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

Wow! This might catch on here, where every classic could be condensed into a story of less than 20 lines.

The difficulty as I see it, is that the style's strength is also it's weakness, in as much as it has a novelty value, but because of its brevity there is so little of YOU that can be put into it. Your own thoughts, expressions and feelings are very much put aside, to make room for the paired down storyline.

Having said all that, it's good, and it works! Try some of the Dicken's stories, or even better, Shakespeare.

Hey there Hoon!

I don't know how I missed this comment. I apologize for not attending to it.

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I think just about all Shakespeare and Dickens are represented on the site. I wrote this because it hadn't been attempted.

Should you be curious, DNA's stuff had already been done, too.

I have to disagree a bit with your assessment. When you try boiling a major (or even a minor) work into a few choice lines, it almost always comes off as a parody, and there is little room for anything but a bit of yourself.

It becomes all about what the reader/writer got from the book, at its most minimalistic level, and the limitations of that writer's ability to create the UC version. Some of them are downright insulting of the author, some are serious attempts at distillation, and others are a tongue-in-cheek homage to the original.

I like to think that these two versions fall into the latter category!