What do you expect from Titan?

[Rushy]

As we are so close to release, I’m curious to know what other fans are hoping/thinking they’ll get out of this new book. Any predictions about the tone, the story?

Topic

[tombow]

[Moonlight]

It is a tragedy that Rob can’t be here to read our arguing and genital torture memes.

[Dax101]

We got our first review of Red Dwarf: Titan
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/2224698/i-read-new-red-dwarf-book

[Moonlight]

Welp, time for me to tune the fuck out for the next 12 days. I already know the gist and that I’ll like it, and outside that I want to know, as the wise Seargeant Schutlz said many a year ago, nothing.

Do you have that reference in England? I’m not translating it.

[clem]

We got our first review of Red Dwarf: Titan
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/2224698/i-read-new-red-dwarf-book

All very positive. 

I don’t suppose Holly will be in the book much if it’s mainly set off the ship, and he’ll be the non-senile pre-radiation leak version anyway. But if they’ve managed to include Cat and Kryten somehow I guess anything is possible. 

[Rushy]

Welp, time for me to tune the fuck out for the next 12 days. 

Try 12 weeks… or however long it takes for Amazon to bring me my actual physical copy. I’m not reading this from the screen!

[Technopeasant]

I just don’t like to spend half the bloody book in some weird surrealist landscape where all the jokes have about forty layers to them, and each chapter requires half a minute of figuring out where they are, what they’re doing, who they’re with and why. 
I don’t mind doing that in moderation, but for every few chapters like that, I would enjoy some larking about on the ship. And then do something else. That’s what worked so well about the show format. You’d have a Better than Life, and then you’d have a Thanks for the Memory. 

Exactly this. There’s no cosyness to the novels once they leave the game.

[Doomitron]

Might be up to personal preference but one thing I like about the novels is they take the setting and situation pretty seriously, in the show it seems like a fun adventure most of the time but I don’t think I’d describe anything in the books as cozy at any point.

[Rushy]

It’s also about variety. A third of the book takes place in the video game.

(After Infinity already spent a fair few chapters there)

Then you have Marooned/Garbage World. Then White Hole and half of Polymorph take place during the Garbage World segment. 

Maybe it’s some form of neurodiversity in me, but I’d like them to just have a (shorter) adventure and then a time skip. It can be a dark, brutal adventure and it can tie into the next adventure, but there should be a sense of “okay, we did this, now we’re moving on”.

That’s one thing I liked about Last Human. They go somewhere, they get back into Starbug, they fly off. And you don’t know how long it takes until the next adventure happens. Could be next week, could be next month. I like that sense of journey. 

Everything in BTL and Backwards feels unnecessarily crammed together. Kryten in particular suffers from this, because he has no time to develop whatsoever. He is in David Ross mode for the entire first two books. Then in Last Human and Backwards, he jumps to series 6 Kryten. 

[Moonlight]

Kryten in particular suffers from this, because he has no time to develop whatsoever. He is in David Ross mode for the entire first two books. Then in Last Human and Backwards, he jumps to series 6 Kryten. 

I mean, in fairness, the first two novels are both pre-Series IV, whereas both third novels are post-VI. I can understand the desire to have the character immediately conform to how the audience would expect at that point in a way that wouldn’t happen if they’d more gradually written novels alongside the show’s run.

[Doomitron]

It’s also about variety. A third of the book takes place in the video game.

Be false advertising if it weren’t, that is its title. Kind of like how I do expect Titan to take place predominately on Titan.

[Technopeasant]

Might be up to personal preference but one thing I like about the novels is they take the setting and situation pretty seriously, in the show it seems like a fun adventure most of the time but I don’t think I’d describe anything in the books as cozy at any point.

I mean, it’s definitely lonely but there are worse fates than being trapped in a comfortable existence with essentially limitless resources and never having to work again. Until the genetic mutants and killer robots showed up.

[Doomitron]

But everyone you loved is dead and your only companions are an advanced ChatGPT, the necromanced AI of the worst person you know and a stupid one-dimensional narcissist. Realistically I think most people who top themselves pretty quick, but its dependent on the person as evidenced here.

[loadoftottnumb]

Taking into account the info we have already (hopefully it’s ok to mention what’s in the teaser vids) I expect

A self contained story set mostly on Titan in the Red Dwarf universe, one to the side, pre-accident. 

There will be characters called Dave Lister and Arnold Rimmer, based on the two we know from Grant/Doug Naylor. 

Kryten will be there, easy enough to do with the different universe thing, they meet him early on. There will be a Holly character, possibly female, based on the one/two we know. 

There will be a ‘Cat’ but this is the one I’m most intrigued by. When first discussing Titan and not knowing what format it would be I thought it might be a human character with cat like qualities, maybe called Cat as it’s short for ‘Cathisius’ or something. 

Kochanski will be prominent. 

I expect we’ll see different versions of old friends, hopefully not all of them called Frank this time (a teaser vid is hopeful there)

I suspect there will be a lot of humour, some horror and some new villains to overcome.

[Dax101]

The audiobook is also available to buy on 
https://xigxag.co.uk/audiobook/red-dwarf-titan-9781399636124/

Infact there is a 3 min sample of the audiobook up on there now. Nothing particularly spoilery. 

[Spare Hand One]

The audiobook is also available to buy on 
https://xigxag.co.uk/audiobook/red-dwarf-titan-9781399636124/

Infact there is a 3 min sample of the audiobook up on there now. nothing particulaly spoilery. It has an infinity style opening to it

This is great. Feels classic.

[Technopeasant]

But everyone you loved is dead and your only companions are an advanced ChatGPT, the necromanced AI of the worst person you know and a stupid one-dimensional narcissist. Realistically I think most people who top themselves pretty quick, but its dependent on the person as evidenced here.

Lister was already estranged from everything/everyone he knew and loved after the pub crawl left him stranded. It’s possible the trauma would compound, but equally possible Lister was better positioned than most to handle the transition. As for the AI dig, Lister has never seemed inclined to see Holly or Rimmer as less than 100% sentient, so I don’t think that applies.

There will be a ‘Cat’ but this is the one I’m most intrigued by. When first discussing Titan and not knowing what format it would be I thought it might be a human character with cat like qualities, maybe called Cat as it’s short for ‘Cathisius’ or something. 

I vaguely recall Rob mentioning something about accelerated evolution or something.

[tombow]

[clem]

I vaguely recall Rob mentioning something about accelerated evolution or something.

Yeah he did say something like that, and that Express review mentions the Cat in the sewers. Hmm. 

Red Dwarf Titan 2: The Secret of the Ooze

[JimReaper]

My guess at the plot?

3 million years in the far future a sinister antagonist has erased “our” Rimmer and Lister from existence. Needing to restore / repair the timeline (to preserve the remnant of the human race) Kryten and Cat travel back before the accident to ensure events more or less line up with before… only to find that the same forces that caused the trouble in the far future are at play on Titan too.

Told mostly from the perspective of young Lister and young Rimmer, it serves as a prequel / alt origin story, while older Kryten and Cat’s presence allows it to also be a sequel.

[Technopeasant]

Personally I don’t think so, given the explicit universe one to the side framing. It doesn’t sound like the idea was a time travel event creating the partition, outside of the message from the future tidbit.

[Dave]

the explicit universe

This is a great denomination for the new Rob Grant timeline. 

[Technopeasant]

Rated NC-17 for intense genital torture.

[Author]

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