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

Re: Rankin:

Well, I started with the first of the Brentford Trilogy, and thought much the same as you, Jim. Hoovooloo has since persuaded me to re-try starting with the second one, and I have gone so far as to buy it, but I haven't done anything about reading it yet. I'll let y'all know how I get on. (This thread will run and run....)

Ben

Re: The Last Continent, no, it's not called something else over here, I just have false memory syndrome.

Rankin, absolutely brilliant! Execpt for when you mention you're reading a Rankin book everyone seems to assume you mean Ian, not Robert!

Started on Brentford triangle, then east of ealing (bought) then sprouts of wrath. Then got into his other books, the Armageddon ones (esp. They Came and Ate Us). Just recently read his latest Brentford one which I temporarily forget the title of. Again, there's a lot going on in there, took me a while to realise that Rex Mundi's name meant something as well! Barry is/was cool even if he is just a figment of Elvis's imagination

I do think, tho', that TP has dumbed down. I dunno, maybe I just gorged myself on his books and need some time off. Very good writter and all that but there have been a few recent books which just seemed a tad formulaic. Thief of Time was quite good tho'. I suppose it's probably just that they'll never have the same impact as when I first read them.

Oh, and DNA books are, in my opinion, unparalleled for their twist of logic and lateral moves.

Re: Tom Holt ... I was about to read Olympiad when a friend recommended Who's Afraid of Beowulf so I read Expecting Someone Taller - makes sense!

Had a sniff over TP yesterday lunch time but was bamboozled and didn't know where to start. If I'm going to read a writers work I quite like to see how their style changes and grows and the sheer number of books he's written scares the living doo-dahs out of me! In a moment of TP induced terror I turned sought Tom Holt but the Waterstones I was in didn't have any ... ...

I would buy the Salmon of Doubt but it's out of my price range at the moment ...

"on DNA and plot - i guess because the first time i read HH i read the first four books one after the other, i did discern some plot - my fav part is in book 3 (i think) when AGrajag comes back a life too early, and it ties in to heaps of things that happened in earlier books - the thing i always find with DNA is that you simply have to read every single sentence or it comes back to bite you"

Span - that's my favs too. One of the best things is that DNA books are quoteable. If you pay attention there are so many gems.

Ictoan - are you sure Bary is the product of Elvis imagination? I seem to remember a chapter ortwo with Bary before Elvis comming into the story.

Ah yes, but thats part of the fun isn't it? If Barry was a figment then how did Elvis manage to time travel etc? It was in either the last Armagedon book, or, I think, a subsequent book where Elvis/Barry made a guest appearance. Barry told Elvis that he (barry) was a figment of Elvis's imagination and then disappeared.

Although it was a while ago I read it. Trying to remember the book now....

Ekki, why don't you order it from the library? I've just done so - cost me 80p and I'll have to wait for them to buy it, but at least that way I can afford to read it.

( This library keyboard feels horrible and the screen's all fuzzy P'raps I should go home.)


Ictoan and Apparition, Barry isn't a figment of anyone's imagination. He's a guardian sprout. I don't remember Elvis (perhaps I didn't read that book, which one was it?) but he's been in a number of books with the great detective Laszlo Woodbine.

Tefkat.

Yeah I know thats the story through most of the books, but as I say, there is one where he tells Elvis he is a figment of his imagination and then disappears.

Barry / Elvis work throughout several books as I recall, certainly some of the Armagedon ones but also some of the off shoots.

I remember where he says it cos it was a biot of a surprise!

Perhaps I should pop over to the fanzine site and ask them which books it was in !

Or she could pop over to the shelves and search - if she wasn't so lazy.

I couldn't possibly comment on that!

Couldn't possibly borrow if from the library Tefkat ... I'd have to give it back when I finish it and that just wouldn't do ...

Incidentally, in light of the recent Mostly Harmless chat I'm re-reading it ... certainly less light-hearted than the others but most enjoyable all the same ...

I get the impression I didn't read enouth rankin or that I've read ittoo long ago.

Every one was going around saying "have another day" in one book
Now I'm trying to remember where Rex Mundi and Budah Vision come into things. It's been a while since reading these things.

I'm with you,Ben, I too think that Terry Pratchett is the better writer - he has some awesome books, and some amazing passages within them - one of which I used in a module on Mental health in my disability studies...

DNA was good, but Terry Pratchett is better, IMO.

Douglas Adams wrote as if he were using the finest pen, or most ellegant word processor imaginable.

Terry Pratchett writes as if he were using wallpaper and crayons.

There's something to be said for both styles. Some days I need crayons and wallpaper. There's not much point debating who was/is the better writer*, because they write very differently.

Pratchett does fantasy - anything can happen as long as there are enough jokes and words to fill out the (recently) repetative plot**.

Adams did somthing else - anything that occuried in his books was there for a reason. Which is why the early ones were so short. The super intelligent shade of purple wasn't a throw-away line - it was integral.



*Because it's DNA.

**ie - something happens in Ankh Morpork which keeps half the 'cast' occupied, while the other half of the cast gets to go on a long journey/comes back from a long journey to save the day. Bung in enough references to recent films, and a sprinkling of obscure entries from 'Brewer's phrase and fable' and we're away.

Ok, after that it's time for me to put reticence aside.
Yeah, DNA did something else. Re-write the same idea three times (radio play, novels, tv series) and try and do it a fourth time (film). Then overstretch that idea by at least two books past it's natural point of extinction.
I got the idea the first (and funniest) time.

And Pratchett examines things like responsibility, cause, effect, belief, racism, self limitation, the downsides of religion, historical determinism, the burdon of expectation, the place of personal relationships in the context of duty, and the conflict between your private life and your professionalism.

But - hey - none of that is funny.

Blink and you miss it.

Maybe I just notice the stuff which flicks me on the raw. And maybe you have to have been around the block enough to have raw places to be flicked.

Ben

Well DNA 'flicks me on the raw' as you so eloquently put it Ben.


What's the difference?

DNA reads like a very clever man who is trying his best to articulate his ideas.

Pratchett comes across like a very clever man who wants to be seen as such (and has a talent for story telling).

I prefer DNA - I like sombre.

I've read more Pratchett - I like crayons and wallpaper.

You want sombre? Read Hogfather... Reaper Man is pretty dark too. Small Gods was the only thing I could read after 9/11 and I followed it up with Witches Abroad. I find Pratchett dangerously dark at times.

I *did* try to re-read the HH books late last year, and made it through about two and a half of them. Unfortunately they read to me like drafts.

I have to admit there are some challenging ideas - the total perspective vortex and the inside of the asylum - but I find them too disjointed, the metaphors are not sustained. And I dislike the reverberation back and forward through time rewriting history. Too much like having your cake and eating it for me.

DNA remains completely unrivalled at verbal pyrotechnics: I am yet to find a pun as good as 'I feel like a military academy, bits of me keep passing out' or as good as '"What is so unpleasant about being drunk?" - "Ask a glass of water"' and it is 25 years since I first came across those two gems.

But for me, DNA's work is like brilliant facets of light sparking off flawed jewels, and Pratchet's is like a pretty-pretty pond with some really nasty stuff lurking underneath, if you choose to look below the surface. Vimes. (Need I say more?)

I will try the HH books again soon, and the DG ones too (which I always preferred) when I have them all lined up in order.

Promise.

Ben

*quietly bookmarking*

just for now i'd like to say that i've read books by both and loved them all. but i'm busy working my way through the backlog. sorry if this pops up in the middle of a different topic, appropos of nothing.

i'd also like to say to Linda(way back in post 23 or so, now) that's funny, i'd remembered chapters. but then i got off my chair anc found a few of them and leafed through them and, no chapters. maybe my mind just inserted them where the page breaks are? oh well. doesn't bother me, anyway, i find it just as hard to put a book down right after a chapter.

I got involved with this site through the Babelfish translator on AltaVista and after a few months I realised that though DNA's books were a pleasant memory there was a great deal that just hadn't made enough of an impression to have lasted - so I searched the house and "lined them up in order" to take on holiday last summer.

It took about a day and a half to read the four of them and, you know, they still haven't made as much of an impression as some of Pratchett's.

TP's seem more connected. More real. Maybe it's a consequence of having written so much. Somewhere in among all those books any individual stands more of a chance of finding something meaningful to them than in DNA's few.

Or maybe it's just growing older. HHGG holds more meaning for a young Trillian but poor old Nanny Ogg needs a healthy dose of cynicism and well rounded characterisation with her humour?