Better than Life might be the most heartfelt Red Dwarf story ever told.
PLOT
The crew remain trapped inside the virtual reality game BTL. After several misadventures, they escape only to find the ship locked on a doomsday course and Holly irreparably damaged. While they attempt to remedy the situation, Lister finally discovers the fate of his beloved Earth.
ANALYSIS
I remember that when I first read this novel, I got worn out by the formula established for these books. Or rather, the lack thereof. Lister was being thrown from one crazy situation to another, and it was all piling on without any status quo to break things up. To me, a key aspect of the show's version of Red Dwarf was that the crew was all alone in space with very little to do. So a lot of time passing between adventures was essential to the story. In the books, that's not really the case. It's more like an endurance round of misfortune. Reading it again, I was able to adapt better to the idea of the novels being their own thing, and I could appreciate what Grant Naylor were trying to do with this particular book.
After Infinity, which was mostly just a spruced up adaptation of the first two series, Better than Life really puts the characters through the grinder and drives home the hopelessness of the situation not through atmospheric cynicism like in the show, but through the constant bombardment of alien threats, disasters and Lister's struggle to return home. What's really ingenious is that the book narratively justifies the changes in production design that occurred between series 2 and 3, when Red Dwarf suddenly goes from looking like a submarine to looking like a more dank version of the Nostromo. Here, we find out why the ship is falling apart, and the threat level is constantly high. This is a much darker novel, to the point where certain chapters abandon comedy altogether. Lister screaming at the heavens and praying for salvation amidst acid rain and trash is just insane for a Red Dwarf story.
There are certain complaints which are still valid. I think the book spends far too much time in the 'Better than Life' world. I appreciate the vital developments that happen there for Rimmer and Lister, but these chapters were so layered with surrealism and psychoanalytical humour that it became wearisome to read, because the prose was just thick with bizarre visual gags. I became desperate to move on to something less fantastical. It doesn't help that the previous book already dipped its toes into this concept, so it felt like retreading to an extent.
CHARACTERS
Rimmer goes on a massive journey of self-discovery. In the first novel, he seemed largely (and wilfully) oblivious to his own flaws. But Better than Life literally brings his psyche to life all around him as a kind of mirror, enabling him to realize what a scumbag he is. His relationship with women, his strange oedipal fixation on his mother, his jealousy of Lister's life, it's all exposed. Strangely, there's very little focus on his father, even though the original Better than Life episode was centered around him. Maybe the writers didn't want to repeat themselves. Rimmer's development continues outside, as he develops a much more affectionate view of Lister and even has his first real moment of joy upon realising that Lister is not dead. It's incredibly wholesome and probably the most fully rounded characterisation of Rimmer, capturing both his amusing smegheadedness as well as his yearning to be a good man.
Then there's Lister. I must say, I don't think I can ever picture Craig Charles crawling through mountains of crap in the throes of acid rain, screaming for Earth to kill him. Unless you have a really, really dark sense of humour, Lister in this book completely slips out of comedy and into some kind of tragic philosophical post-apocalyptic genre. The Garbage World segment scarcely feels like the same story, and yet it so perfectly complements the absurdist themes of Red Dwarf. Unlike the show, where Lister's struggle to get back to Earth is the backbone of the entire series, here we have him find his home planet, only to end up feeling like he's further away from home than ever. It's beautifully written, operatic even.
Kryten and the Cat have very little development in comparison with Rimmer and Lister. None, actually. The Cat only stands out during his ludicrous Better than Life fantasies (which are recycled from the last book), and Kryten has an amusing dynamic with Talkie Toaster, who has a much greater role than he did in the show, possibly as a replacement for Holly. I did love having the Toaster around. He's very funny, and even gets an action scene all to himself! It's a shame about Kryten and the Cat, though. I feel like maybe the writers could have sacrificed the Polymorph section in favor of developing them. The books haven't gone into Kryten's attempts to be human at all. And the Dave era proves that the Cat can be made interesting and three-dimensional without robbing him of his permanent vanity and apathy.
NOTES
- The episodes Better than Life, White Hole, Marooned, Polymorph and Backwards are adapted, some more loosely than others.
- In the previous novel, the crew completely repaired the Nova 5 before entering Better than Life. However, when they leave the game, it's never mentioned as a possible way to return to Earth, or even to evacuate the ship. That being said, Red Dwarf was very dilapidated when they got out, so maybe the Nova 5 was destroyed in some accident? I still wish they would've mentioned it, given how specific these books are with details otherwise.
- I read somewhere that during the production of Series III, giant cockroaches were created for an attempt to produce a Garbage World episode. It's a shame they dropped it. Maybe they were afraid of repeating Doctor Who's Web Planet. Still, returning to Earth only to find it's become an intergalactic dumpster would have made an iconic episode.
- It will be difficult to forget Juanita's fishbowl bra. Grant Naylor were horny bastards.
- I know Lister is more clever than he looks, but it's still quite impressive that he was able to engineer a heating system for his house (not to mention all the furniture/functional bathroom etc.)
- What are the chances that A) Holly left Red Dwarf on course towards a solar system before shutting down, B) Garbage World just happened to be passing through that solar system and C) a black hole was right nearby?
- Taking into account the time spent in Better than Life, on Garbage World and in Backwards World, Lister would mentally be 95 years old by the events of the next book.
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