Red Dwarf

Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

By: Rob Grant, Doug Naylor

Narrated by: Chris Barrie

When Lister got drunk, he really got drunk!

After celebrating his birthday with a Monopoly-board pub crawl around London, he came to in a burger bar on one of Saturns moons, wearing a lady's pink crimplene hat and a pair of yellow fishing waders, with no money and a passport in the name of "Emily Berkenstein".

Joining the Space Corps seemed a good idea. Red Dwarf, a clapped out spaceship, was bound for Earth. It never made it, leaving Lister as the last remaining member of the human race, three million light years from Earth, with only a dead man, a senile computer, and a highly evolved cat for company.

They begin their journey home. On the way, they'll break the light barrier. They'll meet Einstein, Archimedes, God, and Norman Wisdom...and discover an alternative plane of reality.

©1989 Rob Grant and Doug Naylor (P)1992 Laughing Stock Productions Ltd

A fine treat for Dwarfers everywhere!

I saw a documentary once in which I learned that Chris Barrie is in fact an excellent impressionist. I heard moments of his impressions of his castmates from Red Dwarf and was very impressed with how good they were. In this audiobook, I was first excited to see an actual Dwarfer was going to narrate. That was bliss enough - or so I thought.

Now, the description says that this is read by Chris Barrie. It does not mention any other contributor. Nevertheless, and this with knowing Chris's vocal talents, I actually stopped playback and went back to re-read the description when I heard Lister. About halfway into the book, I had heard just enough "not quite" moments of Lister, Cat, and Holly to decide they were impressions. Or most of them were. I had second thoughts when I heard Kryten, but again, there were moments.

The odd side character here and there that I knew would have been voiced by Chris helped somewhat. Though all the Dwarfers were done well (with Rimmer quite obviously being on point, given it's Chris's own character anyway), I would have to say the next best is likely Lister or Holly (depends on the scene), then Kryten, then Cat.

I'm still not convinced there wasn't an uncredited cameo or two in there somewhere. 😊 I have been a professional audio technician/engineer doing live house reinforcement plus stagework and recording, trained audio for newscasting while working on the production crew at a television station, and spent some time as an audiobook technical editor.

I'm still not sure Chris did it all - but I suspect he did. And yes, he's THAT. GOOD.

As for the story, what can I say? I have two copies of this book (now three, including the audiobook), all the RD episodes on DVD and Series 1-8 on VHS, blooper reels, two volumes for the roleplaying game (which I have never played but have been given as gifts by family), shirts, buttons, an RD episode guide, and of course, the next book (which I now have in multiple formats). Every time I read written RD material, I "hear" it in the character voices. Now I get to actually HEAR it in the character voices, or a nearly indistinguishable replica of it. All in all, listening to this with my headphones on while doing cleaning, or in the car during my daily commute was just about Better Than Life.

(Sorry. I had to. )

Highly recommended for any Dwarfer or RD-curious. If you've only seen the shows, this is the back story and covers a good number of the seasons with broad strokes, weaving them into a unified story. Definitely worth a read - even if you end up imagining scenes from the show as you listen and find yourself reciting certain bits of dialogue along with the playback, as I did. This one is staying in my library for frequent re-listens. But for now, I'm off to begin BTL, and we'll see if I ever come out. 😉

Amazing

I never tire of this book, fantastically written story told like only Chris Barrie can :)

Chris Barrie is Amazing!

While I find the story a little too much frat boy at points, Chris Barrie is truly talented. I can only imagine he must have been pretty funny on the set back in the day doing dead on imitiations of all his co-stars. I had to check the credits 3 times to make sure the real, original actors weren't part of the production. Yup, it's all Chris Barrie. And bonus, they play the Red Dwarf theme song. (The music-only version.)

Super entertaining

Overall i enjoyed the experience. Chris Barry did an amazing job with the voices - incredible. He is obviously very talented. Like with the show, its hilarious and very dark.

I can't recommend this enough for fans.

If you could sum up Red Dwarf in three words, what would they be?

Fantastic voice impersonations.

Have you listened to any of Chris Barrie’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, but I've seen every episode of Red Dwarf the series. He gets the other characters and actors spot on. He's freakishly accurate.

Any additional comments?

A large portion of the book mirrors the series. I'd say the story is on par with the writing for the series. Fun to hear some of the characters' internal dialogue.