Rob Grant

(1955-2026)

I first met Rob Grant because, having decided he “wished to have more on his tombstone than Red Dwarf on its own”—though of course I watched Red Dwarf, and loved it, as did millions—he branched out into writing novels in the early noughties. He was published by Gollancz, my publisher, and that’s how we became friends. His novel Incompetence (2003), though sometimes wayward in a plotty sense, is very often, and genuinely, laugh-aloud funny, in the way that Rob was peculiarly skilled at conjuring. He was a superb comic writer, not just of dialogue (though obviously that) but of description and scenario, and his science-fictional imagination was genuine, spawned from a true love of the genre, generously original, left-field, brilliant, always working in ways that served his comic imagination. He was also fat, something with which his novel Fat (2006) does wonderful things. As fellow Gollancz authors we ended up doing various things together, and then things outside publishing/ promotion/ marketing. Graham Joyce, of blessed memory, was a member of the Century Club, and Graham, Rob, James Barclay, myself and Simon Spanton would assemble as team-members on quiz nights. Hanging out with Rob, drinking in central London pubs, meeting for this and that, was always a treat: he was immensely good company. In 2009 he thought about starting a career as a stand-up—he was certainly funny enough—and we had long conversations about that: to move from widely revered scriptwriting to novel writing was one thing; to turn oneself into a performer another. An evening pizza with a group of us on the South Bank might turn into ‘you know that Soap Opera cliché where someone is suddenly presented with the grown-up child they never knew they had? Well, lads, let me tell you …’ Because Rob’s life was larger than most folks’ lives. A drink in a pub on Charing Cross Road would alternate hilarity and insight.

One particular memory: when the third Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movie, Return of the King, was released in 2003, Gollancz organised a kind of works-do outing for its SF/Fantasy writers and editors. Which was nice! A group of us assembled in Chinatown for lunch, and then made our way to one of the big Leicester Square cinemas for a matinée showing of the final movie of the trilogy. We all trooped in, took our Gollancz-paid-for seats, well fed and lubricated. The lights went down. Rob was sat next to me. ‘Adam,’ he stage-whispered, as the projector started up and the curtains parted. ‘This is the third film, right? It’s not the first film, no?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You must have seen the first two Rob?’ ‘No, never.’ ‘Well, OK, but you’ve read the books surely?’ ‘Never did, no.’ ‘Wait, so your first encounter with the whole Lord of the Rings phenomenon is …?’ and the credits rolled and theme stirred.And throughout the entire movie Rob kept nudging me: ‘who’s that?’ ‘what’s going on?’ ‘what’s that?’ ‘why is he—wait, what’s that? what’s he up to?’ Very hard to summarise (‘so there’s an evil magic ring and there are these creatures called Hobbits who …’) en train as the movie played, whilst everyone around us was ssshhing like ssshhing was an Olympic event. Rob was in his element. I particularly remember the moment, as Théoden mustered his troops before Minas Tirth, and the orc armies swarmed into defensive positions: Rob nudged me, not gently, in the ribs: ‘hey, hey, Adam,’ he informed me, confidently, with his huge whisper. ‘Oh, it’s all going to kick off now!’

I can’t fault that, as a critical analysis of that moment. I don’t know, maybe Peter Jackson should have considered the title Lord of the Rings 3: It’s All Going To Kick Off Now! But I do know that I will miss Rob hugely, his company, his fertile and endlessly subversive wit, his joie de vivre, his engagement, his sheer joyous presence in the world. May his memory be a blessing.