Red Dwarf Returns In A Novel Format

Cult British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf is getting a prequel this summer - in the form of a new novel (the first in three decades) from series co-creator Rob Grant and the creator of the '90s sitcom 2Point4 Children, Andrew Marshall.

The 400-page hardback of Red Dwarf: Titan is due to be published on July 16 and will focus on Lister and Rimmer's infamous shore leave on Titan before they ended up on the deep space mining ship Red Dwarf.

Speaking to the Radio Times, Rob Grant explained that the novel is set:

"... one universe to the side, so we can have familiar characters but we can do different things with them, because the difficulty was writing something that was going to be original and fresh and using the same characters without breaking the canon."

He added that in this story Lister and Rimmer would:

"... get a message from the far future warning them that all realities are going to collapse unless they do something about it."

I realise I'm probably in the minority (I was always more enamoured of the idea of Red Dwarf than the actual TV show itself) but my favourite part of the whole Red Dwarf franchise was the first two spin-off novels: Red Dwarf - Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (from 1989) and Better Than Life (from 1990).

Not only are these genuinely hilarious books - with just the right amount of humanity and pathos - but they also present a parallel vision of the show's story that isn't restricted by budget.

So, it sounds like there's a chance that the upcoming prequel possibly takes place in the same universe as those original novels, which is good enough for me.