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

It's not real!
It's not real!
It's not real!

WHAT ?

I am wondering too

I think they're referring to a BBC interview with her last night, wherein she said she cried when she killed off a character in the new book.

To be fair, we often cry about unreal things. You could have sunk ships with the tears cried at Titanic, and I've cried when rehearsing a funeral scene. I don't think she thinks it's real.

David

Yes...it is good for an author to get into their characters...I don't think she believed the character was real either.

ok and now I know who it is...the Harry Potter author

Tonsil Revenge:
Do you not like Harry Potter???

They say that the books are good because they're encouraging children to read. I doubt this very much. They'll probably pick it up, found out who's died and then go back to their playstations.

Actually it would be quite refreshing if she killed off Harry Potter then turned another character into the main star.

I cry everytime I read the end of book 4 when dies. I have a funny feeling I'm going to spend glastonbury reading and sobbing...but then this is all dependent on tesco delivering my book on Saturday...

I too have that horrible feeling that my book won't arrive in tomorrow's post, and I'll have to endure until Monday, while all those grotty little kids get to read it first.

B

If it doesn't arrive I'm going into tescos to get another one...I'll give the delivery one to hubby's mum as a pressie (so I can take my one to glasto)

So who's your money on for the big kill-off, then?

I reckon it's probably Hagrid.

B

My daughter and her cousin (who is staying with us) are going to walk to our local bookshop at 7:30am on Saturday to buy their copies, and no doubt I won't see them for days. The cousin read number 4 in one sitting (it's about 600 pages). The fifth one is bigger - I've heard it weighs a kilo.

760 pages and a quarter of a million words, according to the Times this morning.

I read No. 4 in one sitting (10pm-4:30am ) too, and feel it was gratuitously long. The pattern emerging thus far is that Nos. 1&3 have had significant long-term plot developments, whereas 2&4 have been very much incidental. If the trend is to continue (and Ms. Rowling claims that 6 is going to a be a shortish book and 7 will be bloody massive, so we have every reason to believe it will), then 250,000 words sounds quite justifiable to me.

B

They do seem to be enouraging my child to read. He asked for the second book once he'd seen the film of the first one because he wanted to know what happened next. He's not a bookworm like me, but this is the first time that he's touched a book of this size.

I can't stand the damn series personally and I don't care who's dead, resurrected or hanging from the ceiling...

Harry, Ron and Hermione are all needed as the main characters. You couldn't have a Harry Potter book without Harry. You need a normal boy and girl with him for the boy readers and the girl readers.

Dumbledore is too important to be killed yet. He'll probably snuff it at the end of the second last one (number 6) or the beginning of the last (number 7) leaving Harry to face Voldemort alone.

There's no point in killing off some of the minor humorous characters such as Professor Trelawney or the Herbology teacher. We wouldn't miss them. So it's got to be somebody important. That leaves Snape, Hagrid or McGonagall.

My money's on McGonagall. We'll find out tomorrow.

Boo, hiss. I'm not going to tolerate Harry-bashers on this thread. Go on - bugger off.

B

Well that's charming that is. And there I was standing up for the series even though I they don't appeal to me at all.

Sorry Mina - you can stay as long as you moderate your opinions.

I'd still have a side bet on Ron getting killed off, Gnomon. You reckon you need a 'normal' boy and girl. Surely the point of the books is that Harry is that 'normal' boy, and the fact that he doesn't understand why he is a hero makes him all the more normal.

B

I'm not a Harry-basher as such, but I just wish the bloomin' hype machine would self destruct. It is a kids book. It is not as if it is a solution to world peace or even a new scientific breakthrough to rid the world of all disease so we only ever die from old age or accidents.

As for the daft moo crying on telly about a character in the book dying! Get a life.

The thing that p'd me off this week was the report about JK filing a law suit for "tens of millions of dollars" on that US newspaper for publishing extracts from the new book. WHY??? Surely any free publicity is good? Isn't that what sells books? And she really needs the money doesn't she.

I will be glad when this all fades into obscurity.