reaches Earth. Despite his lack of qualifications and the admissions officer deciding he had an attitude problem (due to telling him that he wanted to sign up to "explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations and to boldly go where no man has gone before"
, Lister is quickly assigned to Red Dwarf, a mining ship. On the trip he meets the drunken Petersen who informs Lister that Red Dwarf will indeed be returning to Earth... after a four-and-a-half year round trip much to Lister's dismay. When aboard Lister is told he is a technician on Z-Shift, whose duties are to clean the ship's vending machines, and is introduced to his supervisor and roommate Arnold Rimmer
who Lister recognises as the Space Corps officer with the fake moustache from the plasti-droid brothel incident. Unfortunately Rimmer is also highly neurotic and pretentious causing he and Lister to develop a mutual dislike of the other.
Five months later, Lister has settled into the dull, monotonous routine of life aboard Red Dwarf when he finds himself falling in love with senior officer Kristine Kochanski
. The two embark on a passionate three-week love affair before Kochanski dumps him a returns to her boyfriend whose name Lister can't remember. Meanwhile Rimmer has been spending his time constantly trying and failing to pass the Astro-Navigation exam despite his best cheating efforts as well as using the ship's stasis units (which freeze time for the person inside) to constantly de-age himself.
Lister, who has had enough of life on Red Dwarf since being dumped, realises that the stasis units could be his key to an instant arrival back on Earth. After studying the ship's regulations, he finds that smuggling an unquarantined animal aboard the ship is the least serious offence which carries a statutory sentence of time in stasis. On his next planet leave he brings a pregnant cat back to Red Dwarf (after having her fully inoculated to ensure she won't actually present a danger to the ship) and ensures that he gets caught with her. After being hauled before the captain (an American woman with the unfortunate surname of Kirk
), Lister lies and tells her that the cat was ill when he found her and refuses to reveal where he has hidden her. As a result, Lister gets his wish and is sentenced to stasis for the rest of the trip. He enters the unit fully expected to exit and find himself back home.
Upon learning of Lister's sentence, Rimmer is furious that his nemesis is going to have all this time is stasis not getting older and prepares to work on an immediate appeal. He never gets the chance, as one of the ship's radiation plates fails and lets loose a wave that kills everyone except Lister. Just before he dies, Rimmer finds himself thinking of gazpacho soup. In the hold, Lister's cat and her kittens are safe from the radiation too.
Upon release from stasis, the ship's super-computer Holly explains that he piloted Red Dwarf out of the Solar System to prevent radiation contamination. Holly could not release Lister until the radiation had reached a safe background level
. However, because the leaked Cadmium
II had such a long half-life
, Lister was kept in stasis for 3 million years. During this time, Holly has gone a little computer senile.
Lister is then told that not only is he all alone on the ship and millions of years away from Earth but he is also likely the last human left alive. Lister promptly falls apart, walking around the ship naked and nearly drinking himself to death before he collapses. Lister wakes up in the medical unit to find Rimmer, who has been selected by Holly as the person most likely to keep Lister sane, and is now generated by the ship's computer as a hologram. Having collected himself, Lister instructs Holly to chart a course for Earth. Meanwhile, the crew discovers another life on board, an intelligent humanoid who comes to be known simply as The Cat, a member of a race of cats evolved from Lister's cat Frankenstein and her kittens after having survived the radiation blast deep in the ship's enormous cargo hold.
Due to three million years of constant acceleration
, Red Dwarf breaks the light barrier, complicating things aboard as the crew begin to experience 'future echoes,' brief glimpses of events that have yet to happen. Eventually the ship slows and Holly succeeds in turning around and heading for earth. Enroute the Red Dwarf crew retrieves the Nova 5, a ship which had been on a mission to advertise a popular soft drink when it's mechanoid service robot, Kryten, caused it to crashed by trying to wash the computer. Work begins to repair the Nova 5's more advanced engine systems for the return to earth.
The crew soon believes that they've safely returned to a warm welcome on an inhabited planet Earth. It gradually becomes clear, however, that they're each living out their own improbable fantasies, and Lister, Rimmer and The Cat must accept the fact that they've not returned to Earth, but are trapped within an addictive virtual reality called Better Than Life, a game which is killing them, but is incredibly difficult to escape from...
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
novel by Grant Naylor, the collective name for Rob Grant
Rob Grant
Robert Grant is a British comedy writer and television producer, who was born in Salford and studied Psychology at Liverpool University for two years....
and Doug Naylor
Doug Naylor
Douglas R. Naylor is a British comedy writer, science fiction writer, director and television producer.Naylor was born in Manchester, England and studied at the University of Liverpool. In the mid-1980s, Naylor wrote two regular comedy sketch shows for BBC Radio 4 entitled Cliché and Son of Cliché...
, co-creators and writers of the Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf is a British comedy franchise which primarily comprises eight series of a television science fiction sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999 and Dave from 2009–present. It gained cult following. It was created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who also wrote the first six series...
television series, on which the novel is based. First published in 1989, the novel presents the plotline of the TV series as a cohesive linear narrative, providing expanded backstory of the Red Dwarf world and more fully developing each of the characters, particularly Lister
Dave Lister
David "Dave" Lister, commonly referred to simply as Lister, is a fictional character from the British science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf, portrayed by Craig Charles...
and Rimmer
Arnold Rimmer
Arnold Judas Rimmer is a fictional character in the science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf, played by Chris Barrie. He is unpopular with his crew mates, and is often the target of insults or pranks...
. The book incorporates elements and scenes from the first and second season episodes The End, Future Echoes, Kryten, Me² and Better Than Life. In 1990 the book was followed by a sequel, Better Than Life
Better Than Life
Better Than Life is a science fiction comedy novel by Grant Naylor, the collective name for Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, co-creators and writers of the Red Dwarf television series, on which the novel is based...
.
The book has also been released in a 1992 Omnibus Edition and as an Unabridged Audiobook, read by Chris Barrie
Chris Barrie
Chris Barrie is a British actor. He first achieved success as a vocal impressionist, notably in the ITV sketch show Spitting Image...
.
Plot summary
The book begins in 2180. CommercialismCommercialism
Commercialism, in its original meaning, is the practices, methods, aims, and spirit of commerce or business. Today, however, it primarily refers to the tendency within open-market capitalism to turn everything into objects, images, and services sold for the purpose of generating profit...
is still rife, and most of Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
's natural resources have been depleted. Most of the solid planets and moons in the solar system have been colonised. Having ended up in a supply port on Saturn
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...
's orbiting moon Mimas
Mimas (moon)
Mimas is a moon of Saturn which was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. It is named after Mimas, a son of Gaia in Greek mythology, and is also designated Saturn I....
after celebrating his 25th birthday by binge drinking
Binge drinking
Binge drinking or heavy episodic drinking is the modern epithet for drinking alcoholic beverages with the primary intention of becoming intoxicated by heavy consumption of alcohol over a short period of time. It is a kind of purposeful drinking style that is popular in several countries worldwide,...
on a Monopoly Pub Crawl in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Dave Lister is trying to earn enough money for a shuttle ticket home by stealing taxis and picking up fares while sleeping in a bus station locker. However, since Lister ends up either losing the money by getting mugged or spending the money getting drunk, its obvious he won't be getting home any time soon.
One night, Lister picks up a Space Corps officer calling himself 'Christopher Todhunter' (who is obviously wearing a fake moustache) asking to be taken to a plasti-droid brothel
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
, only for the droid to malfunction and nearly rip of his private parts. However this gives Lister inspiration, and he quickly signs up with the Space Corps intending to get himself signed to a ship and going AWOL once it reaches Earth. Despite his lack of qualifications and the admissions officer deciding he had an attitude problem (due to telling him that he wanted to sign up to "explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations and to boldly go where no man has gone before"
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
, Lister is quickly assigned to Red Dwarf, a mining ship. On the trip he meets the drunken Petersen who informs Lister that Red Dwarf will indeed be returning to Earth... after a four-and-a-half year round trip much to Lister's dismay. When aboard Lister is told he is a technician on Z-Shift, whose duties are to clean the ship's vending machines, and is introduced to his supervisor and roommate Arnold Rimmer
Arnold Rimmer
Arnold Judas Rimmer is a fictional character in the science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf, played by Chris Barrie. He is unpopular with his crew mates, and is often the target of insults or pranks...
who Lister recognises as the Space Corps officer with the fake moustache from the plasti-droid brothel incident. Unfortunately Rimmer is also highly neurotic and pretentious causing he and Lister to develop a mutual dislike of the other.
Five months later, Lister has settled into the dull, monotonous routine of life aboard Red Dwarf when he finds himself falling in love with senior officer Kristine Kochanski
Kristine Kochanski
Kristine Z. Kochanski is a fictional character from the British science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf. Kochanski was the first console officer in the navigation chamber on board the spaceship Red Dwarf...
. The two embark on a passionate three-week love affair before Kochanski dumps him a returns to her boyfriend whose name Lister can't remember. Meanwhile Rimmer has been spending his time constantly trying and failing to pass the Astro-Navigation exam despite his best cheating efforts as well as using the ship's stasis units (which freeze time for the person inside) to constantly de-age himself.
Lister, who has had enough of life on Red Dwarf since being dumped, realises that the stasis units could be his key to an instant arrival back on Earth. After studying the ship's regulations, he finds that smuggling an unquarantined animal aboard the ship is the least serious offence which carries a statutory sentence of time in stasis. On his next planet leave he brings a pregnant cat back to Red Dwarf (after having her fully inoculated to ensure she won't actually present a danger to the ship) and ensures that he gets caught with her. After being hauled before the captain (an American woman with the unfortunate surname of Kirk
James T. Kirk
James Tiberius "Jim" Kirk is a character in the Star Trek media franchise. Kirk was first played by William Shatner as the principal lead character in the original Star Trek series. Shatner voiced Kirk in the animated Star Trek series and appeared in the first seven Star Trek movies...
), Lister lies and tells her that the cat was ill when he found her and refuses to reveal where he has hidden her. As a result, Lister gets his wish and is sentenced to stasis for the rest of the trip. He enters the unit fully expected to exit and find himself back home.
Upon learning of Lister's sentence, Rimmer is furious that his nemesis is going to have all this time is stasis not getting older and prepares to work on an immediate appeal. He never gets the chance, as one of the ship's radiation plates fails and lets loose a wave that kills everyone except Lister. Just before he dies, Rimmer finds himself thinking of gazpacho soup. In the hold, Lister's cat and her kittens are safe from the radiation too.
Upon release from stasis, the ship's super-computer Holly explains that he piloted Red Dwarf out of the Solar System to prevent radiation contamination. Holly could not release Lister until the radiation had reached a safe background level
Background radiation
Background radiation is the ionizing radiation constantly present in the natural environment of the Earth, which is emitted by natural and artificial sources.-Overview:Both Natural and human-made background radiation varies by location....
. However, because the leaked Cadmium
Cadmium
Cadmium is a chemical element with the symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, bluish-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury. Similar to zinc, it prefers oxidation state +2 in most of its compounds and similar to mercury it shows a low...
II had such a long half-life
Half-life
Half-life, abbreviated t½, is the period of time it takes for the amount of a substance undergoing decay to decrease by half. The name was originally used to describe a characteristic of unstable atoms , but it may apply to any quantity which follows a set-rate decay.The original term, dating to...
, Lister was kept in stasis for 3 million years. During this time, Holly has gone a little computer senile.
Lister is then told that not only is he all alone on the ship and millions of years away from Earth but he is also likely the last human left alive. Lister promptly falls apart, walking around the ship naked and nearly drinking himself to death before he collapses. Lister wakes up in the medical unit to find Rimmer, who has been selected by Holly as the person most likely to keep Lister sane, and is now generated by the ship's computer as a hologram. Having collected himself, Lister instructs Holly to chart a course for Earth. Meanwhile, the crew discovers another life on board, an intelligent humanoid who comes to be known simply as The Cat, a member of a race of cats evolved from Lister's cat Frankenstein and her kittens after having survived the radiation blast deep in the ship's enormous cargo hold.
Due to three million years of constant acceleration
Acceleration
In physics, acceleration is the rate of change of velocity with time. In one dimension, acceleration is the rate at which something speeds up or slows down. However, since velocity is a vector, acceleration describes the rate of change of both the magnitude and the direction of velocity. ...
, Red Dwarf breaks the light barrier, complicating things aboard as the crew begin to experience 'future echoes,' brief glimpses of events that have yet to happen. Eventually the ship slows and Holly succeeds in turning around and heading for earth. Enroute the Red Dwarf crew retrieves the Nova 5, a ship which had been on a mission to advertise a popular soft drink when it's mechanoid service robot, Kryten, caused it to crashed by trying to wash the computer. Work begins to repair the Nova 5's more advanced engine systems for the return to earth.
The crew soon believes that they've safely returned to a warm welcome on an inhabited planet Earth. It gradually becomes clear, however, that they're each living out their own improbable fantasies, and Lister, Rimmer and The Cat must accept the fact that they've not returned to Earth, but are trapped within an addictive virtual reality called Better Than Life, a game which is killing them, but is incredibly difficult to escape from...
Other versions
- Red Dwarf Omnibus
- Released in November 1992 by Penguin Books, the Omnibus contains the novels "Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers" and its sequel "Better than Life" together in one volume, both of which are slightly corrected and/or expanded. In addition, the omnibus also includes a jokey reproduction of the text that appeared on the infamous beer mat that the premise for the series was originally written on, a script for an episode of "Dave Hollins: Space Cadet," and the original script of the pilot episode The End.
- Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (Audiobook)
- A complete unabridged audiobook, read by regular cast member Chris BarrieChris BarrieChris Barrie is a British actor. He first achieved success as a vocal impressionist, notably in the ITV sketch show Spitting Image...
(who plays Arnold RimmerArnold RimmerArnold Judas Rimmer is a fictional character in the science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf, played by Chris Barrie. He is unpopular with his crew mates, and is often the target of insults or pranks...
in the series) was released by Laughing Stock Productions in 1992. It has a total play time of about 8 hours and 15 minutes, and is now available in a variety of formats, including digital download from Audible.com. A much shorter abridged version also circulates.- BBC Radio 7 Abridged Reading
- In December 2009 BBC Radio 7 broadcast an abridged version of the audiobook, read by Chris BarrieChris BarrieChris Barrie is a British actor. He first achieved success as a vocal impressionist, notably in the ITV sketch show Spitting Image...
as a series of six half-hour episodes. This version was originally broadcast on the BBC World Service in the mid 1990s.