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

Hey Viola girl,
Accordian crimes I thought was a great read, now I want to read the shipping forecast!

Z!

If nothing else this thread shows why the saying 'each to their own' is appropriate

My own pet hates are anything by Shakespeare or Dickens - too much of them forceably read at school. Classic they may be but they bore me silly.

And I'm really pleae a couple of you mentioned the great rip offs that are the 'Shannara' books - read the first three just to see how bad bad could get - really, really poor

I seem to be having great difficulty reading the newer Arthur C Clarke books - they just don't seem to grab the interest the same way the older ones did. Perhaps it's just the difference in writing styles with his colaborations, which is all the newer books seem to be, perhaps he's just past it?

On the subject of books versus adaptations - I significantly preferred the TV versions of Hercule Poirot (David? Suchet); Miss Marple (Jean Hickman?); Jeeves and Wooster (Fry and Laurie) and The Darling Buds of May.

But it is a truism that bad books make good TV...



a philistine called Ben

Sorry, Orcus... yet another person that can't quite get through Lord of the Rings. Actually, once I read The Hobbit a second time I really enjoyed it, so maybe the idea is that I need to read them twice.

Also:
~anything by Dickens
~King Lear (though it's the only Shakespeare I *don't* like)
~stuff by Ursula K. LeGuin (maybe I've just tried reading the wrong books... I'd really like to get into it more)
~Little Women
~basically, anything written in the 19th century. Too flowery and at the same time, too dry.

And I'm going to be an English student... *fear*

It has taken me five attempts but I finally made it to the second chapter of Lord of the Rings. Lets just hope I keep it up before the mindless teduim factor kicks in.


Popcorn by Ben Elton has to be the most lukewarm novel I have ever had the misfortune of reading a real letdown when compared to Stark and Inconceivable.

It took me several running starts to get enough momentum to get through the Fountainhead. The worst for me, though, has always been Pride and Prejudice -- it's the only book I own that I've never read all the way through.


Mikey

There's a few books on my bookshelf back at home I haven't even started yet, since I made a promise tyo myself I wouldn't start them until I have finished LotR. One of them is a John Wyndham(sp?) omnibus, (Day of the Triffids, Midwich Cuckoos, etc). I really should have started that one first.

Tip for TLOTR, skip the first 100 pages or so, I always do when I re-read it, nothing happens much and what does is mindless stuff. The "fun" starts afterwards.

ChawkE

Thanks Munchkin!

Books and Films: Weird. But....yeah...now that you mention it...

Triffids and Cuckoos are brilliant! (sorry for topic drift, I'll stop in a second...) Day of the Triffids has my favourite opening line of *any* book. "When a day that you happen to know to be a Wednesday starts of by sounding like a Sunday then you know something somewhere is seriously wrong." - Ominous and forboding.

Back on topic. I started Le Carré's "Spy who came in from the cold" and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" after I missed the Christmas re-run of TTSS. I had to stop about half way through SWCINFTC because of essays and stuff and haven't really had the heart to start them up again. Less a "flung aside in disgust" but certainly a "lost momentum to care"

Clive

Actually someone mentioned above the advice I usually give to people on reading the Lord of the Rings, you kind have to read around the first chpater, the second chapter "The Shadows of the Past" is where it really kicks in and even I tend to avoid reading all the songs and rhymes at times.

Was actually thinking of reading the Sword of Shannara stuff at some point, I'm glad people have pointed out its poopiness here, I may well avoid it now (although I do always like to make up my own mind).

I have to say Lord of the Flies was another downer for me, not that its a bad book, its clearly good, but its soooo depressing .

Sword of Shannara is fun to read if only to compare directly with TLOTR, I read i t after a friend who kept saying things like "Got to the bit in the mines under Mordor yet?" and when I did I knew what he meant, the story is exactly TLOTR in the smallest details.

The Stephen Donaldson "Gap" series I finished but almost felt like taking my own life at the end, also Robert Holdstock - gripping stuff but sooo depressing.

ChawkE

I can imagine with Donaldson, the Thomas Covenant books are bad enough for being depressing and someone once told me the Gap series are even worse. I think I'll leave them be...

I'll put my vote in for Foucault's Pendulum. It seemed like he was just trying to show off how much he knew.

I also never finished 'Interview with the Vampire'. And I've currently stalled reading Peter F Hamilton's 'The Reality Dysfunction' which has had rave reviews, but is currently taking a long time setting everything up.

Amy - which Ursula K LeGuin did you try? I love Earthsea, and the Left Hand of Darkness but find the political messages in the others too blatent. LHoD is one of the most imaginitive and challenging SF books - anyone interested in Genetic Engineering should read it.

Other books I have abandoned? Wild Swans, compelling but depressing. Dickens deserves a special mention again, because I really do dislike the cardboardness of it all. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell. (Loved North and South). Agnes Grey by whichever Brontë it was. (Loved Shirley, and find Jane Eyre shamefully compelling, like chocolate marshmallows). Mansfield Park, but love the others, probably just lost momentum. Found Vikram Seth's book about music an enormous disappointment after A Suitable Boy which qualifies as one of my alltime favourites.

Maybe we should start a thread about disappointing books by authors we otherwise like...

an Ursula K Le Guin Fan called ben

Jim

Continue with the PF Hamilton, probably one of the most engrossing reads I've had for a long time, but don't read all three in one go, pace yourself, they are very big, and don't be tempted to peek at the next books synopsis, all will be revealed.

ChawkE

On The Road - Jack Kerouak. Didn't fling it asside though, my face just fell into it on about page 6 when my brain switched to standby out of sheer boredom.

Dickens - Everything

Shakespeare - Everything. I had a drama teacher who used to spit before saying his name. After further exposure to His Wordiness, I came to acquire the same habit.

Steven Donaldson - I'm sorry, but so many people wax ecstatic over the Thomas Covenant books. After 1 1/2 books, I hurled it at a wall in a very literal sense. I wished the protagonist would get on with killing himself.

Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar - In this case, it was the author who should have taken her own life. She did, but she inflicted this garbage on us first.

Tolkein - I actually liked LotR, but the Silmarillion should never have been published.

Weiss & Hickman - I find their works to be amusing, but the last installment of the "Rose of the Prophet" trilogy is another that found itself cast against a wall in a very literal sense. I absolutely hated the ending.

Do absolutely read 1984, and Animal Farm afterwards... although Animal Farm doesn't have a great impact unless you do a preliminary study of the Bolshevik Revolution. They're both brilliant. Orwell was way ahead of his time... the rest of the world had to wait until Krushchev released the true details of Stalin's regime to understand the awful failings of a communist system.

And now I'll defend Eddings... while his plots may lean towards predictability, I find his worlds to be among the most complete and well-developed in the fantasy genre. It's easy to get caught up in the politics, religion, local customs, etc., since he makes them very real to the reader, without going to excess, like Jordan (whose name will soon be added to the above list if he doesn't figure out where his damned series is headed, and soon). His characters are also deeper than ordinary, which is remarkable with such an extensive cast. Better characterization can be found, but that's usually because the book revolves around only a few characters. The central character list of "The Belgariad" is pretty long:

Garion
Ce'Nedra
Belgarath
Polgara
Durnik
Kheldar
Barak
Mandorallen
Lelldorin

Add in the countless supporting cast members (the gods, kings and queens, further companions like Relg, Taiba and Beldin, developed bit-parts like Faldor the farmer, Brand, Greldik, and Asharak the Murgo) and you've got an awful lot of believable characters moving around in a believable world, operating under a frame of reality that is rather original.

I agree with CS WRT Eddings, although a point of order, Eddings is a plural for David and Leigh Eddings.

Also a good work in progress is shaping up here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A538706

I for one will keep a track of this one to get it in the guide when finished.

ChawkE

*Takes notes for mention in peer review later*