Red Dwarf: Titan Review (Spoiler-Free)

SPOILER WARNING: While this review gives nothing away about the plot of Titan, it does contain details of the structure, prose style, and characters present in the book. It should be safe to read this before you’ve read the book, but if you’re extra cautious about avoiding every last detail, save it for afterwards.

After three decades of waiting, the fifth Red Dwarf novel has finally been released. A mere six months ago, we had no idea it was coming, and yet so much has happened since then. The excitement that greeted its announcement was soon replaced by sorrow. Original co-creator Rob Grant returns, writing new Red Dwarf for the first time since 1996’s Backwards novel, only to unexpectedly pass away before he could see it released. It’s therefore an undeniably bittersweet occasion to finally have new material at our fingertips, while knowing it’s the last of its kind. But thankfully, any hint of sadness is quickly moved to the back of the mind once you start reading, and instantly lose yourself in a comfortingly familiar, yet excitingly fresh and reinvigorated world…

Red Dwarf: Titan, as a concept, started life as a pitch for a TV series, before Rob and long-time co-writer Andrew Marshall spent two years crafting it into book form. The pair’s previous novel, The Quanderhorn Xperimentations, was released alongside the equivalent radio series, and followed quite a rigid episodic format, with each installment of the radio show adapted individually. That is most certainly not the case here, with the familiar Dwarf novel formula of multiple parts of various lengths, subdivided into chapters. There are five parts in total, plus a prologue and epilogue. While we don’t know how the proposed series would have panned out, the irregular length of the parts (ranging from six to thirty-one chapters apiece) and the odd number of them indicate that this has been substantially reworked from the television plan – this is definitely carefully crafted for the medium.

One of the many ways it differs from the previous books, however, is that it plays out pretty much in real time. While other novels flitted between different time zones, sets of characters and even universes, almost every chapter in Titan follows on from the last, telling one continuous story. The first four novels all borrowed storylines from the TV series to varying degrees, portraying a series of different adventures for our crew. Here, there’s only one, novel-length plot, and it’s all the better for it. Yes, our characters get into numerous scrapes and diversions along the way, but it’s all in service of a singular story, which works incredibly well for a prequel.

Another difference is that for the first time, the individual sub-chapters are (almost) all named too, usually with a stage direction style header indicating the location of the action. This may be reminiscent of a screenplay, but it’s also incredibly useful, as while the book comprises one continuous story, it’s told across multiple characters in multiple locations, taking in both the luxurious Uptown and dystopian Downtown of Titan’s Xanadu spaceport, as well as checking back in on Red Dwarf itself every now and then.

As well as the obvious advantages of providing variety and keeping the pace barrelling along, this approach is key to the book’s success. More often than not, we’re following Lister and/or Rimmer, as you’d expect, but for the sections where they’re not present, we get to go inside the heads of all kinds of other people, getting insights into their characters, motivation and morality. It’s not a first, of course – all the previous novels did this to varying degrees – but the cast of core characters is more extensive here than ever before, and none of them benefit more from this than Kristine Kochanski.

Kochanski in Titan is used in an entirely different way to anywhere else in the Red Dwarf oeuvre, in that she’s actually a protagonist. Even in Series VII and Last Human, she was ultimately defined by her relationship with Lister. Not so in Titan, where she operates completely independently of her ex-boyfriend for the majority of the book, pursuing her own endeavours for her own reasons. It all ties up with the main plot in the end, but make no mistake that this book makes a conscious effort to establish Kochanski as a character in her own right, in a way that no iteration of Red Dwarf has really bothered to do before. As such, it’s hard to picture either Clare or Chloe as you read, as she’s so different to all previous incarnations, in a way that fully rounds out a character that has only ever been of limited dimensions previously.

We also spend a fair amount of time with Captain Hollister, whose presence in this book raises some interesting questions about continuity. It disconnects Titan from the previous novels, as the captain of Red Dwarf in Infinity was a woman called Kirk, but it’s not the television universe either, as his first name is different, as hinted at in one of the marketing videos. Rimmer is a Second Technician, like he is on TV, rather than the First Technician of the first two novels. Another familiar character is given a different job, another has their hometown changed to one that doesn’t fit the on-screen portrayal at all, and one is given an extraordinary backstory that doesn’t necessarily contradict established continuity, but doesn’t exactly go out of its way to adhere to it either.

The “one universe to the side” tagline is indeed pertinent. Its main purpose is free up the authors to pursue their own take on the Red Dwarf universe without getting bogged down in existing lore, and crucially being able to ignore everything that happened from 1997 onwards. But it also has a direct impact on the plot, with the action in Titan‘s universe both impacting and being impacted by what’s happening in the “main” one. It opens up new avenues for storytelling, bringing together elements of time travel, alternate realities and pre-determinism to the book’s tool kit.

But despite the obvious nostalgia factor, and the momentous nature of Rob Grant making a return to Red Dwarf after so long, the main distinguishing feature of Titan is that it feels so *new*. This isn’t a lap of honour or a greatest hits collection, this is a type of story that Red Dwarf has never done before. It’s completely its own thing; apart from anything else, it’s the only novel that doesn’t incorporate any storylines or dialogue from the TV series, so in many ways it’s the first truly original Red Dwarf novel.

This is also reflected in the prose style. It’s not Grant Naylor, or Rob Grant solo, it’s something else. With Dwarf being Rob’s baby, it would be easy to assume that he was the driving force, but the fact that the book’s voice is so different is evidence that Andrew Marshall definitely made a big impact himself. Yes, there’s glimpses of the trademark Grantian dark humour, incorporating some largely genital-based body horror, and the dialogue between Rimmer and Lister is so nailed on that there’s no mistaking Rob’s hand. But the rhythm and pace is like nothing we’ve seen before. There’s a verbosity to the language that’s incredibly endearing. It’s a tone of voice that’s not a million miles from other versions of Red Dwarf, but is nonetheless different enough to feel utterly unique and so, so fresh.

There are times when the freshness can be slightly jarring; while Red Dwarf has continued to produce content over the span of four decades, it’s nevertheless unusual to see references to things as modern as Google, Pokemon and vapes, or to read words like “influencer”, “BFF” and “bants” in a story set before episodes that aired in 1988. Even more surprisingly, it takes over hundred pages before the word “smeg” appears, and then not long after that we get the first ever use of the word “fuck” in an official Red Dwarf medium. And why not? Like with the continuity, there’s no reason that the precedent set by previous releases should stop Rob and Andrew from telling their story in the way they want to.

Besides which, virtually every addition and embellishment made in Titan is utterly superb. While there’s no denying that the biggest selling point is having new interactions between Rimmer and Lister in their most classic of forms, one of my absolute favourite characters is a brand new one, a mechanoid named Carzon. While his function in the story is unsurprisingly similar to that of his fellow android Kryten, his personality is different enough to make him a character in his own right, and an utterly adorable one at that.

Other newbies are also welcome additions to the ensemble, such as the single-minded and extremely violent security officer Byle, three-armed henchman Kapkap, and the wimpish trainee accountant Clifford Pear. The sheer number of previously unknown crew members we meet really brings pre-accident Red Dwarf to life, in a way that’s reminiscent of the early chapters of Infinity. They all seem to belong in this universe, and all serve to enrich it.

But fundamentally, this is a Lister and Rimmer story, and these characters have rarely been served better since 1993. They’re just so them, even though we’re dropping in on them before all the development they’ve gone through on screen and in the previous books. Their interactions are as visceral and antagonistic as you’d expect from their pre-accident relationship, but their motivations, insecurities and suppressed emotions are made so clear to the reader that they’re just as sympathetic as the softer versions of the characters we’re most familiar with.

Red Dwarf has always been a character comedy first and foremost, and that’s definitely the case here, although that’s not to say that the sci-fi plot isn’t also at the book’s core. Lister and Rimmer’s shore leave is interrupted early on by the intrusion of what’s probably intended to be the “main” Red Dwarf universe, which continues to influence events throughout. There was a risk that focussing on alternate-reality versions of our favourite characters would reduce the stakes, but it’s made clear that everything that this Rimmer and Lister do also has an impact on all other versions of the characters, no matter which medium and which writer(s) they’re from. And yes, Rob and Andrew do find a way to give Cat and Kryten a presence in the story, while Holly is also given more focus than we’re used to.

All of which contributes to what is the only downside of Titan, which is that it’s most likely to be a one-off. After four hundred pages, you really start to care about these versions of the characters and the familiar-yet-different world they inhabit. A new status quo is reached, and it ends with what is very clearly a sequel hook which, like the one in Backwards thirty years ago, is destined to go unresolved. It feels like there’s a deliberate attempt to establish a whole new strand of Red Dwarf – the buttskiverse, if you will – which Rob could have added to for years to come. But it wasn’t to be.

It’s my fond but ultimately unrealistic hope that this isn’t the end. Who knows what future plans Rob was cooking up, and whether he’d got as far as to jotting them down into a plan that could be followed. I personally would have no objections whatsoever to Andrew Marshall taking the reins and adding more work to the canon of this side-universe, but there would be many hurdles to clear before that happens.

So if Red Dwarf: Titan does prove to be a one time deal, then what a gift it is. It’s exciting, funny, riveting and joyous. It’s got a case for being the best Red Dwarf work this century. Rob Grant’s existing body of work had already ensured his legacy, but Titan proves that he never lost his knack for writing these particular characters, and never lost sight of what makes Red Dwarf work, as it did without fail when he was originally involved. It seemed to come out of nowhere, three decades on from Rob’s last major contribution to the franchise, we now have a brand new sacred text that easily sits alongside its much older siblings.

In a world where the prospect of new Red Dwarf on TV seems more unlikely than ever, Titan is manna from heaven. It will fuel discussion and keep this community alive for years to come, and I’m so, so grateful that we have it. Cheers, Rob. You did not let us down.

Please keep the comments of this post spoiler-free for those who have not yet read the book. For discussions of the plot of Titan, please use the dedicated threads in the forum.