Red Dwarf writer reveals late co-creator Rob Grant’s wishes for beloved characters in new story

Before his death earlier this year, Red Dwarf co-creator Rob Grant completed his final project: the spin-off novel Red Dwarf: Titan.

Now, Grant’s co-author Andrew Marshall has opened up about his hopes for the beloved band of comedy characters as they return in the alternate reality novel – including a more fleshed out Dave Lister (who was played by Craig Charles in the TV series), and more developed female characters.

“Rob wanted Lister to show a little bit more maturity by the end than we usually see, which I think makes an interesting part,” Marshall explained to Radio Times. “I was very interested in showing there’s a tiny speck of something in Rimmer that he might just be saveable.”

He added that Grant “was very keen – as was I – to develop the female characters a little bit more”.

“So Kochanski has a much, much bigger role in this, and there’s also a couple of other new female characters for you to have a look at,” he continued.

“So that’s that was quite interesting, and certainly creating a sort of nemesis/weird romance character for Rimmer was also an interesting challenge, and you’ll see how we got around that.”

Asked whether the show needed updating for a modern audience, Marshall added: “Yeah, it did need updating a little bit. That’s the way we looked at it, anyway. It’s just bringing it more into line with how things are these days, but it was very interesting.

“The other great thing about a book is it can have an infinite visual effects budget, because you’re creating it all in your head. It can be something that would cost an absolute fortune to make. Maybe one day we will make it, but we’ll see.”

Speaking to Radio Times in the weeks before his passing, Grant described Red Dwarf: Titan by saying: “It’s set one universe to the side, so we can have familiar characters but we can do different things with them, because the difficulty was writing something that was going to be original and fresh and using the same characters without breaking the canon.

He added that the story will see Lister and Rimmer “get a message from the far future warning them that all realities are going to collapse unless they do something about it”.
Grant also assured us that Red Dwarf’s signature silliness is back in full force, with the writer promising that fans will “laugh their little chippers off”.

Red Dwarf: Titan will publish in hardback, ebook and audio on 16 July 2026. Red Dwarf is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

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