General questions about Last human.

[Pheonix11]

Firstly, short and sweet:
Was Ace’s Ship called Wildfire in LH or just Backwards?

Secondly, and hopefully lively, Did anyone else have trouble getting into LH?

I’m only up to Chapter 4, Time fork.
I like the start and I get the idea that rest of the novel may or may not be happening in Listers head (No spoilers please, Ok I know about Michaels existence, and that Dave and Krissie set up home, but not how they get there.).

I think my main problem is The presence of Kochanski, Not in an I hate her way more, Hmmmm…

Ok, The scenes lifted from the eps. like them in the other books, it’s interesting to see how they are used. But in this one, the red alert scene.
It’s classic Television, even the Daleks like it, but it seems oddly placed in this book and threw me out of the action add that to the fact that he gave some of the lines to Kris, seemingly, to me, to justify her presence/remind us that she’s there. I doing so it upsets the flow of the gag.
It makes an already miss place scene, IMHO, just not work.

I haven’t read far enough in to find out if I like This Kochanski yet, in my head she a weird mix of C.P. and Chloé.

I Think I’ll go back to the beginning of Time fork and give it another go.

I got through the First three so fast, I guess I’m just dis-hearted that I’m struggling with this one.

Peace.

Phe

Topic

[Andrew]

> Was Ace?s Ship called Wildfire in LH or just Backwards?

Just Backwards. But Ace isn’t IN Last Human, and neither’s his ship.

> No spoilers please

Ah. Hopefully that wasn’t one…

[Pete Part Three]

1. Ace isn’t in Last Human. The confusion may stem from the fact that the novel contains an alternate universes plot and “Smoke me a Kipper” is used in the final chapter but a successful Rimmer (aside from Arnold’s son) does not appear.

And Ace’s ship in Dimension Jump was unnamed.

I’m wondering if the confusion stems from the mistaken belief that Last Human follows on from Backwards. It doesn’t. Both it and Backwards follow on from Better Than Life; separate sequels.

Rob Grant and Doug Naylor ended their partnership during the writing of [The] Last Human. Doug ended up writing Last Human, Rob offered his own sequel with Backwards.

2. The first part of the book probably doesn’t help if you had trouble getting into it as it’s all rather confusing what the hell is going on until you read a bit further. I think it’s the weakest of the books and the most un-Dwarfian but a lot of people here seem to disagree. The final chapters and the inclusion of Michael McGruder I find, to be frank, embarrassing.

I would agree that scenes such as “Red Alert” jar a little with the general tone of the novel and slow down the action.

>I haven?t read far enough in to find out if I like This Kochanski yet, in my head she a weird mix of C.P. and Chlo?.

Novel Kochanski is a bit odd. She doesn’t seem to resemble either version but, that said, this one is in love with Lister rather than an alternate version of him.

[John Hoare]

Rob Grant and Doug Naylor ended their partnership during the writing of [The] Last Human.

I’ve always wondered how much of The Last Human Rob and Doug wrote before the partnership split up. Any of it? Or did they get a few chapters in?

[Andrew]

I know but cannot say. :-(

[John Hoare]

*shakes fist*

…not like that.

[Phil]

>I know but cannot say. :-(

It’s true…you could be fired!

[Ridley]

Then he can tell us what he really thinks of series VIII.

[Pheonix11]

Andrew: Thank you.

And don’t worry, finding out a charector isn’t in a story, not a huge spoiler. :

SSH: Thank you.

I think my personal confusion comes from seeing people refer specifically to ‘Rob’s Ace in ‘Backwards’. I assumed it was because Doug has his own variation, My bad.

Yeah I know she was never named in the show. I kinda like the way she is called Wildfire in a lot of Fan-fics, it’s an odd mix of Canon and fanon.

I know that they are both meant to be sequels to BTL, Backwards just flows better from it, what with the whole, actually starting in the reverse-verse.

As I said in the post I probably will give it another try, I have seen some mixed reviews, but I wont judge something I haven’t fully read for myself. :)

Everyone else:

Hello!!

Phe

[Ian Symes]

Has anyone pointed out the spelling mistake yet?

[Antipodean]

> I know that they are both meant to be sequels to BTL, Backwards just flows better from it, what with the whole, actually starting in the reverse-verse.

I agree… mostly. I still don’t like it how Kochanski was written out of Backwards. “Oh, yeah, she couldn’t perceive time going forwards: she only remembered the future, like everyone else. Why was she like that and Lister wasn’t, when both were taken and transplanted onto Backwards Earth in exactly the same way? Because SHUT UP, that’s why.”

On the whole, I’m not entirely happy about either book but I think I prefer “Last Human” to “Backwards”. “Backwards” is just too… sadistic. (And one minor point: if in the Red Dwarf TV show Lister and Cat were both de-aged to 15 years old, AND STAYED THAT WAY, how would you react?)

[Ben Paddon]

Antipodean regurgitated his Alphabetti Spaghetti, and it spelt…
(And one minor point: if in the Red Dwarf TV show Lister and Cat were both de-aged to 15 years old, AND STAYED THAT WAY, how would you react?)

People often mention this, but they seem to have no problem with Lister being discovered on Earth, an old and tired man, and later dying of a heart attack. Seems a little ohIdontknowsortofmaybe hypocritical, perhaps.

[Antipodean]

they seem to have no problem with Lister being discovered on Earth, an old and tired man, and later dying of a heart attack. Seems a little ohIdontknowsortofmaybe hypocritical, perhaps.

Not really, since the end of “Better Than Life” says that he is going to spend 36 years on Backwards Earth, so that by the end of that – and in time for the beginning of the next book, presumably – he will be back at the physical age of 25. So he DOESN’T stay that way. That’s the difference.

(And at any rate, there’s a difference between aging someone and de-aging someone. Aging a character gives the reader an image in their mind’s eye of the same character, physically older but still the same – so in Lister’s case, you’d imagine Craig Charles in old-age makeup. On the other hand, de-aging the character to a teenager is altogether a much bigger change, and also carries with it all the baggage of “Younger and Edgier Recasting!”)

[John Hoare]

On the other hand, de-aging the character to a teenager is altogether a much bigger change, and also carries with it all the baggage of ?Younger and Edgier Recasting!?)

Yeah, I think part of the reason they get away with it in the book is because the issue of recasting doesn’t come up, like it would in the TV series.

I need to read the books again, but I always preferred Backwards – and greatly enjoyed the sadistic content. Although I do recall being majorly bored during the section based on Gunmen, and skipping some of it – whether that’s because I didn’t have the attention span back then, or whether it really DOESN’T work, I don’t know.

[ChrisM]

Although I do recall being majorly bored during the section based on Gunmen, and skipping some of it – whether that?s because I didn?t have the attention span back then, or whether it really DOESN?T work, I don?t know.

Did you that section at all? It’s a lot gorier than the other version.

As for choice, I used to think I’d go with Last Human… but I’m not sure. I liked return to the Backwards reality which the other skipped over, (although I agree concerning what happened with Kochanski, albeit I didn’t think of the contradiction – her not remembering in a forwards way.) I also liked the agonoid characters. I even go by the name of one on the main site. (Sort of.) Not sure why Rob Grant felt the need to rename ‘simulant’ to ‘agonoid’ though, they’re essentially the same as far as I can tell.

[John Hoare]

Yeah, I remember the gory stuff – the bullet through the shoe, as I recall. But as a whole, that section bored me to tears. Like I say, I might really like it now, though – my attention span has grown since then!

[ChrisM]

Thing is, that section is stuff you’ve seen already. (Mostly anyway.) You kinda know whats going to happen.

Lots of other original stuff though so it all balances out.

[John Hoare]

Jesus Christ, I didn’t know this – The Last Human is listed on fucking Amazon. THE Last Human, by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor.

Amazon’s database really is FUCKED, isn’t it? So much dodgy crap on there that was never released…

[Pete Part Three]

I think I promised I’d transcribe this about three years ago, but here’s an interview with Grant Naylor from Steve Lyons and Chris Howarth. This is from Volume 2, No. 6 of the Smegazine (dated October 1993) and is a minor part of a large feature on the then-upcoming series VI…

————————–

With the release date for the third Red Dwarf book, The Last Human, fast approaching, Steve Lyons and Chris Howarth also took their opportunity to ask writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor how things were going.

“Actually,” Rob confesses “It’s hard to say because of, all the genres, a novel is the one you really have to plan and you really have to know where you’re going. It’s hard keeping a thirty-minute episode in your head, never mind a whole novel…well, I find it hard! So it’s the planning stage which is the hardest; you feel like you’re doing no work at all when you’re planning, but it is the hardest part”.

Although most of that planning has obviously been done now, the guys don’t want to give away much of the plotline of their latest epic just yet. “We might tell you we’re going to put something in and then we cut it”, explains Doug. “A week before we handed in the proofs for the first novel, Thanks for the Memory was in it” Rob adds, “and it all got cut”.

One of the first jobs for the writers is to pick up the plot threads left hanging at the end of the second novel, Better Than Life. As Rob explains, however, “Our aim is that people can pick up the third book and still enjoy it without really missing anything. Obviously, there are always going to be people who’ve read them all, but the idea is to try and make it as self-contained as possible”.

Those people who have read the story so far will recall that an aged Dave Lister has been left living a bizarre reverse life on an other dimensional, backwards-running Earth, where he is shortly to be partnered by the newly resurrected Kristine Kochanski. The third book, according to Doug, “does actually start the day after”. So, would it be too much, we wonder, if we asked for a hint as to whether Kochanski would be sticking around for any length of time. Actually: “It would, yes!” confirms Doug, with a laugh.

As the continuity of the novels drifts further and further away from that of the TV show, it seems less and less likely that Rob and Doug would be able to use any ideas from the show at all. “It’s about a 60-40 mix of new stuff to old”, says Doug – in fact, roughly the same sort of ratio that was apparent both in Better Than Life and in Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers. “When we first started out, ” Rob explains “we wondered if people would get really angry that they weren’t just getting transcripts of the TV shows in sequence. But we thought, well, that’s not what we’re interested in doing anyway.” Obviously, they made the right choice, as evidenced by the international best-selling status of the first two novels.

So how do they decide which episodes to adapt?

“There are always ideas that, though we really try to cram into half an hour, they’re really worth a lot more,” says Rob. “Better Than Life particularly, and that kind of thing – so when we’re thinking of TV ideas now, naturally novel ideas come up as well, and in the novel we’ll do one thing, but for the TV show we’ll do a more straightforward, cheaper version”.

The new book should be hitting the shelves at the end of October [!]; Penguin are obviously rushing it straight into the shops to tie in with the Television screening of Series 6. Perhaps the best news for many people is that we poorer fans will not be left hanging on for a paperback for a year, as with Better Than Life. Although Penguin do plan again to publish both hardback and paperback versions of The Last Human, these will be released simultaneously.

———————–

So, how much did Rob Grant and Doug Naylor write? Rather a lot, it seems.

[Ian Symes]

Although, that interview always smelt a bit of bullshit to me. I think they’d actually done very little, other than odd ideas that would eventually diverge into the two different books. Some of the quotes you’ve, erm, quoted can easily be taken as them disguising the fact that they haddn’t got much down yet, despite the deadline being so tight. ?We might tell you we?re going to put something in and then we cut it?? Come on!

[Phil]

First:
>Volume 2, No. 6 of the Smegazine (dated October 1993)

And then:
>The new book should be hitting the shelves at the end of October [!];

Forgive me if I’m being thicker than a hilarious comparison, but does this mean that the book was scheduled to come out that very month, or are they referring to next October?

If it was that very month then the thing…well…it should have been finished, barring corrections/minor rewrites.

If it was to be the following October, though, God knows…

[Pete Part Three]

Couple of things to bear in mind: The interview isn’t dated. Just because it was printed mere weeks prior to an intended publication date, doesn’t mean that it was conducted then. Much more likely that it was done at the same time that Lyons and Howarth were sniffing around the making of series VI, and publication was delayed to tie in with the release.

As far as I can see the book was intended to come out in October 1993. (Bear in mind that the October issue probably came out in late August as is standard publishing lunacy).

I get a slight whiff of BS (except for the remark about the novel beginning the day after BTL ended…which neither LH or Backwards did) but I’d surprised if they hadn’t at least got an outline and a fair few chapters before the deadline became unmanageable,or the the partnership dissolved.

[John Hoare]

They MUST have had an outline at least, surely. God, I’d love to read it. If it still exists!

I don’t know, give us Bodysnatcher and it spoils us…

[Dave]

In the UK, many monthly magazines release October’s issue in September, maybe its so it looks ‘new’ for the whole of its shelf life. I’m not certain about the Smegazine.

When I worked for WHSmiths (a newsagent) there was a sign up for Women’s Weeklies, and another up in the staff room (with orders it never be used) that read Women’s Monthlies. The day I left I swapped them over. I’m a cheeky scamp, welcome to my scampery.

[Rushy]

“We might tell you we’re going to put something in and then we cut it”, explains Doug. “A week before we handed in the proofs for the first novel, Thanks for the Memory was in it” Rob adds, “and it all got cut”. 

[Warbodog]

I’d like to read the deleted scenes, but it seems like the right call, as it doesn’t tie into anything else (unless it did) and Lise Yates could just be a distraction from the Kochanski throughline.

Future Echoes was also self-contained, but at least sets up Jim and Bexley for later. Oh yeah, and old Lister’s scar.

[Flap Jack]

Setting up Jim and Bexley isn’t an unconditional positive though. They’d have to pay it off, and they don’t, so the “it was Bexley’s son who died” point just creates a plot hole.

If it had set up Yelxeb and Mij however, then we’d be talking.

[Warbodog]

They show up when they get back to “Earth” in the last section, so it could (does?) make them more credible, briefly, than if they hadn’t been established previously (hi, abridged tapes).

[Nick R]

[Flap Jack]

They show up when they get back to “Earth” in the last section, so it could (does?) make them more credible, briefly, than if they hadn’t been established previously (hi, abridged tapes).

True, it helps with the mislead at least, but that could have been achieved just by Lister mentioning he’d call his sons that, if he ever had any.

I guess Bexley’s (son’s) death didn’t pay off in the TV show either, but the novels went one step further and made it impossible for it to even hypothetically pay off.

[Warbodog]

True, it helps with the mislead at least, but that could have been achieved just by Lister mentioning he’d call his sons that, if he ever had any.

It goes a bit further by confirming that they will have been going to existed, and the BTL fantasy seems to be the tidy answer to ‘how’ temporarily (possibly with the nagging question of why they would be back on Red Dwarf in the future), so it works nicely on the self-contained level. Like how I can still think highly of The Impossible Astronaut & Day of the Moon without letting their clumsy pay-offs drag them down.

I think the more pressing unresolved point from the novels is Lister apparently creating the universe. Just their own ‘dud’ universe, or all of them? What did they mean???

[clem]

I think the more pressing unresolved point from the novels is Lister apparently creating the universe. Just their own ‘dud’ universe, or all of them? What did they mean???

Yeah presumably that would have been followed up in the third Grant Naylor novel, and might have had something to do with Lister’s plan to tow Garbage World/Earth back to the solar system, which is likewise never mentioned again. Also, iirc from the book club, all the stuff about the Nova 5’s duality jump drive and the plan to use it to get back to Earth was real, but doesn’t come up again after they get out of the game.

[Rushy]

Also, iirc from the book club, all the stuff about the Nova 5’s duality jump drive and the plan to use it to get back to Earth was real, but doesn’t come up again after they get out of the game.

They made a big point of saying that Red Dwarf was extremely dilapidated after they got out of the game, so it’s hypothetically possible that the Nova 5 was lost or irreparably damaged somehow while Holly wasn’t paying attention. 

[Rushy]

I finally finished rereading this book. One thing I had forgotten was that the Mayflower planet (somehow) goes through the Omni-Zone at the end, meaning that they could have winded up back in their original universe and found Red Dwarf and Holly. 

I’m just saying it because the idea of Holly rotting away alone is too depressing. 

[Warbodog]

I think I read the first novel over a weekend when I was 11, I was totally gripped.

First time through BTL took longer as I found it dragged in places (probably the first part), but still engaging.

Last Human took AGES, mostly in school silent reading sessions for 10 minutes at a time when I had to read something anyway, not in my own time for fun. It didn’t click that I didn’t like it all that much until later.

[Flap Jack]

Last Human? More like Arse Pooman amirite.

[Unrumble]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Last Human
featuring 
Lister, Kochanski, Evil Lister, Mcgruder, other sundry Space Corp Marines and Cyberia prisoners, Kryten for a few pages and an implication of Kochanski’s pregnancy at the end?  

Am I missing anyone?

[Dax101]

Last Human to me as always felt like a book you would get in Star Wars and Star Trek universes. Its Doug creating his own planet of Gelfs of all different kinds to fill in as aliens so he could have a story thats very busy full of characters. To the point where it forgets its a sequel to Infinity/Better than life and doesn’t even remember Red Dwarf or Holly exists. 

[Dave]

Last Human
featuring 
Lister, Kochanski, Evil Lister, Mcgruder, other sundry Space Corp Marines and Cyberia prisoners, Kryten for a few pages and an implication of Kochanski’s pregnancy at the end?  

Am I missing anyone?

Ultra-supra-pro-pre-antepenultimate Human.

[Technopeasant]

[Flap Jack]

The title was meant to be a reference to James Last, but his story arc was edited out.

[sleepey]

It’s an imperative, challenging the (presumed) human reader to “last” to the end

Did you know if you buy a new copy now it doesn’t have the silvery bits?

[Warbodog]

Not noticed that detail on the cover before due to lack of zoom mode.

Is Lister supposed to have put the sunglasses on the skull for a laugh? Did someone else? Is it just a cool skull that wears shades? (Always leaned towards the latter).

[Technopeasant]

He’s a Warren Zevon fan, obviously.

[Asclepius]

Last Human
featuring 
Lister, Kochanski, Evil Lister, Mcgruder, other sundry Space Corp Marines and Cyberia prisoners, Kryten for a few pages and an implication of Kochanski’s pregnancy at the end?  
Am I missing anyone?

Ultra-supra-pro-pre-antepenultimate Human.

I had, at first, obviously presumed the ‘Last Human’ was Lister  – as he is throughout. But couldn’t it also refer to McGruder and his own experiences? Does he not think he is the last,until he finds out otherwise?

I enjoyed Last Human more in late 1995 (presumably I bought it new) than I enjoyed Backwards more the next year. I get the arguments around why the latter book is better, but it’s hard to get around my own initial feelings about them.

[Ian Symes]

No, you’re not *The* Last Human. *The* Last Human is the unfinished (and possibly unstarted) third Grant Naylor novel.

[Asclepius]

No, you’re not *The* Last Human. *The* Last Human is the unfinished (and possibly unstarted) third Grant Naylor novel.

I vote we use AI to take all of ‘Last Human’ and all of ‘Backwards’ and combine them into one ‘coherent’ novel.

My head canon was always that Backwards was the third book anyway. It’s easier to bridge the gap between that book and Last Human (add Kochanski) than it would be to bridge the gap between Last Human and Backwards (which are, frankly, insurmountable).

Backwards feels like it was written to have sequels.

Last Human feels like it was written to kill the chance of any sequels.

[Dave]

THE LAST BACKWARDS HUMAN

When Adam and Eve arrive in Eden and immediately regurgitate apples onto a nearby tree, God is so delighted that he turns Eve into a bone and inserts her into Adam’s ribcage.

[Warbodog]

I wouldn’t want to ruin Backwards like that, I like it well enough. Even when you’re not laughing with Rob (e.g. if you’re not a complete psycho), you can enjoy laughing at him.

Contradictory sequels would be more of a problem in a series that didn’t explicitly feature alternate versions of the characters and literal universe hopping. It’s not narratively satisfying that we’re not following exactly the same versions of the characters from book to book, but the justification’s there.

[Asclepius]

I wouldn’t want to ruin Backwards like that, I like it well enough. Even when you’re not laughing with Rob (e.g. if you’re not a complete psycho), you can enjoy laughing at him.
Contradictory sequels would be more of a problem in a series that didn’t explicitly feature alternate versions of the characters and literal universe hopping. It’s not narratively satisfying that we’re not following exactly the same versions of the characters from book to book, but the justification’s there.

Just feels like he sets it up for a sequel. Lister and Cat (whatever age they are – it’s unclear) arrive on a Red Dwarf that only has Rimmer and Kryten on it. Feels set up for more. Coming soon out of buttskis, perhaps.

Contradictory sequels. That would make a good flow-chart. The TV series as we know it, the novels into Rob’s fork, and the novels into Doug’s fork.

Somewhere else, of course, the TV series does deviate from itself, too. The events of Stasis Leak (Lister marrying Kochanski) don’t happen, for example.

And whatever universe we’re watching after ‘Only the Good….’ too…

[Author]

Replies