Title: Last Human
Author: Doug Naylor
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 312
Rating 3/5
This is a Red Dwarf novel but written by only one of the two creators, and I think that it suffers a little as a result of that. I’ve actually read one of Rob Grant’s novels as well, and that wasn’t particularly good either, whereas I do like the two other Red Dwarf books that they wrote together, and Better Than Life in particular.
That brings me on to one of my main problems with this, which is that they essentially self-plagiarise, taking scenes and lines of dialogue verbatim from the show. I wouldn’t mind if it kept it all consistent, but those scenes are transplanted into this alternative narrative and you end up with different people saying lines that were first used in the show. It’s kind of grating and feels a little lazy.
Still, that’s not to say that this was all bad, and there were some cool bits of originality here and there which will be of interest to long-term fans of the show. I’m not so sure whether I’d recommend it to someone who hasn’t watched it, though. There are too many in-jokes, and it will also help if you go in knowing a little something about each of the characters.
All in all, then, I’m glad that I read this and that I can tick it off my list, but I also don’t think I’d go back to it and pick it up again. There isn’t enough of a reason for it, and while it was just fine to pick up once because of my love for the show, it’s not particularly memorable and it’s probably the weakest of the three books. Kind of disappointing to be honest, but I’ve come to terms with that. Yeah.
