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

I have two guide entries one I'm trying to get through peer review, the other I'm still in the process of writing.


So the best thing for me to do was probably not to go out looking for a rhyming dictionary yesterday, only to come back with The Da Vinci Code.


Now I'm completely engrossed and theres not alot of me doing anything until I've finished it


ahhh well, best laid plans of mice and men, and all that

The Lady Reefgirl hightly recommended that book, as well as its predecessor, "Angels and Demons". So Mrs Santa Claus got both for me at Christmas. I found them both to be very good reads, with but one short-coming. Somehow, I'd find myself reading 20 pages, and feeling that I'd only received 10 pages of substance. Hmmm

Anyway, I hope you enjoy, friend. And be damned with what the elitist critcs think of it.

I enjoyed both books but it does get stilted in places, I'm off to see the film this evening, the audio version by Jeff Harding is good if you don't fancy getting bogged down in the book

I enjoyed those two books very much. Just went to see the movie last night. It stayed fairly true to the book.

Also by Dan Brown (and relatively good reading) are Digital Fortress and Deception Point.

with refereance to the histroical side, I find the book doesn't tell you "that" much that wasn't already known, although to be fair I'm only half way through, I thought with all the scandal surrounding it there be some new reverlation in it

But in a way that is the idea.. by using known histories and such it makes the whole fictional conspsiracy more plausible.. that's what I like about his books - he uses enough fact to really bring the conspiracy and mystery to life..

*grins* I know what you're saying Batty


But my point is, I thought there was some sort of outstanding reverlation in the thing and there doesn't seem to be anything that isn't already available to the masses. I'm not saying the book isn't interesting it is, just with all the hype I thought they'd found out something else

No.. no revelations.. just most hadn't read the source material, like Holy Blood Holy Grail - hence those two nuts trying to sue Dan Brown for a bit of his revenues..

well to be fair, reading it, it looks like he got a fair chunk of his material from Holy Blood Holy Grail

Yes, it was listed in his bibliography as part of the research.. but - and here's the key thing... Holy Blood Holy Grail wasn't fiction, it was meant to be a hypothesis.. suing Dan Brown for using it to create the conspiracy isn't feasible.. the case was unsupportable and frivolous at best..

I know it wasn't fiction, I've read it

He even mentions the book in The Da vinci Code, now that should sell a fair number of copies for them

sorry.. that came off sounding a bit sharp and I didn't mean it to be..

*giggles* possibly

Meh!

Cal, my friend, there's something that needs to be thought of now, ... reading the book. Certainly there's the controversy, the court suits, any number of things picking and poking at it.

But as a novel, an adventure and a mystery, it was spun. Using history and imagination. Everything else that can now colour your perspective, came after his writing of it. Try to simply see it as a good yarn, with pretty fair research.

Hell, if people picked enough stuff apart in the media before and after, "The Life of Brian" would never have met the screen. And you know it was a treasure in it's own rights ...

Hell the Holy Blood Holy Grail guys probably did it to boost their own sales, anyway I digress, I enjoyed the film and so did Excelsior, who hasn't read the book. I can't wait to see what they do with Angels and Demons if they film it, I was really disappointed with Digital Fortress when I read it

The other books are good but I think the character of Robert Langdon really makes Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons.. I hope to see more of him in the future.

The thing I liked with Digital Fortress and Deception Point is they did the same thing, spin a fictional conspiracy around a substantial amount of truth, much like the other two books. They just used the government instead of the church as the conspirator. I do have to agree with Reef that they're not as good, but whether that is because as a writer Dan Brown got better and more mature, or the charisma of Robert Langdon (or both) I can't be sure.

Nick you are taking me the wrong way


I do think the book is very good, but with all the hype around it I thought it would be telling us some new discovery that we didn't already know.

Sorry the y historian in me has uncloked

You should definatly have a read of Angels and Demons, it's kind of the same idea, Robert Langdon and a female have to go searching for clues around Rome in an attempt to stop a terrorist, I won't say any more but I recommend reading it, I enjoyed it more than the DaVinci Code

Nawww, I was just giving my perspective of a lot of stuff surrounding it. As pleasant diversions, I really did enjoy both books mentioned. Maybe because I have no head for history and such, so it was ALL new'ish to me. I might even rent the movie when ever it comes around ...