board77

Did they come up with a name for the space between your nose and your upper lip?

vison wrote:

Did they come up with a name for the space between your nose and your upper lip?

I think that's called the upper upper lip, or Sub-Nose...

Ok, just finished the 5th book... I didn't have nearly as much of a problem with it as I did the last time. I do get the impression that it was written merely to get people to stop asking him to write more .

I understand the reverse time engineering thing a lot better this time... so the book made more sense... before it just seemed a jumbled mess...

I have a painful and embarassing confession to make -- I have just NOW (i.e., this last weekend) finally read the Hitchhiker's Guide (and will soon be reading the rest -- got the Ultimate edition) and found it wildly enjoyable (I've put it at the top of my 12 year old son's must read list). I guess it took the threat of a movie to spoil my reading to finally get me to read it. I am refusing to read any posts (other than The_Fox's original post) in this thread or to see the movie until I finish the whole series.

TORN wrote:

I am refusing to read any posts (other than The_Fox's original post) in this thread [. . .] until I finish the whole series.

hehheh

TORN is a big poopyhead.

<giggle>

Oooh Prim, you're bad.

And TORN is a stinky.

Maiden is right, the ending made no sense.

Quote:

The Guide then makes it possible for the Grebulons to blow up Earth. The Grebulons blow up Earth, possibilies collapse, the end.

But the Grebulons aren't the ones who blow up the earth, it's the Vogons. And why would the Vogons need the Grebulon's help in blowing it up anyways?


I'd read Hitchhiker's ages ago but only finished reading the rest of the books last week. I'll give my impressions of it later.

no, the Vogons couldn't destroy the Earth because it kept popping up in alternate universes... this was mostly because of Arthur, Ford, and Trillian, and their use of the guide...

So the Vogons bought up the Guide, made it into a reverse temporal engineering thingamabob, so it could accomplish a goal of eliminating all of the alternate versions of earth, as well as Arthur, Ford, and Trillian and coincidentally the guide itself.

The guide saw a way to do this, which involved all kinds of stuff that seemed coincidental, but was necessary to get all of them all to the right spot, and have the Grebulons destroy the earth in all it's versions...

it makes perfect sense... if you can think outside of Arthur's frame of reference

Hmmm. That almost makes sense. But how were the Grebulons able to "destroy the earth in all it's versions" when the Vogons couldn't? And why did the Grebulons decide to destroy it in the first place?

yovargas wrote:

And why did the Grebulons decide to destroy it in the first place?

I think it has to do with their horoscope obsession. But I'm probably the wrong person to be answering.

Glad I'm not the only one completely and totally confused by the ending.

Presumably the events the Guide was able to set up that lead to the Grebulons destroying earth (so earth wouldn't be rising in capricorn or something like that), were consistent across the remaining earths in the "General Mish Mash." That's why it set up THOSE events... it took care of everything...

Hey, I never thought of this part -- how were the Grebulons able to blow it up in all dimensions. By the way, the reason Earth was in multiple dimensions was because it was in Plural ZZ Alpha.

Reading the posts back, I realised that the only one I haven't read is "the meaning of Liff"... should get that,

I picked up his "Salmon of doubt" too.... anyone read that?
It has beginnings of new Dirk Gently book and it makes me reallllly wonder how that one would have ended....

Oh, and I read in an interview with Douglas Adams that the reason "Mostly Harmless" is so dark, is because that is how he was feeling at that point of time in his life.

He was in deep depression when he wrote Mostly Harmless...at leaqst, according to his biography.

I have (and love) Salmon of Doubt...it's about the closest you can get to DNA as a person.

Still not reading any posts here because I'm still working my way through the Ultimate Hitchhiker book, but BOY!!! was "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" an extraordinary let-down. I found the early parts engaging enough, but what happened there with the second half? It's like Douglas Adams just stopped caring at all -- a real crash landing for me. I really can't recall being so disappointed by a book before. Here's to hoping for a rebound on the rest of these stories . . .

Hey Mel!! Yes, you would own Salmon of Doubt.

Since I read all his books together in that huge set of four, I am really quite unable to differentiate between the first four ones. What part of "So Long...." let you down, TORN?

The book was working fine for me up through when Arthur tries to track down his cave and it leads him to Fenny's (don't have the book here -- I think that was her name) apartment, and for the next chapter or so after that -- after that, I think DA just got bored and wanted to finish the book off -- their relationship was completely uninteresting once it was consumated, and the guy in California was completely uninteresting, and I can't even recall what else happened in that part of the book.

However, Mostly Harmless was much better -- probably not as good as the first 3 books, but certainly a good rebound from So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.

My son is now eagerly reading the books.

Ah... okay. I am racking my brain, and can't remember the rest of So Long... too. Hey hang on, it is the one in which that HUGE robot comes to UK. Hee-hee, that was funny.

Actually nothing beats the first three!

no, it was mostly just Arthur and Fenchurch getting it on... DA warns people to skip that section if they aren't going to like it. So you have only yourself to blame for going ahead and reading it.

Personally, I liked it.

I don't mind it, but SLATFATF is probably my least favourite of the trilogy (quintilogy?). It just. . . doesn't quite fit. However, for some reason, I never skip to Marvin.

halplm wrote:

DA warns people to skip that section if they aren't going to like it. So you have only yourself to blame for going ahead and reading it.

Two problems for me: (1) I almost religiously refuse to read forwards, prefaces, essays about the book I'm going to read, etc etc etc before reading the book -- I don't want pre-read explications or warnings -- if they are such an important part of the book, they should be in the book proper (IMHO -- I don't think I have any basis for thinking anyone else should agree with me, though) -- if I liked the book or it at least struck some kind of a chord, then I may go back and read the ancillary material bound in with the story itself, & (2) I don't like skipping parts of books -- for example, I've never skipped any part of LOTR in my dozen or so readings of the book -- if a book as a whole can't survive its weakest part, I just don't bother with a re-read (or, I guess, I don't bother to finish it on a first read, although that has been extremely rare for me to stop reading a book once I've gotten an appreciable distance into it, even if I've grown to hate it -- I know I have dropped books like in media res, but I can't think of any titles at the moment)