>...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Fforde is endlessly inventive: his heroine's utter unconcern about the strangeness of the world she inhabits keeps the reader perpetually double-taking as minor certainties of history, literature and cuisine go soggy in the corner of our eye. The audacity of the premise and its working out provides sudden leaps of understanding, many of them accompanied by wild fits of the giggles. This is a peculiarly promising first novel. --Roz Kaveney
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Sorry Al but that sounds like a load of baloney to me :-)
>>>>
>>>>But high quality and very tasty baloney.
>>>>
>>>>Hmmm... let's see how the blurb reads for HHGTTG:
>[SNIP]
>>>>
>>>>I guess that's the trouble with short synopses. They all read like baloney. ;)
>>>
>>>Nontheless I was attracted to HHGTTG from its blurb, maybe, though, spurred on by the fact that it was already famous. I'm none too enamoured by Pratchett either - he reminds me physically and vocally me of a nerd I used to know too, and the 1st part of his name, "Prat[t]", is synonymous with nerd in anglo-English - and having read some of his Ringworld stuff, I couldn't get into it.
>>
>>"DiscWorld". Ringworld was Larry Niven.
>
>Sorry, sure. I've read Ringworld a few times and loved it. Only trouble is it was too short with only one theme really (how to get to the exit) and could have been made more of.
>
>>
>>>Adams, I read all the HHGTTG books but I must confess they were getting a bit stale toward the end, and the over-use of expressions like "pan-Galactic mega..." really started to grate on me (why, just cos you're in space, does everything have to be "pan-Galactic mega..."? Our astronauts don't eat "Orbito-Terrran burgers, for instance!)?
>>
>>>Re: Adams. During the Brighton Festival in May, a few years ago, he and Terry Jones were there to promote their "Starship Titanic book/game/video" in an entertaining "evening with"-style stage show. The first thing Adams said on stage was "On the train coming down here [from London] Terry and I were discussing what we should talk about ...". I was like "We've paid over £7 for this and you haven't even got your act together, even on the train to come here!". He then laid out a plan to us whereby he'd talk a bit, Jones would talk a bit, they'd show the Titanic video to promote the game (or summat like that) then they'd lay it open to the audience for questions (some big plan, eh?). It immediately descended into a shambles, didn't stick to the plan, and we were constantly regaled by Jones doing his famous falsetto parrot stuff. I sort of went off both of them that day.
>>>
>>>Have you read it BTW. I think Jones did most of the work, esp. after Adams's death.
>>
>>Sure I've read it. I also read his Dirk Gently books. All good stuff. As to who wrote what before/after his death, I can't say, but I loved the HHGTTG books (the Dirk Gently books too).
>
>One of the things that came out of the above "presentation" was that he'd left most of the writing to Jones, as he was too busy or something.
>
>I can't be sure if I've read a Dirk book {{;-( Funny that!
>
>>
>>Jasper Fforde, though is very different in a similar sort of way. I wait eagerly for each new installment of either his two series. You really do look at literature in a different way after reading his Thursday Next books. Miss Haversham will never be as gloomy to me ever again.
>
>She out of Great Expectations?

That's her. And 'out' of Great Expectations in more ways than one.