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

I'd love to hear your impressions. I started about halfway into the series (Desolation Island). Around that point, various themes and in-jokes started to settle in.

I love the way that there are no concessions to the non-nautical. I've no idea what's happening in any of the chase scenes - but it doesn't matter.

I know what you mean about the lingo - I like it that he doesn't talk down to the reader. The same goes for snippets of other languages - I'm always somehow put off when a writer gives an English translation in brackets afterwards.

It's still a bit too early to say. By the way, have you read Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson? I think you'd quite like it. It's sci-fi (in a way), but don't let that put you off. A lot of interesting stuff about various ideologies and politics in it.

On his W***pedia page, they talk about 'Total Immersion'. I like that. The dialogue is in their own idiom, and one has to deduce their motivations as people of their time. They're not mere nautical tales, are they?

Kim Stanley Robinson - is s/he possibly either the 'Spider Robinson' who I know of yore, or his wife? He wrote an excellent book called 'The Forever War' which someone else mentioned recently.

(no - he isn't)

It does sound like my kind of stuff, though. I used to like all the Ben Bova-era stuff about colonisation.

KSR - not sure if he's anything to Spider Robinson. He's an American leftie, and a lot of that comes across in what he writes. It's also very well informed scientifically - not your light-saber lark. Give it a go if you come across it.

Back to Master & Commander - have you seen the film? I haven't. Someone said to me before that Maturin seems a very English chap in it, while in the book he's an Irishman brought up in Catalonia. Odd.

I'll be interested to see how Aubrey develops - the book seemed to start out from his viewpoint and he seemed quite sensible, but as it goes on he seems not so much.

As for 'touching up the futtock-shrouds' - that's enough to get this book banned in some countries!

Oh yeah, I forgot to say. The reason I brought Robinson up was that that was how I came across Patrick O'Brian. I read Robinson mentioning O'Brien as one of the best historical novelists he'd ever read and owed a lot to him, so I thought I'd give it a look. Do you read much historical fiction in general?

Many people hate the film. I didn't - but it's not a patch on the books. It;s subtitle is 'The Far Side Of The World', and it's a version of that book in the series. But it doesn't have the bit where they fall off the ship in the Pacific and get picked up by a boatload of South Sea Amazons.

This weekend's Oxfam haul...

Two Patrick O'Brian's. I usually try not to buy them unless the next one in the series appears in charity shops, only I figured that late-series ones might be rare.

And...Red Mars.

This always happens to me. My 'must have' books have a habit of turning up serendipitously.

On a related topic...is there a law that says that all charity shops must stock certain books? Like, have you ever been in one which doesn't have 'About A Boy'?

No idea if they would be rare or not. I've borrowed Master & Commander from my father. Big naval history buff. I think he has about 15 or so of them.

The charity shops round here are full of Da Vinci Codes and Bridget Joneses at the minute. Yesterdays hype books are probably always ending up there once the fuss subsides.

Another favourite is those little black leather bibles and hymn books with brass zips. I've often wondered why religion cornered the market on zip-up books.

They should be welded shut, as far as I'm concerned.

Aye so, I see you like Red Mars, then?

Addictive! I'm currently halfway through Blue Mars.

Let's face it, though...t'ain't literature, he needs an editor and he likes to show off his research.

I know you're just stirring there!

Isn't it interesting that all the technical detail doesn't hobble it? Truth be told though, I can't remember anything about it now. What are you reading at the minute? (I know there's a thread for that. But I've about 100 posts unread in that thread and I'm saving 'em up. Some really good reading ideas pop up there, ones I'd otherwise not have thought of.)

Still on Blue Mars.

The bits that flagged were when someone went on yet another f-ing journey, and we got yet more descriptions of all the f-ing rocks and canyons.

He's obviously a one for using his characters to act out his fantasies, whether it's Nirgal running around the world or Zo having prolonged orgasms.

Never read it.