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

Entry: David Lindsay - A Voyage To Arcturus - A3904797
Author: pixel - U1419196

Any and all advice and comments welcome ~ this is my first attempt at an entry and i'm sure i can use all the help i can get.
this book has been driving me potty for years and i figured this was as good a way as any to get it out of my system.

Hi there! Glad you've ventured into Peer Review!

I admit that entries about one book tend to not excite me very much - perhaps because they remind me a little too much of the 'book reports' we had to write in school. Overall, it seems like entries about an author in general, or about a series of books seem to do better here in Peer Review than those about a single book. Would you by any chance be interested in expanding this entry to include more than only this book?


Mikey

I'd have loved to but his other stuff isn't exactly easily available ~ they tend to cost an arm and a leg second hand and most people who have read them just don't rate them at all.
It's like he had one moment of genius then nothing.

To me, that's exactly the kind of information I'd love to see more of in an entry like this.

thanks for the tip

Is the book still in print? Is it available in e-book form.
As to C. S. Lewis what you are saying is reminiscent of his
"Out Of the Silent Planet" however Lewis was a better theologian than
he was an astronomer so some of what Lewis said has to be taken with a healthy dose of "Suspension of disbelief." Did you find the Science plausable in Lindsay's book?

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1329 is one of a few sites to do an ebook.

The book was rereleased in a special edition you can get from amazon and they have second hand copies of the other books.
The science used was unplausible to a modern audience but his description of so called "blacklight" travel impressed scientists in his day who found it more credible then the offerings by other writers of the time.
Lindsay was raised a calvinist but became seriously influenced by Nietzche later on and that was often thought to be the source of his moral conflict.
I really couldn't do justice to the book in a few paragraphs ~ in the sixties and seventies entire books were written to try and explain Arturus and i just tried to give a small sense of it

Found the bit i was looking for.
It was C.S. Lewis' novels Perelandra and Out of the Silent Planet which borrow heavily from Lindsay's work.
Lewis made the ideas Lindsay used more palatable by wrapping them up in Christianity.

The theory Lindsay used for space travel was :- "backlight" ~ the theory being that since every action has an equal and opposite reaction then light must have a complementary negative light that makes the return journey at the same speed and that it was possible to harnass this backlight and use it to travel to its point of origin.

Wouldn't stand up today but considering what he was competing against at the time it was pretty impressive.

He also pretty accurately described a lunar landscape at a time noone knew what it looked like.
The early editions of the book were classified and sold as science-fiction but later editions were re-classified as low fantasy or in some cases as philosophy.

Made a few changes ~ but i'll yank it out of peer review if its still too book reporty.

A good entry. It makes me want to go to the library and get the book.
A note on format. It might look better with a subheader between the biographical stuff and the actual part about the book. Also the first subheader might look better if it was labeled as biography so a casual viewer would know this is just introductory remarks and not designed to be an article about the author.

Mmmm...yes titles/subheaders ~ that wpuld mean i'd actually have to figure out how to work the HTML.
I am trying but so far it just makes me want to beat up on the computer.
Thanks for the kind comments but don't say i didn't warn you about the book.

It's not compulsory that the entry is put into Guide ML - if you find it difficult to deal with and prefer to write in plain text the Sub-editor will put it into GML if the entry is recommended. Content is always more important than formatting, and the Subs always prefer to deal with no GML than bad GML.

Thank god ~ i'd have made a right mess trying to change it.
Will really have to start figuring HTML out soon though.

Actually h2g2 has it's own markup language that's why he said GML not HTML. Note at the bottom near where it lists the researchers there are two buttons one for plain text and one to change to Guide ML
If you want to stay in plain text that's fine.

Phew

I have been reading Voyage to Arcturus and I wonder if perhaps it is Lindsay's means of dealing with the question "Why are we here?"
or Perhaps even with the Ultimate question. However his answer is not 42.

You mean you figured out his answer ~ i know lots of things it isn't ~ but never found a conclusion.
with the book

I read the first eight chapters and skipped ahead to see how it ends.
I'm not sure that ending can be understood without reading what comes in between but it seems "pain" is part of the answer.
In a leper colony individuals lose their ability to feel pain and this is one reason their lives lose meaning. Or perhaps I am reading something into the book thaty isn't there.

Yeah i think pain is part of the answer but the book is amazingly cynical and part of it is that really there is no point to it at all.existence for its own sake.
This is one of the best reviews i've seen of it.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/guides/guide-display/-/1LJVU4X5X59HP/103-0530202-9203862
with the reading.

Great Review
Have not read the book but I am determined to now

Great Entry