Titan: Part 2 – SPOILERS

[Ian Symes]

Welcome to the spoiler-laden discussion thread for Red Dwarf: Titan Part 2: Wedergebore.

This is a place for no-holds-barred, detailed, nitty-gritty opinions and theories on everything in the second part of the book. Please try and avoid referencing anything from beyond this part, so that people can visit each thread as they complete each section of the book. And if you haven’t yet read Part 2, get out of here immediately.

Your comments may be used in the DwarfCast Book Club at a future date, so if your point is related to a specific sub-chapter, do mark it clearly.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Topic

[Doomitron]

There’s a lot of anal in this book.

[Dax101]

I think Rob might have messed up with the Cat evolution. Which is a little disappointing. Bit of a retcon going on that feels a little wrong.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I think Rob might have messed up with the Cat evolution. Which is a little disappointing. Bit of a retcon going on that feels a little wrong.

Messed up in what way?

[Dax101]

Well, I’m only on to this part of the book. So maybe I’m missing something that comes later on. But it seems like it implys Frankenstein is a male cat and is, in fact, the Cat? Which isn’t what Frankenstein is meant to be.

[evilmorwen]

Well, I’m only on to this part of the book. So maybe I’m missing something that comes later on. But it seems like it implys Frankenstein is a male cat and is, in fact, the Cat? Which isn’t what Frankenstein is meant to be.

Trans Cat is canon.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Well, I’m only on to this part of the book. So maybe I’m missing something that comes later on. But it seems like it implys Frankenstein is a male cat and is, in fact, the Cat? Which isn’t what Frankenstein is meant to be.

Well, it is a different reality. 

With the exception of the original car/kitten, which I don’t think is ever sexed, there’s a very specific chain of events that explain any changes

[Warbodog]

Ten chapters into part 2, I’ve been finding it a bit of a slump since the exposition kicked in at the start. Rimmer and Lister in distress is still entertaining, but less now they’re players in an epic cosmic plot that isn’t proving any more enticing to me than it sounded in the marketing. Maybe it was felt that a slice of life prequel wouldn’t be worthwhile without this cinematic hook, but it seems I would have greatly preferred they’d just done that, unless I’m going to get into it.

Didn’t feel like taking many notes, except that, as weird for newcomers as Kryten’s message from the future would be, something similar happens in the first book and first series of the show with the future echoes and we handled that alright.

[Warbodog]

Five more chapters and I’ve got into it again. The predetermined destiny smeg is only briefly being touched on, and I’d been looking forward to Rimmer’s belated ‘Cassandra’-style realisation that he doesn’t share Lister’s invincibility, Grant Marshall and Naylor independently finding the same path of humour there. Unlike Cassandra, I feel there’s less threat of Rimmer actually dying here (and becoming a hologram so he can still be in the story), but if the universe doesn’t want Lister to be around in the future, Rimmer dying and the radiation leak being averted isn’t off the table, so maybe he can. I don’t think he will though.

Lister briefly but seriously considering the advantage of extra buttocks was good too.

Gorgaroth (sic) [the] Destroyer is a black metal album, but it turns out to be a name from Lord of the Rings anyway. It’s got “gore” in it, so Grant Marshall and Tolkien could have come up with it independently.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

> but if the universe doesn’t want Lister to be around in the future

The universe (the destiny drive) specifically does want Lister around in the future, and they’ve got to try their hardest to ensure he isn’t. 

[Warbodog]

I’ve just re-read that bit of part 2, chapter 1, I think I see now… Kryten wants this Lister to keep himself in the past and prevent Red Dwarf from happening, is it? See, I said I needed them to keep it straightforward for me.

[Warbodog]

Chapter 16

What the fuck is this nonsense? Oh well, whatever. I appreciated getting a few chapters away to get over the origin so I could start enjoying him being back.

Chapter 17

If we were watching this go out weekly at the same pace, we could get some good old-school theorising going about the villain’s identity with the clues we’re being given. Any ideas, if you’re this far? Someone we know well who hasn’t showed up yet? Someone from [an alternate] future who’s looped back for revenge? I still have no idea, so I’ll just crack on and go with Duane Dibbley at 50/1.

Chapter 19

Kochanski being the competent one was already done in Last Human and Series VII 30 years ago, but this version’s undeniably cooler.

Chapter 20

Is “smeg” being reserved as a Lister phrase? I haven’t been paying enough attention.

Chapter 23

End of part 2 feels more exciting than end of part 1.

[Warbodog]

Well, it is a different reality. 
With the exception of the original cat/kitten, which I don’t think is ever sexed, there’s a very specific chain of events that explain any changes

As I understand it (which I don’t have the best track record on), they used the future tech to genetically engineer Frankenstein into a felis sapiens approximate but not identical to the Cat (the eyes being a giveaway, or just artistic licence for what Cat’s “supposed” to look like), skipping all the actual evolution and Cat not literally being his ancestor because sci-fi future tech did it. So this is sort of the same and a different character at the same time because a version of Cat is needed there.

At that point, changing the cat’s sex or not seems fairly inconsequential.

[Dave]

Slightly more detail is given on the specifics later, but that’s pretty much it.

[tombow]

at the start, when Lister and Kris are about to speak and get interrupted, I thought the book was going to do an “adult Maggie Simpson” running joke that Kochanski would never speak, or would keep getting cut off.

[Warbodog]

[tombow]

yeah, I thought it was gonna be an ironic comment on her non-character status in the books and (Rob’s era of) the programme, ha ha

[loadoftottnumb]

Trans Cat is canon.

Isn’t that the Noid? 

I didn’t enjoy part 2 as much as part 1, found it dragged a bit. We are over halfway through the audiobook and feels like we are still world building and introducing the main characters. On to part 3…

[clem]

[clem]

Chapter 1

The One Where Carzon Is Kryten

Chapter 2

Kochanski doesn’t seem to like her friends very much does she. 

Chapter 10
“anal razor lobsters” Jayne Mansfield of course famously suffered terribly with them.

Chapter 11

Not sure what’s going on here. Why can’t Holly remember what he needed to tell Hollister?

Chapter 14

Carzon doesn’t understand dreaming. Did Rob forget about Kryten’s garden?

Chapter 18

I was half expecting the Meneer’s identity to be revealed at the end of this chapter. I have no idea who it could be. Lewis Pemberton?

Chapter 19

Oh, so Themis actually recognised the Meneer. It seems like he has some connection to Red Dwarf, but Themis doesn’t. None the wiser. 

Chapter 20

I like the running gag with all these details about Rimmer’s excessive promotion celebrations. They put me in mind of his outlandishly lavish fantasy life in the BTL game, in the novels.

Chapter 21

When Byle’s watch beeps is it to call her away to deal with something more urgent, or just to alert her that the guards will be getting back up after their one minute of incapacitation? Only it doesn’t ring true that she’d leave Rimmer there unless she really had to, when she’s been so determined to nab him up until now. She’d have handcuffed him or used her billyclub, or strong-armed him out through the hole in the wall one way or another.

Presumably you need to have a Domer’s chip implant for the concussion grenade to affect you. I’m guessing this will be important later in the story. 

[clem]

I enjoyed Part 2 but it still all feels a bit languid despite there being so much going on. I suppose I thought the Kryten chapter would kick the whole save-all-the-universes plot into gear but oddly that’s all kind of in the background and Lister and Rimmer don’t seem that arsed. Still, it’s funny and intriguing with nicely drawn characters. I hope there’s more of the pill-popping doctor. I don’t at all mind the contrived way they got “The Cat” into this. Trying to get back into the bag was a highlight, as was giving Lister a dead mouse. There are some groanworthy jokes and clunky dialogue like there were in the first part, but more than enough good stuff to make up for that. 

[tombow]

I didn’t even think of the “cat in the bag” joke (facepalm)

[Asclepius]

Picking on what others have said.

Yeah, the Cosmic Plot just…doesn’t work much for me. The subplot of Kochanski and Themis is great and works well. But not so much the Cosmic Plot.

And Petersen and Pear is a bad joke that doesn’t work, and is repeated ad-finitum.

Yes, Peterson could suddenly *get* Art and love art. But he wouldn’t have the terms for it that he uses.

The stuff about the bad guy’s identity was quite well done. I don’t think it’s revealed in this part, so I won’t go There though.

Rimmer and Byle is fine, but the endless dream sequences…again, a weak joke repeated.

[Richietee]

I’m not sure if this is the first time we have heard Lister say “Why on Io” I always took it as Rimmer saying it as that was his home Moon like how we say “Why on Earth” 

This universe’s version of Petersen seems much more violent than we have seen before (other than in Backwards when he stapled that guard’s groin) I wonder if this version is friends with Lister.

Kochanski has been a real highlight for me so far, love her mission to find Themis and how she’s been following her trail.

“Go to Moreau/Tomorrow” was a really fun reveal (as was Rimmer’s attempt at working it out)

 

Bit off topic but wonder if anyone else has this feeling and can voice it better than me

I keep worrying I’m going through it too fast (it’s so easy to blast through chapters and will be listening to the audiobook afterwards) 

I get pangs of sadness as it hits me that this is the final piece of Rob Grant fiction I will read and I’m just zipping through

I’m just so glad this book exists!

 

[Warbodog]

I get pangs of sadness as it hits me that this is the final piece of Rob Grant fiction I will read and I’m just zipping through
I’m just so glad this book exists!

 

Yeah, at the end of each part I checked the dwindling thickness and felt I was watching the hourglass run out, but if I stretched it out over years like Kryten with the western novel in Backwards I’d just forget what was happening.

[sleepey]

I want to say the Cat stuff makes sense if TV Lister took the female Frankenstein away (like he took the pen) leaving Titan Lister with a male one, & the Destiny Engine contrived the whole DNA thing so they’d still end up with a The Cat on Red Dwarf like they’re supposed to. But it was the Destiny Engine mixing up the realities & it was Kryten who sent them to Moreau, so that’s actually completely backwards. Idk.

[Flap Jack]

The Destiny Engine clearly works in mysterious ways, including through Kryten.

Though it is funny for the book to imply that as far as destiny is concerned, all variations of “Lister is caught smuggling a cat on board” are equally fine. Even if the cat is a fully humanoid mutant, the cat evades capture and Lister still just gets a stasis punishment.

Tangentially related, but it was a small disappointment that despite Titan being closer to TV continuity than Grant/Naylor novel continuity in many ways, it still stuck with Lister getting Frankenstein as A Scheme. I like the young optimistic Lister of the TV version who sincerely hopes to start a farm with his saved up wages and who rescues a pregnant cat just because he wants to look after it.

[Author]

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