I notice the captain is female and named Kirk in this book - given the events of Season VIII, are they likely to stick to that if they base any books on scripts from that season?

At what point do you think they enter the Better Than Life game? They get back to Earth through a special drive system in the Nova 5. Lister, the Cat and Kryten mine for uranium to power it, while the two Rimmers put the Nova 5 back together again.
Is this part of BTL? Finding the Nova 5 obviously wasn't, given Kryten and his resistance to the game and later appearances. Is the drive system part of BTL... if so, why the mining frustration if it's a perfect world? If the drive really exists, then why don't they do something with it subsequent books?

Infinity... kinda makes it clear its after the Nova 5 is repaired and ready to go but this is forgotten in latter books - they never think to use it to return to Earth. Mind you, perhaps it's because they discover the old Lister on the garbage world Earth at the end of Better Than Life.

In Infinity..., it says you have to leave the game by yourself - born alone, die alone, leave the game alone. But in the book BTL they can't exit singlehandedly, they all have to be together.

Interestingly, Rimmer's time machine as glistening blue but few other details are given... I ask myself is this a hidden Doctor Who reference to the TARDIS?

Chris Thomas on Tuesday, April 18, 2000 - 9:03 am:
Infinity... kinda makes it clear its after the Nova 5 is repaired and ready to go but this is forgotten in latter books - they never think to use it to return to Earth. Mind you, perhaps it's because they discover the old Lister on the garbage world Earth at the end of Better Than Life.
In Infinity..., it says you have to leave the game by yourself - born alone, die alone, leave the game alone. But in the book BTL they can't exit singlehandedly, they all have to be together.

Probably a hardware issue - after all, the headsets are 3 million years old, and were bathed in radiation during the original accident!

BTW, I love the explanation of what happened to the dog milk.

The first novel by Grant Naylor (Rob Grant and Doug Naylor) based on their hit series Red Dwarf. The novels have their own take on things.

In this novel, David Lister is a 23rd century bum who, due to unforeseen circumstances, finds himself on Mimas, a moon of Saturn (by this time, the Solar System has been colonized). Desperate to get back to Earth, he signs about a mining ship, Red Dwarf. However, what Lister didn't realize is that the mission that Red Dwarf would take four years to complete.

So Lister is stuck on Red Dwarf and his bunk mate, Arnold Rimmer, is a real pain. Rimmer is a stickler for the rules and is basically the roommate from hell.

Then Lister has an idea. He sneaks a pregnant cat aboard and hides her in the ventilation ducts. When Lister is caught, he is brought before the captain, who informs Lister that he has broken the no quarantine rules. When Lister refused to give up the cat, the captain puts him in stasis, where he will stay for the rest of the trip.

While Lister is in stasis, there is an accident on Red Dwarf. A disastrous radiation leak happens and wiped out the whole crew, except Lister, who is safely in stasis. Holly, the ships computer, takes the ship out of the Solar System.

Three million years go by.

When Lister is released from stasis, he is blown away to find out how much time has passed. To keep Lister company, Holly brings back Rimmer, as a hologram.

Soon after, they find a third passenger, Cat. This being is a descendant of the cat Lister had sneaked aboard. In the cargo holds, the cat was shielded from the radiation. Said cat had kittens, and so on. Over three millions years, the Cats evolved into a bipedal race, similar to humans. In the bowels of Red Dwarf, they built a civilization However, by now, most of the Cats had left Red Dwarf. The Cat that Lister and Rimmer encounter is the last one on Red Dwarf.

Soon after, they find a mechanoid named Kryten, and the adventures begin.

This novel is a good adaptation, combining several episodes of the first and second seasons. A good read.