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June 18, 2006
10 things I like about the guide
This week's most random things turned out to be, somehow quite coincidentally in many ways, connected to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (To read the guide in the book, click here, then click on the word "Don't Panic"). Zain Putra arrived at Indy airport with a towel on his head lol..
Book 1: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Book 2: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Book 3: Life, the Universe, and Everything
Book 4: So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
Book 5: Mostly Harmless
The book has the most random plot I have ever read in my whole entire life until now, even exceeding the randomness of the Tintin adventures and towering the unpredictability of an empress' capricious mood. And as I finished the last book this afternoon the randomness seemed to awaken something called satisfaction in my life .
Kudos to Adam Douglas! Random plot aside, you have exemplified yourself, in my humble opinion, as the most creative science fiction writer ever by throwing in mind-boggling technology, logic-defying theories, side-splitting British humours, and the WSOGMM (read 'Mostly Harmless').
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10 things I like about your 'trilogy' (defined more accurately as pentalogy)
10. Arthur learned how to fly by falling and miss hitting the ground
Theory: falling is the easy part, miss hitting the ground is the hard one. At the split second during a fall, if your mind is suddenly diverted to an unsuspecting surprise which turned you into a state of consternation and occupied you enough to forget that you are going to hit the ground, you will find that gravity will most politely ignore you.
9. Agrajag erected a temple to properly maliciously channel his paroxysms of hatred towards Arthur.
Reason: apparently Arthur is invariably involved in killing Agrajag in his various reincarnations.
8. Milliways
the restaurant at the end of the universe, where time travelers can sit comfortably in posh dining hall and witness the end of the universe while diving into food that serves itself, a concept which almost turns me into vegetarian (read: talking cows comes to you and recommends parts of its body to be cooked into steaks for you). The cool part is, if you save a penny in a bank a billion years ago, you would be rich enough to enjoy everything ranging from a pan galactic gargle blaster to a nice hot steak.
7. Vogon's poem
Deemed the third worse poem in the universe, it is used by the vogons as a tool of torture. Read the worst poem in the Universe.
6. 'The most gratuitious use of the word 'Belgium' in serious sceenplays' Award
The award, which eventually turned out to be the silver bail sought after by Krikkit robots, is an accolade for profanity, not for the beautiful country in Earth.
5. Slartibartfast
His mere name cracks up my sides. One of the Magratheans (planet manufacturers) who specializes in designing fjords in Norway and won an award for it. Clever old guy.
4. Mice and dolphins
The first and second most intelligent lifeform on Earth (yes, we ranked third). The mice are hyperintelligent pan-dimentional beings who built the Earth and humans in it to form a biological matrix of supercomputers to calculate the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer. The dolphins are just trying their very best to warn humans about the mice's plans, and sang 'so long and thanks for all the fish' when they failed.
3. Heart of Gold and the Improbability Drive
I like the doors, which produce sighs of satisfaction whenever they are opened or closed. The ship is powered by the Improbability Drive, the weirdest way to propel spacecrafts aside from the bistromathics as well as bad news (note: bad news literally travel faster than the speed of light, but they leave the spaceship unwelcomed). The drive has been known to cause the death of an unsuspecting sperm whale and the nonchalant end of a bowl of petunias.
2. Marvin aka the paranoid android and his brain the size of a planet.
Life? Don't talk to him about life. Otherwise a most loyal andriod who gets everyone out of tight situations.
1. "The Ultimate Answer to life, the Universe and everything is... 42," said Deep Thought.
The Ultimate Question? What do you get if you multiply six by nine? Obviously that's logically wrong (or you can argue it's logically correct if you do the math in base 13), but that saves the universe from turning into a more bizarre place than what we know now.
Posted by peixin at June 18, 2006 10:27 AM