Novelisations – DaneCobain.com

Grant Naylor – Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers | Review

Title: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

Author: Grant Naylor

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 298

Rating: 7/10

Grant Naylor – Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers is one of several novelisations of the cult sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf, created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. The writers of the show are also the writers of the novel, hence the pseudonym that they choose to adopt – sadly, they had a big fallout and that signalled the end of the novels, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not a joy to read.

But this one is certainly the weakest of them, although it is a great way to find out more about Lister’s back story. The problem is that I find his back story to be less interesting than the adventures that he got up to after he ended up marooned on one of Saturn’s moons with no way of getting back home.

If you’re a fan of the TV show then you should definitely take a look at the books, but I’d read Better Than Life and Backwards first, in that order. There’s no reason why you can’t work your way through all of the books in the series, but it doesn’t really matter whether you read them in the right order or not.

Put simply, if you’re a fan of the writers‘ quirky sense of humour then you’re going to be a fan of this book, too. It’s exactly what you might expect from a novel by these two, so if you decide to pick it up then you know what to expect. It’s good for a laugh, but it shouldn’t be taken too seriously as a piece of science fiction writing. They’re not in the same league as Isaac Asimov, or other writers of his ilk.

Grant Naylor

Click here to buy Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers.

A. C. Crispin – The Paradise Snare | Review

Title: The Paradise Snare

Author: A. C. Crispin

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 306

Rating: 7/10

A. C. Crispin – The Paradise Snare

Here’s a book I can get excited about – Crispin is an excellent writer (from what I’ve heard on the Twittersphere), and she certainly does justice to the ever-expanding universe of the Star Wars franchise. I’m sad to hear that she passed away – I didn’t know, I must’ve missed the announcement. She tweeted me once, a lovely lady and a gifted novelist.

The Paradise Snare is the story of the young Han Solo (and the first book in a trilogy that tells the tale), and it’s a powerfully emotive work that shows you a whole new side of Solo – indeed, it shows you how he became the man that he is at the start of the first film. I always found Han to be one of the most enigmatic and charismatic characters in the whole Star Wars ensemble, and it was a pleasure to learn more about his origins.

In all honesty, when I first picked this up I expected it to be terrible – I’ve read enough bad novelisations to last a lifetime, and it’s always a risk for an author to breathe new life in to someone else’s characters. With my hand on my heart, I can say that she did Han justice – he’s amazingly alive, about to pop out of the pages to go blasting down your hallway on the trail of his first love, Bria Tharen.

If you’re a serious Star Wars fan then you should read this book – it’ll change the way you look at things forever, and that’s no bad thing. A good book changes you forever, leaving its indelible mark somewhere upon you – this book delivers that and more and leaves you longing for the sequel, as it should.