Better Than Life!
I got my copy of Better Than Life today! :D I had a copy of this book aaaaaages ago, but it vanished in some move or another.
Now, I try to take a lot of Rimmer strictly from the show, but some Book Canon!Rimmer sneaks in every so often. Like...the thing with the smoking. He never smokes once in the show, but in the books, boy howdy does he just puff away. He takes dog deworming tablets before his exams because he heard they had meth in them. And so forth.
Book Canon!Rimmer is a much more sad and pathetic and miserable creature than his TV Canon self. He's also vastly more sympathetic. So...yeah, any sympathy you may feel for him is me shoehorning that in from the books. :V
***
Rimmer sat on the open terrace, in his half-devastated dinner suit of the night before, and gazed down at the metallic blue time machine, drunkenly parked skew-whiff in the ornamental gardens of the Palace of Versailles. Breakfasting with him were five of his stag-night companions: John F. Kennedy, Vincent Van Gogh, Albert Einstein, Louis XVI and Elvis Presley.
"That was a heck of a night," Kennedy sparkled. "One heck of a night!" Einstein snorted in agreement, and continued absently buttering the underside of his tie.
Julius Caesar stumbled through the French windows out on to the terrace with an ice-pack perched on his head. "Can anyone tell me," he asked in faltering English, "where in Jupiter's name we got this?" He held aloft a large orange-and-white striped traffic cone. "I woke up in bed with it this morning."
Van Gogh cracked an egg into his tomato juice, and downed it with a shudder. "It's not a good night," he grinned, "if you don't get a traffic cone."
"You want that?" Elvis Presley nodded at Rimmer's devilled kidneys, and without waiting for a reply scraped them on to his already full plate.
A colourless smile trickled across Rimmer's upper lip. "Avez-vous some, uh, Alka-Seltzer?"
And he was right: as bachelor parties went, it was a bit of a cracker.
A flash-frame slammed into Rimmer's -- a scene from the night before...
He was standing on a table in a 1922 Chicago speakeasy, dancing the Black Bottom with Frank "The Enforcer" Nitty's girlfriend, and complaining for the umpteenth time that his mineral water tasted as if someone had poured three double vodkas into it.
Then...Then...He couldn't remember the order, but they had definitely dropped in on one of Caligula's orgies. Rimmer must have been fairly drunk by then, because he remembered spending at least 20 minutes trying to chat up a horse.
At some point they'd been in Ancient Egypt, and Rimmer had lost a tooth trying to give the Sphinx a giant love-bite...then someone -- Rimmer thought it was Elvis -- had suggested a curry. And Rimmer, who hated curries, had been dragged, complaining, through Time back to India in the days of the Raj, where everyone had ordered mutton vindaloo, except for Rimmer who had a cheese omelette served with ludicrously thick chips.
The cry had gone up for more liquor, and Rimmer had suggested...What did he suggest? There was a block, so it must have been something fairly bad. Some kind of restaurant. They'd crashed a private party, and all the people there seemed fairly put out when Rimmer and his cronies showed up dancing and singing. There were a dozen or so diners, all men, all bearded. Rimmer closed his eyes and groaned.
They'd gate-crashed the Last Supper.
What had he done? What had he said? He'd been shouting drunk. "Private bloody party! Our money's as good as anyone's!"
Twelve of them had stood up and threatened to punch Rimmer out, but the one who'd remained seated had told the others to sit down again.
"Do one of your tricks," Rimmer had insisted. "Come on, I'm getting married tomorrow. That one with the fish -- it's brilliant."
...A heck of a night.
Rimmer looked at his real-time watch. "Well, Louis, me old buckaroo," he said to the king of France, "we'd better be making tracks. Big kissy-kissy to Marie and the dauphin. Thanks for the servant girls. See you at the wedding."
Louis XVI thanked Rimmer for the Ray-Ban sunglasses and the Sony Walkman and bade him farewell.
Rimmer gingerly made his way across the lawns to the Time copter, followed by Kennedy, Van Gogh, Einstein and Caesar. Elvis crammed a steak in his mouth, stuffed a second in his pocket, grabbed four bread rolls and followed them.
The man in the air traffic control tower radioed clearance to materialize, and the Time copter bloomed into existence, and chuddered to rest on the tarmacadamed runway.
The disembarkation door hinged to the ground, and the world's richest man clicked down the steps to the waiting limo.
Two steps down, the screaming started. Hordes of teenaged girls standing on the observation balcony swept forward in tides of pubescent adoration.
"ARNIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEE!" they roared. "WE LOVE YOOOOOOOOU!"
Rimmer waved half-heartedly and shot them the thinnest of thin smiles, before he was surrounded by a phalanx of sober-suited security guards who ushered him to the leather comfort of the limo's interior.
The eight motorcyclists twisted their throttle grips, and led the cavalcade forward, as it swished imperiously past passport control and the Customs building, and headed towards the exit.
Rimmer flicked idly through the stack of magazines on the limo's mahogany table: Time, Life and Newsweek. He noted only with mild interest that his portrait graced the cover of all three. According to Life, he'd just been voted "World's Sexiest Man," "World's Best Dressed Man," and "Pipe-smoker of the Year." Rimmer smiled. He didn't even own a pipe, much less smoke one. Success breeds success, he thought.
The cavalcade fought its way through the screaming fans milling around the airport exit.
"ARNIEEEEEEEEE! Don't marry her!"
Flattened adoring faces squashed up against the grey smoked glass, all of them dizzy with desire for Arnold J. Rimmer.
Rimmer was perfectly well aware that he was in the wrong plane of the wrong dimension of reality and, quite honestly, he didn't give two hoots.
The limousine gently disentangled itself from the sobbing frenzy of teenage girls and silently accelerated down the freeway, followed by a shower of moist, female underwear.
Now, I try to take a lot of Rimmer strictly from the show, but some Book Canon!Rimmer sneaks in every so often. Like...the thing with the smoking. He never smokes once in the show, but in the books, boy howdy does he just puff away. He takes dog deworming tablets before his exams because he heard they had meth in them. And so forth.
Book Canon!Rimmer is a much more sad and pathetic and miserable creature than his TV Canon self. He's also vastly more sympathetic. So...yeah, any sympathy you may feel for him is me shoehorning that in from the books. :V
***
Rimmer sat on the open terrace, in his half-devastated dinner suit of the night before, and gazed down at the metallic blue time machine, drunkenly parked skew-whiff in the ornamental gardens of the Palace of Versailles. Breakfasting with him were five of his stag-night companions: John F. Kennedy, Vincent Van Gogh, Albert Einstein, Louis XVI and Elvis Presley.
"That was a heck of a night," Kennedy sparkled. "One heck of a night!" Einstein snorted in agreement, and continued absently buttering the underside of his tie.
Julius Caesar stumbled through the French windows out on to the terrace with an ice-pack perched on his head. "Can anyone tell me," he asked in faltering English, "where in Jupiter's name we got this?" He held aloft a large orange-and-white striped traffic cone. "I woke up in bed with it this morning."
Van Gogh cracked an egg into his tomato juice, and downed it with a shudder. "It's not a good night," he grinned, "if you don't get a traffic cone."
"You want that?" Elvis Presley nodded at Rimmer's devilled kidneys, and without waiting for a reply scraped them on to his already full plate.
A colourless smile trickled across Rimmer's upper lip. "Avez-vous some, uh, Alka-Seltzer?"
And he was right: as bachelor parties went, it was a bit of a cracker.
A flash-frame slammed into Rimmer's -- a scene from the night before...
He was standing on a table in a 1922 Chicago speakeasy, dancing the Black Bottom with Frank "The Enforcer" Nitty's girlfriend, and complaining for the umpteenth time that his mineral water tasted as if someone had poured three double vodkas into it.
Then...Then...He couldn't remember the order, but they had definitely dropped in on one of Caligula's orgies. Rimmer must have been fairly drunk by then, because he remembered spending at least 20 minutes trying to chat up a horse.
At some point they'd been in Ancient Egypt, and Rimmer had lost a tooth trying to give the Sphinx a giant love-bite...then someone -- Rimmer thought it was Elvis -- had suggested a curry. And Rimmer, who hated curries, had been dragged, complaining, through Time back to India in the days of the Raj, where everyone had ordered mutton vindaloo, except for Rimmer who had a cheese omelette served with ludicrously thick chips.
The cry had gone up for more liquor, and Rimmer had suggested...What did he suggest? There was a block, so it must have been something fairly bad. Some kind of restaurant. They'd crashed a private party, and all the people there seemed fairly put out when Rimmer and his cronies showed up dancing and singing. There were a dozen or so diners, all men, all bearded. Rimmer closed his eyes and groaned.
They'd gate-crashed the Last Supper.
What had he done? What had he said? He'd been shouting drunk. "Private bloody party! Our money's as good as anyone's!"
Twelve of them had stood up and threatened to punch Rimmer out, but the one who'd remained seated had told the others to sit down again.
"Do one of your tricks," Rimmer had insisted. "Come on, I'm getting married tomorrow. That one with the fish -- it's brilliant."
...A heck of a night.
Rimmer looked at his real-time watch. "Well, Louis, me old buckaroo," he said to the king of France, "we'd better be making tracks. Big kissy-kissy to Marie and the dauphin. Thanks for the servant girls. See you at the wedding."
Louis XVI thanked Rimmer for the Ray-Ban sunglasses and the Sony Walkman and bade him farewell.
Rimmer gingerly made his way across the lawns to the Time copter, followed by Kennedy, Van Gogh, Einstein and Caesar. Elvis crammed a steak in his mouth, stuffed a second in his pocket, grabbed four bread rolls and followed them.
The man in the air traffic control tower radioed clearance to materialize, and the Time copter bloomed into existence, and chuddered to rest on the tarmacadamed runway.
The disembarkation door hinged to the ground, and the world's richest man clicked down the steps to the waiting limo.
Two steps down, the screaming started. Hordes of teenaged girls standing on the observation balcony swept forward in tides of pubescent adoration.
"ARNIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEE!" they roared. "WE LOVE YOOOOOOOOU!"
Rimmer waved half-heartedly and shot them the thinnest of thin smiles, before he was surrounded by a phalanx of sober-suited security guards who ushered him to the leather comfort of the limo's interior.
The eight motorcyclists twisted their throttle grips, and led the cavalcade forward, as it swished imperiously past passport control and the Customs building, and headed towards the exit.
Rimmer flicked idly through the stack of magazines on the limo's mahogany table: Time, Life and Newsweek. He noted only with mild interest that his portrait graced the cover of all three. According to Life, he'd just been voted "World's Sexiest Man," "World's Best Dressed Man," and "Pipe-smoker of the Year." Rimmer smiled. He didn't even own a pipe, much less smoke one. Success breeds success, he thought.
The cavalcade fought its way through the screaming fans milling around the airport exit.
"ARNIEEEEEEEEE! Don't marry her!"
Flattened adoring faces squashed up against the grey smoked glass, all of them dizzy with desire for Arnold J. Rimmer.
Rimmer was perfectly well aware that he was in the wrong plane of the wrong dimension of reality and, quite honestly, he didn't give two hoots.
The limousine gently disentangled itself from the sobbing frenzy of teenage girls and silently accelerated down the freeway, followed by a shower of moist, female underwear.