Red Dwarf

Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

By: Rob Grant, Doug Naylor

Narrated by: Chris Barrie

Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

When Lister got drunk, he really got drunk!

After celebrating his birthday with a Monopoly-board pub crawl around London, he came to in a burger bar on one of Saturns moons, wearing a lady's pink crimplene hat and a pair of yellow fishing waders, with no money and a passport in the name of "Emily Berkenstein".

Joining the Space Corps seemed a good idea. Red Dwarf, a clapped out spaceship, was bound for Earth. It never made it, leaving Lister as the last remaining member of the human race, three million light years from Earth, with only a dead man, a senile computer, and a highly evolved cat for company.

They begin their journey home. On the way, they'll break the light barrier. They'll meet Einstein, Archimedes, God, and Norman Wisdom...and discover an alternative plane of reality.

©1989 Rob Grant and Doug Naylor (P)1992 Laughing Stock Productions Ltd

A Must Listen for Dwarfers

What was one of the most memorable moments of Red Dwarf?

Getting to here just how Lister ended up joining the Red Dwarf crew.

Which character – as performed by Chris Barrie – was your favorite?

All of them! Especially Lister and Holly.

Chris Barrie is amazing

It feels like the whole crew is there, reading their parts. Chris Barrie is such an amazing impressionist it's hard to tell sometimes. The story is fun and familiar to any Red Dwarf fan, but along with the new content and extensions to well known scenes, makes this a fresh experience for even the most devoted Red Dwarf viewers. Plus, even if you know nothing of the series, or it's been years since you viewed it, the book does such a good job introducing the Red Dwarf universe to the listener, you don't need to know everything, or anything, about the story to enjoy the book.

Highly recommended.

Brilliantly British and Brilliantly funny!

Wodehouse meets Asimov! Up there with the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy. I hadn''t seen the episodes and I started of with the novel. Enjoyed it thoroughly. The narration is superlative and makes the book all the more fun.

Love it!

I truly loved this, but was a little disappointed that it's basically all straight from the TV show. I thought it would be an original story. Nevertheless, it's delightful and Chris Barrie is a great narrator.

Chris Barrie brings this classic comedy to life.

If you could sum up Red Dwarf in three words, what would they be?

Slime comin' home.

What did you like best about this story?

Chis Barrie's narration.

What does Chris Barrie bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

If you're a Red Dwarf fan you will absolutely love how Chris Barrie brings each character's voice to life in the story. You might think that's Craig Charles stopping by to work with Chris, but it's all just a one man show. Incredibly entertaining and worthwhile.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Smegs in space. (It is a show.) :)

Any additional comments?

You won't regret buying this, even if you've already read the book.

Good if you don't remember shoe

This tells some of the tv show scripts without any changes. Original voices are a nice touch do you can recognise all the characters.

Chris Barrie's voices are spectacular.

I thought they'd gotten the cast together, he's that good. What about last human and backwards?

Brutal!

This was pretty awesome; I learned facts about the series that I never heard in the show!

A fine treat for Dwarfers everywhere!

I saw a documentary once in which I learned that Chris Barrie is in fact an excellent impressionist. I heard moments of his impressions of his castmates from Red Dwarf and was very impressed with how good they were. In this audiobook, I was first excited to see an actual Dwarfer was going to narrate. That was bliss enough - or so I thought.

Now, the description says that this is read by Chris Barrie. It does not mention any other contributor. Nevertheless, and this with knowing Chris's vocal talents, I actually stopped playback and went back to re-read the description when I heard Lister. About halfway into the book, I had heard just enough "not quite" moments of Lister, Cat, and Holly to decide they were impressions. Or most of them were. I had second thoughts when I heard Kryten, but again, there were moments.

The odd side character here and there that I knew would have been voiced by Chris helped somewhat. Though all the Dwarfers were done well (with Rimmer quite obviously being on point, given it's Chris's own character anyway), I would have to say the next best is likely Lister or Holly (depends on the scene), then Kryten, then Cat.

I'm still not convinced there wasn't an uncredited cameo or two in there somewhere. 😊 I have been a professional audio technician/engineer doing live house reinforcement plus stagework and recording, trained audio for newscasting while working on the production crew at a television station, and spent some time as an audiobook technical editor.

I'm still not sure Chris did it all - but I suspect he did. And yes, he's THAT. GOOD.

As for the story, what can I say? I have two copies of this book (now three, including the audiobook), all the RD episodes on DVD and Series 1-8 on VHS, blooper reels, two volumes for the roleplaying game (which I have never played but have been given as gifts by family), shirts, buttons, an RD episode guide, and of course, the next book (which I now have in multiple formats). Every time I read written RD material, I "hear" it in the character voices. Now I get to actually HEAR it in the character voices, or a nearly indistinguishable replica of it. All in all, listening to this with my headphones on while doing cleaning, or in the car during my daily commute was just about Better Than Life.

(Sorry. I had to. )

Highly recommended for any Dwarfer or RD-curious. If you've only seen the shows, this is the back story and covers a good number of the seasons with broad strokes, weaving them into a unified story. Definitely worth a read - even if you end up imagining scenes from the show as you listen and find yourself reciting certain bits of dialogue along with the playback, as I did. This one is staying in my library for frequent re-listens. But for now, I'm off to begin BTL, and we'll see if I ever come out. 😉

Amazing

I never tire of this book, fantastically written story told like only Chris Barrie can :)