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

hey! Happens all the time.....

I guess :-p How are you?

I'm good. You?

I'm great - I've got a TV review column in the post! (Shameless self promotion!) It seems to have turned out quite well

Well done!! ?

Thank you!

Enjoy!

What did you make of 'Smith and Jones' then?

Rhinos? Weird. But glad it's back.

Me too I dislike the blue suit though!

yeah. Liked the brown better.

Much!

And I'm not impressed - I wanted to be the next Rose!!!

Some of stargate was very good but much was as you said - posetively curdsey.
Some of the bbc dramas(radio) havent been too bad but i feel that there is something seriously lacking in sifi today, in fact the last 10 years or so - man when is anything as good as the 5th element going to appear.
The sci fi books of the 60s and 70s have yet to be bettered.
Dune and so on.
Its allmost as if there was a breath of fresh air which is now used up.

there's definately something about the sci-fi books. Haven't read any in a while, but I remember some Star Trek ones that just didn't seem to fit right. Just not quite getting the characters right I think.

I've noticed a trend towards the more fantasy stuff at the moment rather than the sci-fi end. Things like Lost, Invasion and Heroes, though all good shows, are a different thing to Star Trek, Stargate, Doctor Who and the like. Or is it just me? I know people who hate sci-fi, but love one of these fantsy type shows.

I always thought the line between fantasey and sci-fi very thin..

Know exactly what you mean.
Fantasy has definately become "it," i wonder if the following has anything to do with it -
about 8 years ago i attended a sci fi gathering - quite a number of the gathering were writers, every one of which produced huge wads of work all scifi fantasy.
Their work would be just about coming up now.
So much of society goes on feedback, quite rightly too. It can sometimes though have an interesting affect.
Some years ago i did a job for a teacher in Exeter who was attending a writing group. Whilst i was in the house a radio play came on and she started to make comments.
It turned out her group, and doubtless others, regurlarily wrote to the BBc with comments about plays. A couple of years previous to that the bBc had begun to switch over to endless kitchen sink dramas - the little old lady staring out of the window remeniscing about the neighbours and so on - this was the sort of thing this lady admired and no doubt praised.
Wish id written in in praise of the thrillers, the scifi and the like.
I know so many long distance Lorry drivers who has simply switched off.
I wonder if my client still listens to the radio?
(i never got paid either)

I suppose it's been a while since Hitchhiker was broadcast and they'd might mainly only get existing fans for a re-run/re-make. Anytime I look at the info bit on our digital thing, it seems to be Narnia or a romance or something. Or the Archers. No sc-fi/fantasy stuff.

I suppose in a way U2006 is kinda right bout the definitions. I know that they're both about the parnormal, extraterrestrial, and generally out-of-this-world stuff. Personally I'd always taken sci-fi to be definate alien stuff - Star Trek, Star Wars, ET, Alien, etc, and fantasy to be things like Lost, Invasion, Buffy, Heroes, X-Men etc. That the same for anyone else?

sci fi spreads over such a wide area.
I feel its a shame that the average joe just dosent know.
Jurassic park, thats scifi - blade runner,5th element, the books Heinlin,Dick,vance,and so on all very different genres.
All about concepts carried through, vance about different worlds, slightly gothic, but allmost medieval. Heinlin, boys world adventures, alien princesses"a large pink elephant like creature" who eventualy grew 6 legs, and he made it hang together so well.
Gene Wolfe, with his very morbid tales of elder communities, the dune series, it just goes on.
Quite a number are imaginings of what our problems of today could become - the concepts magic.
Soon someone important will discover this world and then every child will be agog.
Harry potter will be insignificant because its all there and in so many different forms.

Yeah, it's so wide but so similar. Hard to categorise it exactly. Like you put Jurrassic Park as sci-fi. I'd thought of it as more fantasy, but thinkm=ing about it you're probably right.