h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Way back when in the thread I said that I got kinda bored with them both a few years back... but just to take one side (fence sitters have sore a***s after all). Small Gods is a better novel than any I've read by Douglas Adams (which is only the HHGG books).

I'm not saying it's funnier, a better story or anything like that... just that it's better written.

Just my tuppence worth....

deemikay

Except that they have their books printed on paper etc.

Rankin's great.. it's like being on a rollercoaster of amusing insanity

I've noticed a couple of the same ideas though.. ones taken from DNA (I can't quote anything - just remember seeing some. Don't hurt me.)

Stop making this thread popular! You're destroying my perfectly cogient paradigms!

he probably did read it, along with ringworld and other such stuff. it wouldn't surprise me at all, in fact, no i am certain he read Lord of the Rings just by the way he depicts dwarves

Pratchett's books are more complete and rounded. He doesn't go nuts or random on the whole. That makes them easier to read.

Updade: Have realised that the earth does not stretch into infinity as I first thought but is perched on the back of 4 enormous elephants. did not realise how disillusioned I was Have also realised that night duty is not the time for trying to read books, Annie(another nurse) talks too much and my eyes get sleepy at the best of times. Will continue tonight.

Yeah. And it's a female turtle

I know Pratchett has read Tolkien's work for he was thankful that JRR replied to Mr. P in letter form when Mr. P 'twas only thirteen(ish)...

I feel like I'm drifting into The Grinch...

Not that again Kitty!

A'Tuin's sex is unknown!!!

Discussion of the sex of the Great A'Tuin aside, I own all of DA's & all of TP's books, so I think I'm in a position to criticise...

I think that TP's first couple of books in the Discworld series - 'The Colour of Magic' and 'The Light Fantastic' are probably two of his harder books to get into. He borrows a lot from DA in the respect that the entire plot revolves around the lead characters repeated getting into trouble and then out of it again, and the humour is very similar. Later in the series, things get a bit more complex, interesting and original - 'Small Gods' is definitely one of the best in the series from my point of view, as is 'Men at Arms', simply because they are so involving and parody RL so well.

DA has always been difficult for me. I read one of his books, I enjoy it, but I feel no compunction to go back and read it again. I think the problem is that after the first half of 'H2G2', the narrative doesn't anchor in the real world very well - suspension of disbelief becomes very difficult. Quite a lot of the HH series reads as if he'd given up half way through 'A Brief History of Time', popped an LSD, and then sat down to watch Star Trek.

No offence is meant to DA, but I find TP's work a lot more fulfilling to read.

it had eggs! Only females make babies.
It's still a turtle. Just a big one.

I agree with a lot of what you just said Peter

*sigh* You don't know the anatomy of giant star turtles.

A'Tuin eats space stuff...

When was the last time you saw a turtle flies out of the sea into space which then eats space debris etc.???

'The Great A'Tuin, sex unknown...'

Sex unknown!!!

It's a fantasy universe!

It'd be Pratchett for me, I like the Guilds, everything about A-M. I agree that colour of magic shouldn't have beat hitchhikers, but overall I just prefer the disc to the Adamsian universe.

That's such a hard choice for me to make, both create excelent charicters and settings by parodying the world as we know it. I'm sure Guide reserchers would blend seamlessly with the inhabitants of Ankh Morpork sending back 'Mostly stolen' reports about the city contents, or reviewing the Klatchian takeaways and Dwarf restraunts. Can you imagine Death trying to teach Cripple Mr. Onion to Marvin?

(but it's still a turtle. It swims out of the good 'waters' into the harsh magic deprived 'beach' to lay it's eggs. It has turtle behaviour, and it is a turtle, therefore it's logical to conclude that it is a female, as males don't lay eggs... ever. In fact the definition of a female is the one that produces the eggs.)

Male seahorses have babies! (at least i think they do)
Any way it isnt male or female, its sex IS "unkown" not unknown as
the absence of knoledge but UNKOWN!


Maybe
orion

yeah.. but they don't produce the eggs.
The definition of female is the one that produces the eggs therefore great atuin, turtle or not, must be a female.

*Starts philosophising*

Yes, but it's only a rule, because we've not found anything to contradict it. For example, were we to find a type of metal that did not conduct electricity, that metal conducts electricity would cease to be a rule. Similarly, if we were to find a male that lays eggs, that too would cease to be a rule.

Oh, but it's purely scholastic, you may say. Where would you find a male that lays eggs?

Well, in the Discworld of course. It makes up its own rules anyway.