Whoever Heard of a Worm-Skin Rug? (Last Human - Doug Naylor)

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	Last Human - Doug Naylor
Date:	12/08/04 (286 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, exciting and intriguing, The last great slice of Dwarf, Perfect comedy/sci-fi balance

Disadvantages: Style strays a little too much from the etablished novels, Some scenes are a little tedious

Lister had died three million years from home on a garbage planet populated by mutant cockroaches. His aged body was retrieved by his crewmates – a robot, a cat and another dead man – and sent to a backwards universe to begin ageing young again. But if you thought that was confusing, try grasping the dual chronology of the Red Dwarf novels.

Following their long-time partnership as writers of television (most notably ‘Red Dwarf’) and novels (most notably ‘Red Dwarf’), the gestalt entity calling itself Grant Naylor separated, and Rob Grant and Doug Naylor went their separate ways. Rob effectively distanced himself from the successful space sitcom he had co-created despite its popularity, leaving control of the franchise to Doug. ‘Last Human’ was finally released in 1995 as a continuation of the previous Red Dwarf novels, again incorporating ideas and plots from several television episodes while sticking to an original plot.


BACKGROUND


Red Dwarf is primarily the story of Dave Lister, presumably the last human being alive following a reluctant three million years spent in suspended animation aboard the mining ship on which he was content to hold the lowest rank. The ship’s computer revived Lister’s irritating bunkmate Arnold Rimmer in order to keep him sane, while the discovery of an unbalanced service mechanoid and a man evolved from the descendants of Lister’s pregnant cat brings together a distinctly motley crew.

Dave Lister – the last human, deceptively capable but lacking any sort of ambition or effort.

Arnold J. Rimmer – a hologram made entirely of light, whose arrogance and general gitness have softened over time.

Cat – unbelievably vain, self-centred and lazy, with wardrobes that cross international time zones.

Kryten – the service mechanoid who lives only to serve and is thankfully skilled with technology.

Kristine Kochanski – Lister’s old flame who split up with him for all the obvious reasons. Although she died in the radiation leak that wiped out the crew, her ashes were recovered and sent with Lister’s to regenerate.

The difference between Red Dwarf the TV series and Red Dwarf the novels is greater than might be assumed: the first book was written in 1989, at a time when the show’s budget was still miniscule and when character and story details were still being modified, so Grant and Naylor wrote the novel to present the show’s origins as they should have been told. ‘Better Than Life,’ the second novel, branched out into new territory as the writers now felt free to explore other concepts that would be too expensive for television, or simply wouldn’t be effective in a short comedy show format.


STORY


‘Last Human’ picks up where Better Than Life left off, with Dave Lister having regenerated in a universe where time flows backwards. His temporary amnesia allows Kryten to explain the situation to new readers (in a scene adapted from the first episode of the show’s sixth series, which had the same intention) and also allows for some jokes about curried Corn Flakes and Rimmer’s neuroses before the real plot has to begin.

Red Dwarf was let behind when the crew used the insectoid transport ship Starbug to retrieve Lister and Kochanski from the backwards universe, but they are still unsure whether they have returned to their home dimension or one of the other five. The discovery of an identical ship crashed on an asteroid indicates that they haven’t, although the horrific display of mangled bodies and missing heads isn’t enough to put Lister off finding himself. Literally, not in some kind of mid-life crisis way.

The search for the alternate Lister involves passing through dangerous GELF (Genetically Engineered Life Form) colonies, but it soon becomes clear that this dimension’s Lister was much more dangerous than the curry-obsessed bum we have come to know and sort of like, a bit, and the hideously mutated creatures send Lister to the penal colony of Cyberia – a prison in which every inmate’s subconscious nightmares are played out throughout their sentence…


STYLE


As with the previous Red Dwarf books, this is written in a humorous tone that never takes the science fiction concepts too seriously. The character dialogue is true to the series – which it should be considering Naylor’s involvement – and the events do feel, for the most part, like they could easily be the genuine occurrences of a big budget Red Dwarf movie. Not that the plans for the proposed film will see the light of day any time soon.

Doug has once again incorporated dialogue, scenes and concepts from several episodes into the plot, and with good reason – these exchanges are excellent, and are mostly derived from the sixth series of the show in which the crew are marooned in Starbug, and this was the series that first got me interested (let’s face it, in love with) the franchise. The low-key cockpit exchanges between Lister and Cat, discussing such things as toenail trimmings, gullibility and dancing moose-shaped asteroids, bring back fond memories of the series while not standing out as separate from the plot.

Many fans feel that while Rob Grant was perhaps the less funny of the duo (as shown by his solo Dwarf novel ‘Backwards’), there are also claims that Doug Naylor is less adept at exploring sci-fi concepts, and that he has never outgrown his adolescent urge to write about Kochanski. It’s true that the female character makes her appearance here and would go on to star in the show’s seventh and eight series, but the descriptions of the penal colony, genetic experiments going awry and a currency based on semen all show that Doug is capable of doing it all on his own. In fact, the chapter in which Lister offers his fluids to another culture – a culture that is not sterile and as such reacts rather badly to this gesture – is a lot funnier than most of the later TV series.

It should be an easy matter to tell whether or not you would enjoy this book by your reaction to this dazed description of a slowly awakening Dave Lister on his reluctant honeymoon night:

“There was a name for it, it was very popular. What was he doing? It was something he hadn’t done a lot of recently… he was having sex. Wait a minute, he was having sex? With a grizzly bear?
No, of course he wasn’t. Crazy idea. It must be Kriss wearing an old gorilla-gram costume.
Why would she be doing that? Had she ever done anything like that before? Not really. So why now?
Damn his eyes, why couldn’t he see properly? He tried to rub them back into focus but her might hands pulled them away from his face and placed them back on her large, hairy breasts. Hairy breasts? Wait a minute. He was being screwed by khakhahhakkhhakhakkkhakkkkkh.”


VERDICT


Anyone who enjoys the Red Dwarf television series for its concepts and ideas should check out the books as they provide extra depth and insight that will never be found in the brief televised plots, but at the same time I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone who doesn’t enjoy the more science fiction-oriented episodes. The books are funny, but in a different way to the series – while most audience laughs stem from Chris Barrie making a deadpan observation over an idea’s idiocy, the book relies more on humorous descriptions of situations and characters, and as such may not be to everyone’s taste.

‘Last Human’ lacks the strong concept of the first Red Dwarf novel, but it is more enjoyable and fast-paced than the second and fourth novels. Some confusion was caused when Rob Grant decided to make his own continuation to the second novel, which means that both ‘Last Human’ and ‘Backwards’ are different representations of post-‘Better Than Life’ events: thankfully, some fans suggested that both books could be seen as equally valid if they occur within the different universes that Red Dwarf itself is always going on about, and several over-obsessive men could finally sleep well at night.

I would personally recommend ‘Last Human’ over ‘Backwards’ as it is more fun, lightweight and evenly focussed on each character in the way that the alternative isn’t, and although it isn’t vital to have read the previous books that have a very different atmosphere, it would still be wise to leave Doug’s solo effort for a later date.

Oh yes, and this does include the celebrated ‘blue alert bulb’ joke from series six also. You’ll know it if you’ve heard it.

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