I am a  big fan of the Sci-Fi Comedy series Red Dwarf, which aired on the BBC in the late eighties and 90’s then made a resurgence on “Dave” with three new series in the last couple of years.

I learned through the fan club that someone had published an “encyclopedia” of the series.  The full title is “Total Immersion: The Comprehensive Unauthorized Red Dward Encyclopedia”.  The author has no connection with the writers or producers of the show, hence the “Unauthorized” part.  Thinking that reading such a book would help me in Red Dwarf trivia games, I put it on my 2017 Christmas List.  Naturally my friends and family came through for me.

“Total Immersion” comes as two volumes with 300 pages a piece.  They cover not just the television Series 1 through X, but a plethora of other sources.  One example would be Red Dwarf novels publish by the shows creators.  Another were magazines referred to collectively as “smegazines” that included original works by the shows creators and fan-fiction. These often took place in a “parallel” universe where not all facts were consistent with the TV series.  Plus a heap of details from two Role Playing games based on the show.

Now reading an encyclopedia is a challenge, as its a work of non-fiction, and being organized by alphabet means it has little flow.  I read in bed and could usually get through two, and at most four, pages before falling asleep.  That poor book fell from my hands and crashed to the floor more times than I care to count.  On and off it took me from November through January to finish volume one.  Not sure what to do with Volume II, but I doggedly read all the non-work books I purchase, not matter how many years it takes.

Sometimes I think the author pads the information a bit.  For example, the character Kryten is rescued from a ship called the Nova 5.  There are about eight characters, names, numbers associated with that event, and each one seemed to include the same details about the rescue.  This happened for several topics.  Such a resource might be better represented in a database, where one could filter not just topics, but also sources.  For example, I’d leave out the Role Playing games as the quality of their stores doesn’t seem as high as the rest.

As a completist collector, I had to have this book.  Some details I didn’t remember from watching the series.  Some I might miss when I rewatched them.  So I have no regrets about reading the encyclopedia, but I definitely want to take a break before Volume II.