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

Sorry for bothering you,

I'm blub-blub

I was reading the belgium thread about the downtime, and saw what you said about Tom Bobdabil (and I've know I've probably spelt that wrong ). Anyway, I was wondering if by any chance you had a link? If not it dosn't matter, just intrested.

Thanks for your help,

bb

Half a mo...

Here we are http://tolkien.cro.net/else/bbeier.html

Quite a compelling argument, but I rarely take too seriously any interpretation of a written work other than that of the author. A good read though.

Thanks for that entertaining reading.

As a general rule i steer clear of fantasy/sci-fi. I make an exception for LoTR, just for the huge effort gone into constructing it. Other exceptions, P.K.Dick, just because he had such a curious personality (believing he wasn't alive, just experiencing a film of someone else's life, for example) which comes out in his books, and obviously DNA, just because of its comidic value.

What about you?

bb

I rather like sci-fi - have done ever since I was a kid. I can't say I've got a favourite sci-fi/fantasy author - I tend to like books rather than authors: Stranger in a Strange Land, Neuromancer, Ender's Game, THX 1138 (okay, so it's a film novelisation ), LotR, some (but not all) of the Dune books.

I've never read anything by Philip K Dick and I really ought to.

You've just reminded me of another exception, dystopian novels (although I'm not really sure they're sci-fi )

Forgive my ignorance, but is THX 1138 that early George Lucas film?

Philip K. DIck is brilliant. the main problem I have with sci-fi (or at least my limited experience of it) is that the genre is one of endless possibilities, yet most authors seem to limit themselves to just having people do the same things, but slightly faster, with slightly more lights, and sometimes in space. Whereas, PKD is just weird. I think its the ridiculessness of it that makes it so appealling .

bb

Yes, that's the one - Donald Pleasance, Robert Duvall etc. Some dystopias aren't what I would classify as sci-fi (1984 for instance), but the ones set far into the future usually qualify by my criteria. Have you ever heard of a series of books called the Amtrak Wars? It's a post-holocaust series about a race of people whom live underground in a quasi-Southern America society and several races of people who live on the surface. Borderline sci-fi but definitely fantasy.

This is a problem I have - I don't actually own a lot of my favourite books. I might have owned them at one time and lost them or lent them out and nver got them back (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 1066 and All That) or they might have belonged to friends and I borrowed them but *did* give them back (Dune, Amtrak Wars).