David LIster, the last human in the universe, tries to find his alternate-universe doppelganger in a mind-prison. Last Human picks up some time after the events of Better Than Life, after the Dwarf crew, aboard the shuttle Starbug has rescued Lister and Kochanski from the backwards dimension and returned to their own world. On the trip back to normal reality, they encounter a damaged version of the Starbug, containing the corpses of all the Dwarfers except for LIster. The alternate Kochaniski, who is barely alive, asks them to find the alternate Lister, who has entered the main series timeline, before she dies.
Click here to see the rest of this review...
In the main timeline, the alternate Lister has been arrested by the empire of the GELFs (genetically-engineered life forms; hybrid animal/humanoid creatures created by humans) for a crime he has not yet committed. He is sentenced to Hard Thought in Cyberia, a mental prison where inmates are faced with their worst possible scenarios.
Tracking the Lister doppelganger, the Dwarfers barter with a GELF tribe called the Kintawowis. To acquire the robot commandos and computer viruses they will use to break Lister-2 out of prison, LIster-1 agrees to marry the daughter of the chieftain, only to skip out on his wedding night with the aid of his companions.
On Cyberia, the Dwarfers fight their way through the defenses, using the virus to disable the prison. LIster rescues his other self, only to find that Lister-2 is a sociopath who killed his own crew out of jealousy and poor impulse control. Lister-2 attacks LIster-1, knocking him unconscious and leaving him for the authorities, and rejoins the Dwarf crew.
The Dwarf crew swiftly deduces that they have the wrong Lister, and seemingly manage to rid themselves of him by returning him to the Kintawowis. The Starbug loses control and slams into a lava planet; taking the ship down through the molten tides, the crew discovers a regular world underneath, housing the human colonial ship the Mayflower, where Lister-2 was headed to recover a genetic model of the human genome that would make him all-powerful.
LIster-1 is placed in Cyberia for his role in the jailbreak. After some time of torment, he is offered an opportunity to be a pioneer in GELF colonization efforts. He attempts to escape with the aid of the shape-changing Reketrebn, but screws up, and ends up on the colony world. There, he meets Michael McGruder, the lost son of Rimmer from his living days, who has been raised to think of his father as a hero. The planet is infected by The Rage, a gestalt entity made from the minds of lost settlers. The only way to fend off The Rage is to sacrifice one person to possession by it.
On the Mayflower, the Dwarfers find the experimental equipment of the mad scientist Longman, as well as his three hideous clones, who try and steal their DNA. Kochanski discovers a virus that gives incredible luck to its host, and uses a portion of it to defeat Longman. Kryten briefly transforms into a human, bu chooses to return to robotic form when he finds the experience less enjoyable than he though it would be. The crew uses the luck virus to locate Lister-1, and head to rescue him.
On the colony, the crew is reunited again. McGruder meets his father and is disappointed to find him to be a cowardly technician rather than a dashing officer. The reunion is interrupted by Lister-2, who killed the Kintawowis and stowed away on the ship, recovering from injuries acquired in the process. LIster-2 seemingly sterilizes LIster-1 with a radiation gun, and attempts to kidnap Kochanski. Rimmer attacks LIster-2 with the aid of a jetpack, impressing his son, but is severely injured when a radiation burst hits his light bee. However, due to the time of the struggle, The Rage has come over the planet once again. Lister-2 uses the luck virus in an attempt to survive, but it backfires; the feelings of euphoria brought on by The Rage leads him to desire possession and annihilation, so the virus fulfills his wish. Rimmer's light bee, using the computer virus from the jailbreak, is able to destroy The Rage, at the cost of Rimmer's own existence.
Kryten, McGruder, and the Cat set off to conduct a funeral for the fallen Rimmer. Lister and Kochanski decide to settle on the colony world, now a pleasant paradise world. They use the virus one last time to restore Lister's fertility.
Best part of story, including ending:
Doug Naylor is half of the writing team that made up the nom-de-plume Grant Naylor; apparently, if this book is any indication, the less-talented half. Last Human lacks the depth and feeling of the first two Dwarf books, sacrificing any character depth for cheap laughs.
Opinion about the main character:
In Naylor's hands, Lister goes from an imperfect protagonist to an unbelievably-perfect uninteresting prat.
