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

The author, Harry Harrison ? is it the same HH who writes the Stainless Steel Rat series ?

Yep!

Can see the similarities once you know the link

Aha ! (he said, knowingly) Have you read Slippery Jim ? now that you mention it, there are similarities ! nice link, Madam

I love the stainless steel rat books, we had the whole collection but we split it when I left home, now I have to get the ones that I don't have for that as well.

I think I actually started reading the SSR books before the Saint.

What are you short of, Angelina ?

Oh i can't remember, I forget which ones I have. I'm definately missing SSR Sings the Blues, but I can't remember what else.

Let's see if i can recall them...

Rat, Rat Returns, saves the world, Rat's revenge, Is Born, Gets Drafted, Sings the Blues, goes to Hell, there's the one where he meets Iron John, but I'm not sure of the title, Rat for President, and a game book called You Can be The SSR. 2000ad comic did a serialisation of Rat and Saves The World, illustrated by Carlos Ezquerra, which was available as a graphic novel (titan books)and in one of the Asimov collections, written as an anthology buy other people on Isaac Asimov story threads, Slippery Jim stars in a short story called The Fourth Law of Robotics.

There's also a book called Saintlass Steel Visions which is a collection of short stories form HH inc. a SSR one.

And the most recent one is SSR joins the circus

CIRCUS ! knew i'd forgotten something ! Thought Visions was the weakest, personally. Not like the good stuff.

It's ok, I read it as often as I read the others.

Another series I like but I don't know if you have come accross is Lois Boujold's books which are generally refered to as the "Miles" series.

The name is familiar, but it's not ringing any bells.... ?

Some of the books are:

Komarr
Diplomatic Immunity
Cordelia's Honor
Mirror Dance
etc

It's based around a boy/man called Miles Vorkorsigan (sp?), and follows him through his various adventures over the years. All based in the same universe where he comes from a planet called Barryar.

I've tried to describe serveral times (in this post, typed then deleted) what they are about but they keep sounding boring so I'm not going to bother.

Sounds like something Alan Dean Foster might have thought of ? Read him ? Spellsinger leaps to mind

I've read a couple of his, including one of the spellsinger series, meant to read more but never found any in the library.

Another author I like is Anne McCaffrey, not all of her series's but some of them.

The Pern Series, perchance ?

It was good to start with now it's got a bit unweildly too many books, lost the plot a bit.

I liked the Powers that be series (only three books), the Crystal Singer (again only 3 books) and the Talents series, (though again some of the later books suffer a bit due to over saturation).

Not particularly bothered about the Acorna series.

What about you? Obviously you like HH and ADF, who else?

Strap yourself in.

Tolkien, ADF, HH, Heinlein, Asimov, The Discworld, Koontz, King, Anne Rice till it became shambolic,Gemmel's DRENAI series, White Wolf publishing's World Of Darkness 'Masquerade' series, most SF and Fantasy. Apart from that, anything with pages ! Non fiction too, Japanese history, martial arts, philosophy, poetry, Haiku, sciences, art..........drones on into distance.......

lets see:

No, ok, Yes, yes, yes, but of course, vaugely recognise the name but not read, No (horror isn't my thing), not heard of her, No, No, and yes most SF & Fantasy. Have you come across the Scf Fi/Sci Fact magazine Analog, thats good.

*jumps on* Japanese History. Ah yes. I'm currently going through all the books I can find, not so much history, though that is involved, but more on the culture. I have an interest in the Japanese form of flower arranging, Ikebana, and I'm currently running the thread back through arcitecture/history/culture/teaism/taoism/zennism; to try and understand things better.

Look for a book , not long reprinted, called Secrets of the Samurai, in the Martial arts section. It's an overview of the sosciety, rather than a training manual, and is a clearly written and illustrated history of Bushido, and the cultural forces behind it; never seen a book cover so much !

I'll keep an eye out for it

thanks