Slashdot Mirror
Hitchhiker's Guide Quandary Phase Starts May 3rd
MilenCent writes "Time to grab your towels once again! BBC Radio 4 is set to begin the Quandary Phase (that is, the fourth) of the radio version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on May 3, covering the events of So Long And Thanks For All The Fish. Once again you'll be able to listen to it on the web from Radio 4's site. There's a production diary on BBC Radio 4's website that discusses the Quandary and Quintessential Phases, which will each be four episodes and will deviate further from the books than the Tertiary Phase did (it may not end the same way it did in Mostly Harmless), as well as tie up loose ends from the first two phases. In other news, their illustrated version of the Hitchhiker's text game won a BAFTA! They also have an interview with the game's co-creator, Steve Meretzky, who also created Planetfall."
Steve Meretzky was cool enough to reply to a letter I sent him when I was in high school in the 80's. I loved his Infocom games. He is a hoopy frood.
From The New Zork Times, Spring 1984:
4. Why don't your games have graphics?
We have nothing against graphics per se. However, given the quality of graphics currently available on home computers, we would rather use that disk space for additional puzzles and richer descriptions. After all, as our famous "brain ad" says, the world's best graphics generator is your own imagination.
It's a dupe! http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=146789&c id=12296354
WhyTF would you dupe that?
I know I can listen to them legally live (Being a UK licence payer with t'internet and Digital radio), but I have a nasty habit of missing these things. Anyone know of a site that torrents all these?
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
I liked the Tertiary Phase, but it was pretty much identical to Life, the Universe, and Everything and didn't really provide much new entertainment. I especially think that changing the ending to Mostly Harmless is a good idea. I was never comfortable with that (no spoilers here). And tying up loose ends are good as well....what did ever happen to Lintilla?
I prefer the situation in the States, in which I can choose to pay or not for programming depending on whether I want to watch it or not. Sometimes the payment is direct (e.g., HBO) and sometimes it's indirect (commercial advertising), but the key to me is choice.
I don't like these all-or-nothing deals that charge me a flat rate when I want only a tiny fraction of what is offered. I mean, $300 is a year of NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTV, a much greater volume (let alone percentage) of the programming of which I will enjoy than the BBC's offerings.
[ home ]
I like Adams, but I like Lem more. I guess it maybe because I read Lem earlier - it clicked better.
If you like THGTTG you should read Stanislaw Lem's
The Star Diaries - with the main character Ion Tihiy (Ion Quiet,) you will not regret it.
You can't handle the truth.
The real blasphamy is adding in the ability to save the game. Part of the design philosphy behind Hitchhikers was to make it complete bastard of a game. Thus something you forgot to do (eg feed dog) screws you right up later in the game, with no chance of recover other than to start from scratch.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
In the 5th grade we had a class project to write a letter to our "hero," and see what the response was. Most people write to Michael J. Fox or Joe Montana and they mostly got form responses or a poster and such. I wrote to Steve Meretzky, and I was the first to get a response in my class, like a week later. Not only that, be he had handwritten the whole letter - I had only typed mine.
Anyway, when I met him at GDC in 1999 or so, he didn't remember my letter. Bastard. I wish he was doing something more interesting these days than http://worldwinner.com/
-If
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
"Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" is an unsung treasure. I think part of the problem with Adam's later work is that he was always full of ideas, and he started to try to shoehorn those ideas into Hitchhiker's books so they'd sell.
Given the freedom to create whatever he liked without that legacy, Holistic Detective Agency became a truly amazing book which has less kooky humor and far more dry conceptual wit. It's brilliant.
The sequel, "The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul" makes the mistake of letting Dirk be the main character and the storyline is a little too epic for Adams to handle, but it's decent. Certainly far better than Mostly Harmless.
Main point: Holistic Detective Agency isn't just Extremely Clever like the first three Hitchhiker's books. It's a fine novel that establishes Adams' ability as a pure writer. It makes me wish he'd tried more that wasn't Hitchhiker's before he got old and worried about endangered parrots.
No, no, no. Listen to the first two radio series. Then read all the books. THEN listen to the new radio series.
Disregarding my personal dislike of the new radio serious, radio-then-books seems like a much better order to do things in to me. Radio will leave gaps which your imagination can fill as well as providing a much more condensed, rich experience. The books will fill those gaps. The other way around is less entertaining. Also, this is the way they were originally presented.
qntm.org
As a non-Brit (Aussie) I have to say I've always had a high opinion of the BBC, which just seems to get better. OK influenced a bit by recent events.
Last night I watched the second installment of the BBC series "Grumpy Old Men" gotta be the funniest documentary I have ever seen. Brilliant idea, well executed. And inspired by these "grumpy old men" of my gen I have decided to be a boring and obnoxious old fart and have my own rant!
OK. Last Sunday here the ABC (Oz's weak but welcome clone of the BBC) screened the BBC production of Supervolcano ... which I have to say is the best disaster movie I have seen ... an eerie doco that looks more like a blockbuster with nice interviews interlaced into the story that reminds me of "The Third World War" some years back. In some ways the interviews are the most disturbing parts. Well acted too.
I remember hearing the original HHGTTG series that was broadcast on double-J locally. The ABC mainstream stations wouldn't touch it, so they gave it to the rock station. Somehow appropriate. Nice to listen again online.mmmmmm
Hmmph. Ranted out. BTW, agree about Utlraviolet, nice idea ... was too busy at the time to follow it but interesting ... a war between intelligence agencies and vampires treating them as spies.
Time to go back to sleep ..............
Bitter and proud of it.