For the month of March we'll be reading and discussing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
You don't suck! I read the Hitchhiker's Guide so many years ago, and listened to the radio play dozens of times as well. You won't regret it. Sadly, I am so busy doing work related reading (which I should be doing now instead of posting here!). A clever, funny book.
I think at this point I really do suck...because I still haven't bought it. :redface: For sure this time, I'm getting a copy tomorrow.
Finally finished the novel. Sorry it took me so long; it's been a busy month. This was my second time reading it, and I enjoyed it a lot more the second time around because I got more of the jokes that Adams put in. It's sometimes to hard to forget that a lot of social and political commentary can be found once you go a little deeper into the text. All in all it's a great read, and I would highly recommend it if you haven't read it.
I finally got a copy! I'm a few chapters in and loving it so far. Just wish I had more time to read it...
Pleased to read that that fairly famous quote "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't" comes from this month's book. Much imitated, never bettered. As an aside, who copied whom? The style is quite similar to Vonnegut, especially Sirens of Titan, which equally has a extra-terrestial reference book from which quotes and definitions are taken. Just checked - SoT '58, HGttG '78. Think we've an answer there.
It is amazing how much I had forgotten like it starting out in a village in the West Country - I went and got myself the print version which has been interesting usually I 'read' it on audiobook as I think it works better that way. I have nearly finished - what has been nice is it is first time I have ever read a book a couple of chapters a night.
Isaac Asimov was first with "quotes from a fictional reference book", at least in science fiction (the Encyclopaedia Galactica in the Foundation Trilogy).
Good contribution. Didn't know this. After a little research, which indeed proves Asimov predates Vonnegut and Adams, I also see that Asimov's "Encyclopaedia Galactica" is the same fictional tome to which Adams compares and contrasts his fictional Guide. Bit of a neat sci-fi love-in that.
Anyone know how sound the science is in this book? I'm guessing not very. One point of note I think is the very cute way Adams brings his characters together. He knows that their meeting in that setting would be improbable, so much so as to raise suspicion in his readers, so toys with that notion manufacturing an alternate branches of physics to explain away such happy coincidence, or, more likely, poke fun as such occurances in other texts.
I suspect the babel fish may have been his own musing on universal language and computers. I know he was a total geek -
I know that some of the science is sound, at least from a theoretical point of view. I read a commentary about this book a long time ago, and the writer talked about the science Adams uses in the book. However, I'm sure that given the comedic theme of the book, some of the science in the book is completely false.
I have not read it fully but only the reviews so I would be the silent listener here than the participant.
