Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (1989)

Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers is a best-selling science fiction comedy novel by Grant Naylor, the collective name for Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, co-creators and writers of the Red Dwarf television series, on which the novel is based. First published in 1989, the novel presents the plotline of the TV series as a cohesive linear narrative, providing expanded backstory of the Red Dwarf world and more fully developing each of the characters, particularly Dave Lister and Arnold Rimmer. The book incorporates elements and scenes from the first and second-season episodes The End, Future Echoes, Kryten, Me² and Better Than Life. In 1990, the book was followed by a sequel, Better Than Life.

The book has also been released in a 1992 omnibus edition and as an unabridged audiobook, read by Chris Barrie who plays Rimmer in the television show.

Plot summary

The book begins in 2180 in a semi-dystopian future. Commercialism is still rife and in overdrive, with many contemporary corporations still in business, the concept of Intelligent, Alien Life has been fully disproved and most of Earth's natural resources have been depleted. However, most of the solid planets and moons in the Solar System have been colonised for habitation and mining purposes. Having ended up in a supply port on Saturn's orbiting moon Mimas after celebrating his 24th birthday by binge drinking on a Monopoly Pub Crawl in London, Dave Lister is trying to earn enough money for a shuttle ticket home by stealing taxis and picking up fares while sleeping in a bus station locker. But, since he always ends up losing the money, either by getting mugged or by getting drunk, it's obvious he won't be getting home any time soon.

One night Lister picks up a Space Corps officer calling himself 'Christopher Todhunter' (who is obviously wearing a fake moustache) asking to be taken to a plasti-droid brothel, only for the droid to malfunction and nearly rip off his private parts. This gives Lister an inspiration, and he quickly signs up with the Jupiter Mining Corporation, intending to get himself signed to a ship and going AWOL once it reaches Earth. Despite his lack of qualifications and the admissions officer deciding he had an attitude problem – Lister told him that he wanted to sign up to "explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations and to boldly go where no person has gone before" – Lister is quickly assigned to the mining ship Red Dwarf as the lowest ranking crew member. On board he meets the drunken Petersen, who informs Lister that Red Dwarf will indeed be returning to Earth... after a four-and-a-half year round trip, much to Lister's dismay. Lister is assigned to Z-Shift as a technician, with duties that the service droids are considered too good for, and is introduced to his supervisor and roommate Arnold Rimmer, who Lister recognises as the Space Corps officer with the fake moustache. Unfortunately, Rimmer is also highly neurotic and pretentious, and he and Lister develop a mutual dislike.

Five months later, having settled into the dull, monotonous routine of life aboard Red Dwarf, Lister finds himself falling in love with senior officer Kristine Kochanski. The two embark on a passionate five-week love affair before Kochanski dumps him and returns to her boyfriend, whose name Lister can't remember. Meanwhile, Rimmer has been spending his time constantly trying and failing to pass the Astro-Navigation exam despite his best cheating efforts, as well as using the ship's stasis units (which freeze time for the person inside) to constantly de-age himself.

Lister, who has had enough of life on Red Dwarf since being dumped, realises that the stasis units could be his key to an instant arrival back on Earth. After studying the ship's regulations, he finds that smuggling an unquarantined animal aboard the ship is the least serious offence which carries a statutory sentence of time in stasis. On his next planet leave he brings a pregnant cat named Frankenstein back to Red Dwarf (after having her fully inoculated to ensure she won't actually present a danger to the ship) and ensures that he gets caught with her. After being hauled before the captain (an American woman with the unfortunate surname of Kirk), Lister lies and tells her that the cat was ill when he found her and refuses to reveal where he has hidden her. As a result, Lister gets his wish and is sentenced to stasis for the rest of the trip. He enters the unit fully expecting to exit and find himself back home.

Upon learning of Lister's sentence, Rimmer is furious that his nemesis is going to have all this time in stasis without getting older, and prepares to work on an immediate appeal. He never gets the chance, as one of the ship's nuclear reactors fails, letting loose a wave that kills everyone except Lister. Just before he dies, Rimmer (who was literally a few seconds away from the safety of the stasis booth where he planned to spend the evening) finds himself thinking of gazpacho. In the hold, Frankenstein and her kittens are safe from the radiation too.

Upon Lister's release from stasis, the ship's super-computer, Holly, whose screen avatar comes in the form of the disembodied, balding head of a middle-aged cockney man, explains to him that he (Holly) piloted Red Dwarf out of the Solar System to prevent radiation contamination. Holly could not release Lister until the radiation had reached a safe background level. However, because the leaked cadmium II had such a long half-life, Lister was kept in stasis for three million years. During this time, Holly has gone computer senile.