The characters are so so so incredibly brilliantly done, especially Rimmer. That is a really complicatedd character. They did an absolutely brilliant job of that. When he ended up with a copy of himself... the fall into hating himself. That was done so unbelievably well. And i absolutely love how well planned the story was. So many things that happen later on in the book mentioned at the start... The soup saga (which had me laughing so hard), the babies in future echoes, the old man Lister with the tattoo U=BTL. This is the best book (or series of books including BTL) I've read/listened to. Chris Barrie does a great job too don't get me wrong but how the story goes all over the place... different adventures and is so descriptive without being boring. It's funny and it has moving bits to it... like the very end... and then the opening to BTL. This and BTL are absolutely brilliant.... The other 2 books were good too but not like these.
I'm a failed scientist who passes all year with flying colours, but faints in exams. The way he describes thinking and feeling is exactly why the last exam I scored 4% after doing so well all year I only needed 12%! They took pity and let me re-sit the exam..... scored 2% I affectionately call it Rimmer syndrome
Im a 35 year old pedestrian who can drive but never have passed that test. I am very much familiar with the Rimmer syndrome too, thank you for naming the beast lol
@@shayZerothere's a difference between being able to drive and being able to drive safely and responsibility. There's probably a reason you are a pedestrian
Wow, that was a pretty bad day for Rimmer. I could imagine why the gazpacho soup day would be a bad memory for him, he was robbed, made a fool of by the call girl and made a fool of himself at the dinner. Much better then the TV version.
Awesome work Chris Barrie! This is the second red dwarf series I've heard you read. You real nail the characters voices. Put me into it like the actual show. A million thanks mate!!
In Body Swap (series 3, episode 4), I think it was a mistake to have Craig Charles dub his own voice when Lister was in Rimmer's body. Chris Barrie's Lister is so good, and they already knew that from Queeg in series 2. His Lister in that episode was absolutely perfect! Only 2 lines though: "But how d'you do that Hol?" and "What, this one over 'ere?" Absolutely dead on! I suppose Craig's voice would have been left out for much of the episode if they had done that. And I do love Craig's Scouse poet voice :)
That is true. Chris Barrie shows a lot of real genius in playing so many characters. It's not that he sounds just like the original actor but captures the character. Especially of ones like the narrator that don't have a defined persona but still have personality.
Ask yourself this though, which is funnier between the TV series of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or the 2005 movie? I preferred the TV series, particularly with the animated guide bits.
For example, think of the Welcome Back George McIntyre reception scene. Yes, in the pilot episode the set looks rather shit and there's only about 20 people present but it's got a certain charm to it and it still has a few laughs. It's relatable because it looks like somewhat like a real life workplace. Now, if it was in a huge hall with a crowd of 10,000 and looked like a scene in a Star Wars movie, I just don't think it would be funnier.
I just recently stumbled across these Red Dwarf Audiobook.series and am so.happy that I did. I absolutely Loved the Television series, it's one of my all time favorite British Comodies along with some other Greats like Black Adder, Benny Hill, Dads Army, Fawlty Towers, and Monty Pythons of course. It's so hard to pick just a single show as my favorite b but I can say this. There's only been a handful of shows that I found episodes so funny that I laughed myself to tears, you know so funny you can't stop laughing even after it gets almost physically painful, now that's when you know it's funny! LoL! The Fawlty Towers episode where Basil gets konked on the head by the Moose Trophy and starts imitating Adolf Hitler to the German Tourists, makes me laugh just thinking of it. And the Red Dwarf episode where they find the alternate Earth, except everything is backwards. The description of Santa Claus is just awesome among other hilarity. And one or two others. I just could never decide which of those could be said to single itself out as best so I just live with them all being tied, lol. In any case im.very happy I've stumbled across a new source of Red Dwarf stories, that seem to.be as good as the Television Shows original stories were from what I can remember anyway, unlike other television series and also !movies and movie series like Star Trek, Star Wars, come to.mind. It's been my experience that the books of those series were a disappointment for me mostly so I have up on books based on very popular movies, tv, ect...And I suppose is the reason I never attempted to find out if there even was Red Dwarf books in the first place, even though I love reading, audiobooks, old time radio programs and the like. I'm just glad I went ahead and gave the audio Book a chance, it certainly paid off and as a bonus has given me hours and hours of future enjoyment as a fantastic bonus to boot!! Great day in my book!!
In this version, Rimmer isn't directly responsible for the death of the Red Dwarf crew, which makes a lot more sense. He was a vending machine repair man, who constantly fails exams. Who in their right mind would put this man in a position where he might endanger the entire crew?
That's what I've often wondered. A simple vending machine repair man wouldn't be given a job that was so very important, especially as he didn't have a clue how to repair it. I think the idea is that somewone who was qualified couldn't be bothered to do it and gave it to Rimmer instead. Perhaps, they could make an episode where Rimmer goes back in time to prevent it from happening.
Funnily enough, this is the reason why the episode Justice was written. Grant and Naylor had realised just how stupid it was that an incompetent screw-up like Rimmer be given the job of repairing something that could kill the entire crew if repaired incorrectly. Their first thought was to retcon away the accident being Rimmers fault, but they couldn't figure out how to do this without messing up the continuity. They then went with their second idea: explain that the person really at fault for the accident was whoever gave Rimmer the job of repairing the drive plate in the first place because they should never have given such an important job to such a total screw-up.
It's literally only occurring to me now but there's really no reason Rimmer couldn't have a body. If the personality is stored on a data file and fully functioning mechanoid bodies are a thing then just put the two technologies together. Maybe it would be a little clunky and odd shaped but surely better than an intangible projection of a body.
In-universe it makes sense, because Juanita is based on a French woman in Rimmer's real life, and Rimmer probably doesn't know how a Brazilian accent sounds.
To those who question why a hologram needs to sleep. The running of a hologram as well as most computer software 24/7 can cause files to clutter up in the system. A human brain has approximately 2.5 million gigabytes of storage, that's a lot of data. Now a computer might not have that much processing power, a hologram also needs data for senses too, as well as memory. Like with humans, that memory would very well get cluttered, so the hologram feels tired just like a real human. When they sleep, they are operating in low power mode while the ships computer or Light Bee system performs maintenance like scanning the system for corruption, deleting temporary data files, clearing Rimmer's porn search history, ect, while the hologram sleeps. In the morning, the hologram is updated with fresh memory. This is why Rimmer 1 & 2 started to act up when doing less sleep. In an extreme case, George McAntire decided not to sleep and went for months wandering the ship aimlessly. In the end he was walking backwards wearing a bra on his head singing "I'm a little teapot." in Esperanto before overloading the hologram simulation suite, resetting the system to factory default and deleting himself.
thanks for the upload Ace, just one question, how come in this one they know they are in the game, but in the sequel they have to still work out they are in better than life. Rimmer actually has to go to tell lister they are playing a game in that one. Don't they already know by the sounds of this first book??
If I'm remembering the ending correctly, Lister knows they are in a game and it's implied he decides to stay - I suppose the other characters make the same choice. Then they have to renew their efforts at the start of the second book and try to escape again.
