Rating: 
Summary: Have'nt seen the show? Me neither.
Review: ........Then this book is great. With no confined producer-created characters and sets to compare it too your imagination can go wild with this wacky adventure. I actually have seen one or two episodes but refuse to watch more since it will pale in comparison to the human imagination. I've reread it at least 7 times, loved it. P.S. If you like Hitchhiker's Guide, you have to read it.
Rating:
Summary: Have'nt seen the show? Me neither.
Review: ........Then this book is great. With no confined producer-created characters and sets to compare it too your imagination can go wild with this wacky adventure. I actually have seen one or two episodes but refuse to watch more since it will pale in comparison to the human imagination. I've reread it at least 7 times, loved it. P.S. If you like Hitchhiker's Guide, you have to read it.
Rating: 
Summary: If you've seen the show...
Review: ...then you don't really need to read this. It's essentially a novelization of 5 or 6 episodes; "Backwards", "Marooned," "Polymorph," "White Hole"--but oddly enough, bears little or no similarity to the eponymous "Better Than Life." The first half of the book is original; the second half, taken piecemeal from the episodes above (some of the dialogue is verbatim)--but without the actors' comedic talent. It's okay--but not a must-have.
Rating:
Summary: Smeg Heads, this is for you
Review: A brilliant sequel, after the first book. After this, Grant Naylor seperated to become two independent writers. Doug Naylor wrote his own third book, called "The Last Human", and Rob Grant went on to write "Backwards". Their different styles are fully explored in these two books, in which, I feel, Naylor wins. Keep your eyes peeled out there for the two Part 3's. In Last Human, Kochanski returns with Lister, but in Backwards, she "un-marries" him, so to speak. But these are both very good books to read
Rating:
Summary: Souper!
Review: Although not as good as the first RD book, Better than life is certainly worth the read. The first half of the book focuses on the better than life simulation briefly alluded to in the TV series. The book expands many parts of the TV series including the planet where time runs backwards. It is an extremely funny book especially for those who watch the TV series.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but Unfulfilling
Review: As a big fan of the television series Red Dwarf I found the book insightful as it built on the characters and also slightly unfulfilling as it contains little content compared to the show. However, the main thing that bothers me is that, at least in my copy, there are actually thirty three pages missing from page 96 to 129. They just aren't there, no extra space, just a flat out absense of pages, a clear publishing problem. Otherwise, the book is excellent and enjoyable not just for fans of the show.
Rating:
Summary: Second RD novel continues in tradition of first
Review: Better Than Life continues directly from Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers. The four members of the Red Dwarf crew, Dave Lister, the hologram Arnold Rimmer, the Cat, and the service mechanoid Kryten, are trapped in the ultimate game, where the player creates one's own paradise out of one's greatest dreams, or, as things turn out later for Rimmer, one's worst nightmares, and is addicted to the point that they eventually die because their real selves die. Would I go for a game like that? Heck yeah!In the meantime, Holly, the ship's computer, and Lister's insufferably talkative and chirpy Talky Toaster (patent applied for), get involved in trying to get Holly's IQ back into the quadruple digits like it was before, a process that invariably causes the computer's remaining time to exponentially decrease. Result, Holly shuts himself down to preserve what little remains of his life. Further result: the ship's powerless as a result. Further further result: a runaway planet is on a collision course with them. However, one sobering aspect of the future that Grant and Naylor work into this novel is a garbage planet. One of the planets in the Solar System is chosen to house all the other planets' waste, and guest which planet that is? North America gets the bottles, Europe the sewage, Australia domestic waste, and Japan the graveyard of motorcars, etc. Lister finds himself on this kind of planet, and attacked by lethal pollution storms by the planet itself. "Then he knew. He'd done everything to Earth. He'd crucified it. He was a member of the human race, part of the species that had spread like bacteria over the planet...finally rendering it fit only for use as a dumping ground for all humanity's garbage." Panic-stricken, he pleads for mercy, promising to make it right again." The concept of the Earth as a giant organism, with us unaware that it's organic is taken here. To that end, he forms an alliance with a creature most of us would immediately say hello to with the sole of our tennis shoes. This reminder of how we're polluting our planet is the best segment of the book, interesting for book derived from a comedy series. A brief history of Earth's genetic mutations for new and weird sports, such as twenty-feet tall basketball players and soccer playres with five legs and no mouths, to sentient vacuum cleaners, wars against these creatures, later called GELFs (Genetically Engineered Life Forms) is given as an intro to a creature that appears in the TV story Polymorph. And GELFs are encountered in the 6th and 7th seasons. Another insight into humans: "The thing about human beings was this: human beings couldn't agree. They couldn't agree about anything. ... And the reason was this: basically, all human beings believed all other human beings were insane, in varying degrees." That leads to wars, but by the 20th century, human beings "got so good at war, it couldn't have one anymore." Some of this Douglas Adams style humour is wry, and also appears in a section when Rimmer royally messes up by accidentally destroying a whole bunch of scutters (Red Dwarf's tiny arm-shaped service robots) in testing the engine's pistons. Here are the stories worked into this novel: Better Than Life, Season 2, Episode 2
White Hole, Season 4, Episode 4
Marooned, Season 3, Episode 2
Polymorph, Season 3, Episode 3
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, Season 3, Episode X Once again, revealing what that last story is would spoil the fun, but the sequel would actually take place in the fourth and not the third book. Like its predecessor, it's more than just a TV tie-in, but an actual book that delves more into the personality of the characters, especially Lister.
Rating:
Summary: Second RD novel continues in tradition of first
Review: Better Than Life continues directly from Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers. The four members of the Red Dwarf crew, Dave Lister, the hologram Arnold Rimmer, the Cat, and the service mechanoid Kryten, are trapped in the ultimate game, where the player creates one's own paradise out of one's greatest dreams, or, as things turn out later for Rimmer, one's worst nightmares, and is addicted to the point that they eventually die because their real selves die. Would I go for a game like that? Heck yeah! In the meantime, Holly, the ship's computer, and Lister's insufferably talkative and chirpy Talky Toaster (patent applied for), get involved in trying to get Holly's IQ back into the quadruple digits like it was before, a process that invariably causes the computer's remaining time to exponentially decrease. Result, Holly shuts himself down to preserve what little remains of his life. Further result: the ship's powerless as a result. Further further result: a runaway planet is on a collision course with them. However, one sobering aspect of the future that Grant and Naylor work into this novel is a garbage planet. One of the planets in the Solar System is chosen to house all the other planets' waste, and guest which planet that is? North America gets the bottles, Europe the sewage, Australia domestic waste, and Japan the graveyard of motorcars, etc. Lister finds himself on this kind of planet, and attacked by lethal pollution storms by the planet itself. "Then he knew. He'd done everything to Earth. He'd crucified it. He was a member of the human race, part of the species that had spread like bacteria over the planet...finally rendering it fit only for use as a dumping ground for all humanity's garbage." Panic-stricken, he pleads for mercy, promising to make it right again." The concept of the Earth as a giant organism, with us unaware that it's organic is taken here. To that end, he forms an alliance with a creature most of us would immediately say hello to with the sole of our tennis shoes. This reminder of how we're polluting our planet is the best segment of the book, interesting for book derived from a comedy series. A brief history of Earth's genetic mutations for new and weird sports, such as twenty-feet tall basketball players and soccer playres with five legs and no mouths, to sentient vacuum cleaners, wars against these creatures, later called GELFs (Genetically Engineered Life Forms) is given as an intro to a creature that appears in the TV story Polymorph. And GELFs are encountered in the 6th and 7th seasons. Another insight into humans: "The thing about human beings was this: human beings couldn't agree. They couldn't agree about anything. ... And the reason was this: basically, all human beings believed all other human beings were insane, in varying degrees." That leads to wars, but by the 20th century, human beings "got so good at war, it couldn't have one anymore." Some of this Douglas Adams style humour is wry, and also appears in a section when Rimmer royally messes up by accidentally destroying a whole bunch of scutters (Red Dwarf's tiny arm-shaped service robots) in testing the engine's pistons. Here are the stories worked into this novel: Better Than Life, Season 2, Episode 2
White Hole, Season 4, Episode 4
Marooned, Season 3, Episode 2
Polymorph, Season 3, Episode 3
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, Season 3, Episode X Once again, revealing what that last story is would spoil the fun, but the sequel would actually take place in the fourth and not the third book. Like its predecessor, it's more than just a TV tie-in, but an actual book that delves more into the personality of the characters, especially Lister.
Rating:
Summary: A little brother to "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers".
Review: Following the success of its prequel, Better Than Life charts the four crewmen of Red Dwarf through their deepest and most amusing fantasies. Although very funny, and further enhanced in places by an almost Quentin-Tarantino-esque plot line, this book is neither as comic nor as credible as its precursor. This is due in part to the fact that the first half of the book is a pure fantasy within a fantasy, and real laws of existence are totally disregarded, and also to the fact that almost none of the book even vaguely relates to the series, without which there would have been no Red Dwarf cult following anyway. Certainly, BTL is original and amusing, but hard-core Dwarfies will become somewhat confused over its frequent departures from the plot.
Rating:
Summary: Quick funny read
Review: For those of you who don't know, Red Dwarf is based on a british comedy television series, which in my opinion is absolutely hilarious. The book takes a lot from the series. Similar situations. And it reads just as funny as the show. However, it seems to me the book takes a bunch of the show's funnier moments and tries to tie them all together. The result is a pretty jumpy story. If you decided to skip a chapter you would think you were reading an entirely different book. These jumps don't at all take away from the hilarity. This book is good for several laugh out loud moments. Enjoy!
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