A Book Review by Michael Simone:

The Pink Floyd Encyclopedia

by Vernon Fitch

The Pink Floyd Encyclopedia, is exactly that; an A to Z encyclopedia of everything Pink Floyd. This is truly a spectacular book. A thick 450 page, 5d X 9 inch paperback tome, it is an essential must have item for any Pink Floyd enthusiast.

For reference, research, or pure enjoyment of Pink Floyd, this wonderful book should be on your bookshelf. The Pink Floyd Encyclopedia, details Pink Floyd history, music, and the myriad people, places, and things entwined in the vast web of Floydian inter-connectibility, in an alphabetical easy to read format. Created and written by Vernon Fitch creator of The Pink Floyd Archives, he has gathered his huge reference library of records and created this reference work unlike any Pink Floyd book before.

There have been countless books published about Pink Floyd, most however, are historical works with one editorial slant or another. Some Pink Floyd books however, like Jon Rosenberg's "A Journey Through Space and Time with Pink Floyd," "Pink Floyd a Visual Documentary" by Miles, Glenn Povey's "In The Flesh," Andy Mabbett's "The Complete Guide to Pink Floyd," Jason Rich's paperback pocket book "Pink Floyd," and Andreas Kraskas' "Pink Floyd The Records," are among the only few really worth having. Now with the release of The Pink Floyd Encyclopedia we have a really exceptional in depth reference work by one of the most respected historians of the Floydian world.

The book is chocked full of small black and white photos and drawings amid the multitude of Floydian details and facts. However, in the center resides 8 pages of color reproductions of classic Floydian posters and artwork. And attached to the inside back cover is an exclusive bonus Hawkwind CD single of Hawkwind's cover version of Interstellar Overdrive, and the song Hyperdrive Reprise. The color front cover has a color photo menagerie of David Gilmour (circa 1994) singing and playing his guitar, Roger in sunglasses off to the left, and the Floyd's 1994 stage beneath. On the back, the Atom Heart Mother cow, and Battersea Power Station are under and aqua design.

This book has everything! Every detail regarding the entire history of the band. It lists everything about each tour, dates and concert appearances, group and solo; it includes details regarding all the equipment used by each and every band member for each and every tour, and even lists unusual guitar tunings!

This book is not meant to be a documented history with fancy graphics. No fancy color photos throughout. Just detail, facts and history and lots of it. Yea, and you know why I like it so much, it even lists REG - The International Roger Waters Fanclub.

About the only things I don't like about the book are that it does not list the myriad of Pink Floyd Fanzines past and present that have proliferated world over. In fact REG is the only magazine or fanclub listed in the entire book. It would have been nice to have listed all the international Floyd fan magazines both past and present. The teeming abundance of these fanzines have been a real phenomenon for Pink Floyd in particular for almost 20 years. At least mentioning the most successful and longest lasting like Brain Damage and The Amazing Pudding, I think, would have been pertinent.

I would have also liked to have seen a complete separate listing of all the Floyd, Waters, and Gilmour bootlegs that have ever been made. Also missing, understandably from the book was mention of Roger's new In The Flesh tour, most likely because it hadn't started until after the book was written. And even though the book is a Pink Floyd Encyclopedia, I would have liked to have seen a larger section devoted towards Roger's solo career.

Moreover, toward the end of the book are several pages devoted to the Publius and Enigma, a real waste of time, in my mind. But all in all, if you're a Pink Floyd fan, enthusiast or collector, you owe it to yourself to get this book. The Pink Floyd Encyclopedia by Vernon Fitch, can be found in/or ordered from most good bookstores. It is published by Collector's Guide Publishing Inc., Box 62034, Burlington, Ontario, L7R 4K2, Canada. $24.95 USA, or $29.95 Canada. ISBN 1-896522-44-0.