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

*Sometimes I wonder whether Terry Prachett just knew nicer people than Stephen King,*

More excellent advice GoHL, thanks.

One's own experiences of life (good and bad) must surely spill over and alter the course of the ship?

Gallows humour in horrific circumstances can take the edge off, but some people have a rather dark nature.

A good mix of humour and horror, silliness with the supernatural, is my cup of tea.

Not a Pratchett fan (grab your torch and pitchfork) but I am enjoying Good Omens. Prefer Clive Barker to King....

I think King at his best is very fine. I also suspect commercial considerations override occasionally. But he's gloomy by nature, and it shows. I never read horror unless there's more to it than the horror story.

In a couple of weeks, you and I will have a chance to model this essay with a couple of stories.

Have a sent you another unhappy ending shocker...sorry, head's not right yet?

That's fine. I'll read it when I get back - off to enjoy some sunshine!

You had me at Stephen King. I just finished reading "Mr. Mercedes." I will definitely not lace my hamburger with poison. Not that some of the creatures in my yard don't deserve it.

I've just started reading "Born to be posthumous," a biography of Edward Gorey. Now, *there* was a man who could manage an unhappy beginning, middle, and ending.

Huge Pratchett fan tuning in... (not a huge fan of horror, probably to do with my imagination)

Looking at the picture lots of competing impressions come at once:

Why did they put glass windows in that hydroelectric dam? (the water level is clearly higher behind it)

Is that a copulating couple exercising their Nessie in the river?

The gardener with the red cap clearly has quite some work left to do, leaning on his hoe like that, but maybe he is just listening to the question to the answer of Life, the Universe and Everything, given to him by the blind oracle.

Are we in Northern Italy? Then where have all the Romans gone?


OK, I admit, the 2000XP scenario crossed my mind.

Are those dark clouds coming in or blowing away? (vital to the feel of the story)

Presuming we stay inside the atmosphere, the glass is always full, even it there is no liquid in it. On the other hand, on a subatomic level, there is so much space left between all those protons / neutrons / electrons that it is more valid to question the existence of the glass itself, leaving the half full / half empty discussion obsolete.

Or, as my brother used to say: Barman! This is not my glass, mine was full.

The practical approach to epistemological issues. I like it!

Who needs an art historian when you've got an imagination?

"Whatever floats your boat, you're still going have to steer it" [Dmitri]

Oar paddle it.

That image of sentient oil slicks sounds futuristic even to this fan of science fiction.

As long as the sentient oil slicks have the decency to vacate my skiff when I want to put it back in the boat house and do not eat my sculls...

Not having read the book that contained such oil, I don't know what properties they might have had. Petroleum was formed from ancient plants, algae,and bacteria. We can't know whether any of them were sentient. If, a hundred million years later, the petroleum has gained some sort of sentience, that must be a step forward. An odd way to evolve, n'est-ce pas?

Pardon my French, but if I were a sentient petroleum product I would definitely petition against being used as fuel (petroleocide?)

Good point. It's a terrible way to ex-pyre.