A-Z of Red Dwarf [Series I-V]

If you've ever fallen down a Red Dwarf–shaped rabbit hole - and let's be honest, if you're reading this, you're clawing past space weevils for daylight - you'll know the peculiar joy of discovering that a seemingly throwaway prop has a completely unexpected real-world origin. The sort of thing the BBC bought for 47 pennycents from some second-hand medical library sale in Shepherd's Bush only to then hastily customize into immortality.

For years, Rimmer's A-Z of Red Dwarf - that gloriously-garish yellow slab in which he hides a depressingly-sparse personal diary between Series I-V - has been neatly stored in the collective fandom consciousness for decades.

But what was the actual book under the dust jacket? A bespoke prop? A leftover Open University text? Or perhaps just a handy misprint of that classic page turner, The Greatest Ted Hath Sped North.

Well, you lot, armed with a few grainy reference images scavenged from Tumblr, a magnifying glass, and the kind of determination normally reserved for Kryten's thrice-daily Bed Bug Scan, I finally cracked it. Well, found my own copy to Re-Master, that is.

The book isn't bespoke at all. It’s Lecture Notes on Pathology by A. D. Thomson & R. E. Cotton - a perfectly legitimate hardback medical textbook that never once asked to be near the neuroses of one Arnold Judas Rimmer, yet here we are.

Tracking down said copy wasn't exactly difficult, but admittedly took a while. Eventually, an affordable and moderately intact specimen emerged from the mists of online reselling, and I snapped it up before anyone else could use it for non-prop related ends. I mean, who needs to read carefully-curated and informative textbooks these days, anyway? Ahem.

When it arrived, I inspected it as reverently as Rimmer would his collection of vintage non-regulation dial-up advertising CD-ROMs. Structurally sound. Binding intact. Slight whiff of struck-off GP surgery, which felt appropriate. Perfect.

The original Red Dwarf props department - bless their little interface leads - slapped on a custom yellow dust jacket that was approximately 60% actual design, and 40% photocopier frustration. Somebody, somewhere, owns this thing today, and I would think picked it up from Propstore, back in the day. But mine needed to survive being held, photographed, and possibly waved around during one of those replica A-Z fan conventions I've heard so much about.

So, next step was digitizing, redrawing, and refreshing the graphics - but only just. The goal was a slightly spruced-up version - the kind of thing that implies somebody in the JMC marketing department got excitedly upgraded from Windows 2095 to Windows 3,000,0098 and just went to town.

The first candidate for Re-Mastering was the wireframe globe on the back cover. The reference art floating around online looked like it had been faxed to Titan and back five or six times - so I used helpful AI algorithms to build it from scratch. Clean lines. Stable geometry. Still charmingly retro-naff, but in a way that says "I respect the 1980s, so there."

Below the globe, the original back cover text on the prop was... well... lorem ipsum in a cheap wig. And look - I admire placeholder text as much as the next graphic designer panic-printing at 02:47am - but this was a perfect chance to slip in some proper in-universe flavour. See attached. It's still subtle. It still feels like the prop. But now at least it says something instead of muttering in Latin-lite.

At this point, several friends* asked the same question, with the same tone usually reserved for checking if you've left the oven on... "So… are you going to hollow it out and hide Rimmer's diary inside?"

Look. I might be committed, but I'm still hoping for a day release. Besides, there's no point - we’ve already missed Auntie Maggie’s birthday, and in any case, the universe simply wouldn't allow me to damage something intact for no good reason. Also, hollowing out the pages of a hardback pathology textbook felt like something that could accidentally summon a cursed Victorian medical examiner, and frankly I've got enough going on as it is.

Similar-enough typefaces were then tracked down (don't you dare say 'font'), and finally that funny little greyscale image on the front of the cover was rapidly recreated and rudimentarily refined - which I can only assume is either an unfactual rendering of the mining ship's aft view - or perhaps the standard Space Corps. symbol denoting a Solar Class vessel..? Who cares. I'm pretty sure the screen-used prop had some kind of protective sleeve, too. I might look into adding that in the future. Cause I'm cool.

So, there you have it - a lovingly reconstructed A–Z of Red Dwarf, sitting pointlessly proudly on my shelf. A prop that isn't so much a replica as a journey across time and space - spanning the BBC's old prop cupboard, a couple of Tumblr threads, and me, hunched over a buzzing monitor, bruxxing at vector nodes like a lone skutter that has gone, quite inexplicably, bananas.

Before we dock, I simply must touch upon the final irony of this particular real-world book being used as the base for the prop. Granted, I might be... reading into this more than is strictly necessary, but the deeper, more revealing, more tragically Arnold J. Rimmer reason goes far beyond simple concealment.

Let's peel back the irradiated onion...

Me² [Series I]

Granted, the real-world prop may be based on a pathology textbook, but in terms of the fictional narrative of the series, the hardback is a perfunctory directory/compendium of assorted bureaucratic flotsam. So, why would Rimmer specifically choose this particular volume as the hiding place for his most private thoughts? Well, what better camouflage than a book already dedicated to cataloguing the kind of information that would ordinarily ward off his slobbish bunkmate faster than the sight of a carefully-carved carrot? If troubled by a lack of random info, Lister would just as sooner shout some fellow crewman passing by to help unpick any given head-scratcher.

In broad terms, this is the least likely publication the (said-to-be) illiterate Lister would ever willingly open - though given the series' ever-fluxing continuity, this theory is open for debate - not least of which as Lister's reading ability seems to shift episode to episode. Here, in Me², he is depicted reading effortlessly and concisely - even nailing pronunciation of such erudite words as "echelons." By the time of Back To Earth, he struggles with the comparatively straightforward surname, 'Austen.'

Thanks For The Memory [Series II]

Rimmer is perpetually engaged in a one-man performance review of himself. He can't just hide his diary inside a book. He has to hide it inside an intimidating book. Something seriously thick, with looming footnotes.

At least in the early days, the guy isn't introspective in a useful way. He is arguably pathological in how he views the world and those he shares it with - pathology being the study of disease, and essentially of what goes wrong with things. It is exactly how Rimmer sees himself. He doesn't think of his failings as bad luck or happen-chance. He thinks of them as natural defects.

To our long-suffering patient, everyone is reacting to his symptoms. But he can't even bring himself to focus on chronicling that silly observation - barely managing only two noted entries in a full solar cycle - the aforementioned family birthday, and of course, not forgetting, the unforgettable Gazpacho Soup Day...

Holoship [Series V]

I'd like to think that Rimmer at least subconsciously believes that his private writings actually deserve to be housed inside a book documenting the ship and its vast, unfathomable construction. In that sense, his diary becomes, in a sense, an unofficial annex to the official record.

Placing his innermost thoughts inside the A–Z of Red Dwarf grants them a dignity the crew never once granted him. Ironically, in doing so, his diary becomes just another misclassification in Red Dwarf’s unspeakably vast filing system... The means fakes gravitas by trying to fool others to judge its cover and not its contents. Remind you of anyone?

When you consider the production used a pathology textbook for this prop, it's almost poetic, and I do wonder if it was intentional. Quietly heartbreaking, actually. And yet - underneath all the neurosis and all the bitterness - it's also faintly heroic. Because even at his worst, Rimmer is still trying. Because pathology is the language of the broken. And despite everything, Arnold is desperately trying to diagnose himself into becoming a better man - the real publication caught between dense pages of superficial data.

What a guy. In principle.

Lastly, in answer to your no doubt burning question, will I eventually create a full set of JMC reference books? Nah. For now, I'm fairly content with what I have. The yellow beast lives again. Though, next week, I intend on making a full scale Starbug using only used toothpicks. If anybody has any spent dental splinters to aid in this ambitious project (preferably green), please mail them to the usual Caviar Vindaloo PO Box, with thanks.

NOTE: No pathology textbooks were harmed in the making of this post.

(Well... not physically. Thematically, they too have been through a lot, this year.)

*Ha.

 

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Oh. Ah. The lucky owner of this prop currently has a blog of their very own documenting their prized possession. It seems, if you want your own copy to be extra, extra authentic, carefully take a craft blade to pages 241-407 - though, not quite as neatly as I'd expect from Old Ironballs. You'll need a Second Edition copy, too, if you really want to show-off. Not like old Fourth Edition muggins, here.