HGG Trilogy (?)

[quietstorm]

All right, who all has read the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy trilogy(?)? The "(?)" is there because there was a fourth book (which in my opinion was terrible).

The books were written by a guy who used to write for Monty Python (proving the humor:D). Although the name escapes me now. Whatever.

[transmothra]

Douglas Adams. He died just a few months ago. Terrible tragedy. Rumour has it that he had only just finished a script for a major studio (i forget which) and they were finally, yes, FINALLY going to make a feature film of it. He also routinely stayed over at a game development studio(once again, it eludes mine memory), where they were getting along nicely with a game based loosely on the books & movie.

i've read all five books, plus Young Zaphod Plays it Safe (or whatever the hell that short story was called), and found the last two increasingly less appealing, however, they had their moments. i've also got the BBC miniseries on VHS, and somewhere around here i have most of the original radio play on crappy audiocassette (dubbed off local public radio), which features a few of the TV miniseries cast; also Marvin plays Pink Floyd whilst on Magrathea :)

[transmothra]

p.s. the books are (in order):

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Life, The Universe, and Everything
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Mostly Harmless

plus (unrelated)
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
and
The Long, Dark, Tea-Time of the Soul

He also wrote a couple of books with another author whose name escapes me, titled,
The Meaning of Liff, and, (i believe)
The Other Meaning of Liff

i've got them all -of course- except for the second {i}Liff[/i] book. Those two, incidentally, were parody lexicons. Inside you'll find rather odd (but real!) lists of names of (mostly English) towns, with hilariously facetious definitions of each (such as Throckmorton, which is, alternately, the sound Elton John's drummer makes which sounds eerily like slapping a tin pail with a sausage; also the malign ghost that inhabits old toasters and causes the toast to eject in a most forceful and chaotic manner... well, something very like that, anyway).

Though uneven (except for the first 3 HHGG tomes, which as you know are excellent indeed), i do recommend them all, though i cannot personally vouch for the 2nd Liff book (but -what the hell?- will anyway)

[transmothra]

Oh, Quiet... You might be interested in this! When i was just a little younger than you (i'm not so old yet, dag nabbit!!), and Apple IIc's were the only REAL desktops out there, we played this until our eyeballs bled. It's not graphical, only text; but entertaining at any rate (if extremely frustrating!!!)

http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/infocomjava.html

Have fun!

[PCheese]

The Deeper Meaning Of Liff is superb. It's virtually the same as The Meaning Of Liff except with a few new descriptions and lots of useless (and I mean really useless - on purpose) maps indicating where the towns are. Douglas Adams also did the game - Starship Titanic - which was fun if not very good.

My personal favourite Liffs are :

Throcking : The frustrated and repetative manner used to manipulate a lever at the side of a pop up toaster in the vague hope that you can in some way indicate to the thing that you want the bread to stay down and actually toast.

Duddo : The most deformed potato in any given collection.

Ipswich : The sound at the other end of a telephone line which tells you that the operator is trying very hard to connect you but will inevitably fail.

[quietstorm]

My dad had me convinced that I had a brother who lived under the house, who went by the name of Throckmorten!!! I was only about five at the time, though.

[transmothra]

Originally posted by PCheese
My personal favourite Liffs are :

my faves are

Milwaukee (something about whistling in the public loo, to let others know that you are in fact occupying one and which), and
Piddletrenthide, (something like the embarrassing stain on the front of a man's trousers which really was caused by the faucets, and not poor aim).

[quietstorm]

My house fell on me:D

[Android]

H2G2 com, which is the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy Earth Edition which was a great site now picked up by the BBC. Pretty hilarious stuff then, but I don"t know about it now. I think it's at"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/

[transmothra]

Yeah, that used to be a great site. i wish somebody would do a galactic edition, though. i've heard there's a couple out there, but we really need something like H2G2.