Nojiri Hōsuke
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1961- ) Japanese author, former CAD programmer and game designer, whose early career comprised Ties to the play-by-mail and later Role-Playing Game Creguian. His follow-up, Rocket Girls, chronicled the activities of a space agency launching from the Solomon Islands. The Anime world soon seized upon the attractive potential of his all-female cast (to save payload weight, apparently), leading to the animated series Rocket Girls (2007 WOWOW).
He won a Seiun Award for Best Novel for his light-hearted Fuwafuwa no Izumi ["The Fountains of Fluffy"] (2002); the title deliberately parodies The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C Clarke. In it, a schoolgirl chemist accidentally creates a substance harder than diamonds but lighter than air. The story version of his more serious Taiyō no Sandatsusha (September 1999 S-F Magazine; exp as fixup 2002, vt Usurper of the Sun, 2009) won a Seiun Award for Best Short Story; the book draws heavily on the Macrostructures of Clarke and Larry Niven, with mysterious Aliens, the Builders, who commence building a ring around the Sun within the orbit of Mercury, casting a shadow that threatens life on Earth.
"Furoshiki to Kumo no Ito" ["The Loincloth and the Spider's Thread"] (April 2006 S-F Magazine) won the Seiun Award for Best Short Story in 2007. It was collected in Chinmoku no Fly-by (coll 2007), the title story of which had seemingly first appeared in such an obscure location (1998 SF Online) that it escaped the former notice of the Seiun voters, and was itself awarded a Best Short Seiun Award the following year. Nojiri wrote two episodes of the anime series Galaxy Angel (2002) and was a vocal supporter of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, to the extent of writing a book and several enthusiastic magazine articles. His novel Pinieru no Furiko (2000) seems to have been intended as the first in a series about interstellar archaeologists, but has yet (2010) to gain a sequel. [JonC]
Hōsuke Nojiri
born Mie Prefecture, Japan: 1961
works
series
Creguian
- Veizu no Mentō ["The Blind Spot of Veis"] (Tokyo: Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, 1992) [tie: Creguian: pb/Kōji]
- Fedarink no Kujira ["The Whale of Fedarink"] (Tokyo: Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, 1992) [tie: Creguian: pb/Kōji]
- Anx no Kaizoku ["The Pirates of Anx"] (Tokyo: Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, 1993) [tie: Creguian: pb/Kōji]
- Sariban-ke no Ohikkoshi ["The Relocation of the House of Sariban"] (Tokyo: Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, 1993) [tie: Creguian: pb/Kōji]
- Talifa no Komoriuta ["The Lullaby of Talifa"] (Tokyo: Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, 1995) [tie: Creguian: pb/Kōji]
- Afanus no Hankiseki ["The Gemstones of Afanus"] (Tokyo: Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, 1996) [tie: Creguian: pb/Kōji]
- Beckfoot no Toriko ["The Prisoner of Beckfoot"] (Tokyo: Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, 1998) [tie: Creguian: pb/Kōji]
Rocket Girls
- Josei Kōsei Lift Off! ["High School Girls: Lift Off!"] (Tokyo: Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, 1995) [Rocket Girls: pb/Mūni Mucchiri]
- Rocket Girls (San Francisco, California: Viz Media/Haikasoru, 2010) [trans of the above: Rocket Girls: pb/Katsuya Terada]
- Kekka wa Ōrai ["Angels Result: All Right" or "Angel's Well That Ends Well"] (Tokyo: Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, 1996) [Rocket Girls: pb/Mūni Mucchiri]
- Watashi to Tsuki ni Tsukiatte ["Meet Me on the Moon"] (Tokyo: Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, 1999) [Rocket Girls: pb/Mūni Mucchiri]
- Mahōtsukai to Rendezvous ["Rendezvous with the Witch"] (Tokyo: Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, 2007) [Rocket Girls: pb/Mūni Mucchiri]
individual titles
- Pinieru no Furiko ["Pinhel's Pendulum"] (Tokyo: Asahi Sonorama, 2000) [pb/]
- Fuwafuwa no Izumi ["The Fountains of Fluffy"] (Tokyo: Famitsū Bunko, 2001) [pb/]
- Taiyō no Sandatsusha (Tokyo: Hayakawa Shōbo, 2002) [fixup: pb/]
- Usurper of the Sun (San Francisco, California: Viz Media/Haikasoru, 2009) [trans of the above by John Wunderley: pb/Katsuya Terada]
- Chinmoku no Fly-by ["Silent Fly-by"] (Tokyo: Hayakawa Shōbo, 2007) [coll: pb/]
nonfiction
- SETI@home Ō-uchi no Pasukon de Uchūjin Sagashi ["SETI@Home: Searching for Aliens with Your Home Computer"] (Tokyo: Locus, 2000) [nonfiction: pb/]
links
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