The bit where Lister wants to buy several droids from the gelfs and they all come and line up reminded of the scene in Star Wars where Luke and his uncle are checking out the droids available from the Jawas (when they get C-3P0 and R2-D2).

About a dozen droids line up and Lister marches up and down inspecting them. There's even one which is just a pair of legs, which reminds me of the Star Wars droids which is like a big box on legs and makes an electronic sound kinda like "wamp, wamp, wamp".

The racism went back that far?

Is that a statement about Red Dwarf or Star Wars?

Star Wars

I know it's off-topic but how is that scene with Luke and the droids racist?

According to you, the box droid said "wamp wamp". Do I really need to draw a diagram?

Lister Wannabe: Obviously you do you $tupid ugly goit!

I didn't say the the droid said anything; I said it made a sound kind of like "wamp" but it could've been "wump", "womp", "wam", or "wom" - it's hard to spell out a sound.

Obviously, this supposed racist reference has gone right over my head. Is a "wamp" an offensive word for something?

It's a derogatory word for Italian person. Don't worry, I won't call *you* a smeghead for this one, though I do have some choice words for Rimmer...

WOP was the derogatory word for Italians you idiot! I know this because I'm Italian, 3rd generatiopn Italian-American to be exact, and my grandfather was called a WOP alot. It stands for With Out Papers, which doesn't make sense cause my family came here legally!

I'm from Australia and "wop" or "wog" is a derogatory term for people of European background that came here after World War II.

So unless "wamp" is a new one I've never heard of?

D'OH! Sorry to everyone. Please excuse me while I finish my other foot, and then dig my own grave.

No, actually it`s "GONK" which the droid said. Come on, that`s elementary knowledge, that`s why the droid is called Gonk!

Sorry, I didn't know what it was called.

That`s OK, but it is quite a common designation for the droid. It all started on rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc or rassm as it`s known as. Gonk is the name for the droid given all over the place, you`ll be sure to find the name somewhere and say, "Hey, Padawan was right" or words to that effect. Oh, and if your interested, Luke says "I used to bullseye womp-rats in my T-16 back home" at one point in SW:ANH.

I notice in this book the term Space Corps and Star Fleet seem to be interchangable: which is right?

Could someone please tell me the chronological order of the books? Thanks. I just read Infinity, and am about to read BTL, but don't know where to go from there.

I don't think there is any actual order from here on; 'Backwards' follows on directly (with the crews adventures in Backwards World), while 'Last Human' skips the Backwards World (or resolves it quickly - haven't read it in ages). I say to pick whichever one you want, and pretend they both follow on from BTL, but are in parallel universes

Thanke ye very much

The only RD novel I don't have.