Review of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Complete Radio Series by Douglas Adams

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Complete Radio Series by Douglas Adams is a radio play series that follows the adventures of Arthur Dent, who manages to escape the Earth after it is destroyed, with his friend Ford Prefect. There's not much of a central plot to this series, but a lot of subplots as Arthur and the people he meets experience one improbable event after another. This series is hilarious, zany, and nonsensical, and I never get tired of listening to it, so I highly recommend it. I would say that I enjoyed the radio plays even more than the books. While the books are very funny, there is just some humor that is better expressed through an actor's voice and with music and/or sound effects. I would strongly suggest that any fans of the books should give the radio plays a chance. I would even recommend listening to them multiple times, because even though this is at least my third or fourth time around, I'm still picking up on things that I don't remember hearing before.

Review of Whom God Would Destroy by Commander Pants

Whom God Would Destroy by Commander Pants is a satirical novel that makes fun of both religion and the mental health industry. In this story a mental health caseworker named Oliver meets Jeremy, the owner of a new age shop, through one of his clients. Oliver quickly becomes enamored with the extremely charismatic shop owner, and begins to rethink his life while Jeremy does everything in his power to recruit Oliver as his first follower. In addition to Jeremy trying to bring about a new religious movement, this novel also follows the stories of multiple mental health patients who aren't quite as ill as they appear. I thought this book was hilarious and I highly recommend it. Please don't read it though if you think you will be easily offended by the subject matter, which includes explicit sex as well as the religious and mental health satire.

Review of Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett

In Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork receives a letter from the Agatean Empire demanding that a great wizard be sent to them. He relays this message to the Arch-Chancellor of Unseen University. After conferring with the wizard staff of Unseen University, they come to the conclusion that none of them want to undertake the journey, so they decide that they should send the inept wizard Rincewind. They summon Rincewind through magical means, and then subsequently transport him to the Agatean Empire. Once there, Rincewind finds himself being forced to participate in a revolution quite against his will that it turns out was inadvertently started by an old friend of his. Rincewind wants no part in the revolution and seeks only to escape, but Fate has other plans for him.

This was a really fun and hilarious book. I really love the characters Rincewind and Twoflower, and I was delighted that the Luggage made a reappearance in this book. I highly recommend it to fans of Terry Pratchett and the Discworld series, or anyone that enjoys British humor. While it's probably not necessary to read all of the Discworld books that come before Interesting Times prior to reading it, I would recommend at least reading The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic first, and perhaps Sourcery and Eric as well.

Review of The Complete Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and Kent David Kelly

The Complete Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and Kent David Kelly contains much more than the original stories of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. This edition also contains two additional versions of Alice in Wonderland, which are Alice's Adventures Under Ground, which was the original first draft of Alice in Wonderland, and The Nursery Alice, which was a version written for young children. Also contained within this text is a missing chapter from Through the Looking Glass, called The Wasp in the Wig, and a long poem somewhat related to The Jabberwocky, called The Hunting of the Snark.

This book contains lots of wonderful commentary and annotations that tell of the background behind how these stories were created, as well as explain references that have been lost in obscurity in the modern age. While some of the commentary I found dull and tedious, a lot of it was really quite interesting. I think my favorite bit of commentary was regarding the number 42. This number will make any fan of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy grin, and as such I could not help grinning every time it came up in these stories. One bit of commentary after The Hunting of the Snark said that Lewis Carroll was actually obsessed with the number 42, and that the reason Douglas Adams gave that number such high significance in his book was because he was doing it as a tribute to Lewis Carroll. I am unsure how much truth there is to this statement, but it certainly is a lovely thought, and it put a smile on my face.

Depending on how big of a fan of these stories you are, there may be some parts that you'd want to skip. Alice's Adventures Under Ground may or may not be worth reading depending on your point of view. As I previously stated, this was the original first draft of Alice in Wonderland, and as such it contains much of the same material as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but has quite a few scenes missing. It might be interesting to some to read it though, just to see the differences in certain story details in the original draft, and there are different illustrations as well. I wouldn't really recommend reading The Nursery Alice at all. Even taking into account that it was meant for little children, it seemed like a poorly written version and I didn't really enjoy it at all. The Wasp in the Wig was an ok chapter, but I can see why it was originally cut out. It's still somewhat interesting, and it won't take up too much of your time if you decide to read it. I highly recommend reading The Hunting of the Snark, especially if you enjoyed The Jabberwocky poem. Alice does not appear in this poem story at all, but it does take place in the same setting as the other stories, and many references are made to things from The Jabberwoky. It was a very humorous poem, and I really enjoyed it. Overall I'd highly recommend this edition to anyone who is a big fan of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, especially if you'd like to learn more about the background of these stories and of the author.

Review of Soul Music by Terry Pratchett

Soul Music by Terry Pratchett is the story of a young musician named Imp who journeys from his small mountain town to the big city of Ankh-Morpork hoping to make it big. He meets up with a couple other musicians and they form a band but they have little success. When Imp's harp is accidentally destroyed, his band mates purchase a strange looking guitar for him from a mysterious music shop. Imp seems to have no trouble learning to play this new instrument and it seems to cast a spell upon him, his band mates, and everyone who hears his music and he becomes an instant celebrity. Unfortunately there are those that are not a fan of this new music and will go to great lengths to put a stop to it.

This book was pretty funny, and as always I loved Pratchett's use of humorous imagery and phrasing as well as the hilarious footnotes. I also loved all of the music related puns throughout the book. I'd definitely recommend this book to fans of Terry Pratchett and the Discworld series.

Review of The Unadulterated Cat by Terry Pratchett

The Unadulterated Cat by Terry Pratchett is an amusing commentary on the behavior of cats and how the author feels that some cats are more real than others and gives a comprehensive guide on how to tell a real cat from an unreal one along with some hypothetical musings. This was a fun quick read and I especially enjoyed all of the references to Schrodinger's cat. I also thought it was hilarious that some of the "real" cats that the author seemed to be describing seemed very much like the cat Greebo from his Discworld series. This is a must read for cat lovers and you might even enjoy it even if you're not a cat person like me, but are still exposed to cats enough to be familiar with their behavior.

Review of Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett

Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett is the second Discworld novel featuring the Night Watch of Ankh-Morpork. There is a string of mysterious murders and the victims were killed by a strange new weapon. It's up to the Night Watch to investigate these murders and figure out how they were killed and by whom, all while the captain of the Night Watch is getting married and retiring and new recruits are being trained. This was quite a humorous murder mystery novel and I think I liked it somewhat better than the first Night Watch book, Guards! Guards!. This book takes place after Guards! Guards! and while it's not strictly necessary to read that book first, it does provide background on the characters.

Review of Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett

In Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett the witches of Lancre return from their travels to find that a lot has been going on in their absence. Magrat finds that her boyfriend, the king, has been arranging their wedding before even proposing to her. There's also a new group of young witches who are experimenting with magic without really knowing what they are doing. With Magrat busy with her wedding plans and trying to learn how to be a queen, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg must put a stop to this new young coven and undo the damage they've done.

This book is a hilarious parody that is a mix of The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night's Dream. It made me laugh a lot and I'd highly recommend it. Lords and Ladies takes place after Witches Abroad and while I would recommend reading that book first to understand some of the references, it's not entirely necessary. It might also help to be at least somewhat familiar with the Shakespearian plays mentioned and have some basic knowledge of quantum theories, but again it's not entirely necessary to enjoy this book.

Review of Backwards by Rob Grant

Backwards by Rob Grant is the forth book based on the British science fiction comedy show Red Dwarf. The crew of Red Dwarf gets stranded in an alternate dimension on an alternate version of Earth where time runs in the opposite direction. Many years pass before they are able to escape this dimension and when they finally do, Red Dwarf isn't where they left it. With the limited supplies aboard their transport vessel, they must search for Red Dwarf in order to survive. This book was a fun quick read and left me wanting more. Unfortunately as of right now there are no more Red Dwarf books.

This book is an alternate sequel to Better Than Life so it picks up where that book left off and takes place parallel to Last Human. You'll definitely want to read Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers and Better Than Life before reading this book, but it doesn't matter if you read it before or after reading Last Human. I think this book resembles the events of the show more closely than Last Human does. It was also the funnier of the two books so I enjoyed it more. I'd say that Last Human is still worth reading though even if it wasn't quite as good as this book. To anyone looking to both watch the show and read the books, I recommend watching the entire show before starting on the books because the differences between the two will be less confusing that way.

Review of Last Human by Doug Naylor

Last Human by Doug Naylor is the third book based on the British science fiction comedy show Red Dwarf. The crew of Red Dwarf accidentally end up in an alternate dimension and they find an alternate copy of their transport ship Starbug with all the crew dead inside except for Lister. They set out on a quest to find what's become of the alternate Lister, but when they find him, he turns out to be a lot more different from Lister than they had imagined. I would say that overall this book wasn't quite as funny as the first two, but it still had parts that really made me laugh and it was full of exciting adventure, so was a pretty good read overall. I think it's definitely worth reading if you enjoyed the first two books.

This book picks up right where Better Than Life left off, so you should definitely read it and Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers before reading this book. There are bits and pieces from the show in this book, but the storyline itself is very different. It's not necessarily a bad thing though. It's pretty cool to read storylines that were never in the show. I'd just recommend not starting this book(or the others before it) until you finish watching the show to avoid confusion.

Review of Better Than Life by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor

Better Than Life by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor is the second book based on the British science fiction comedy show Red Dwarf. The crew of Red Dwarf's journey to return to Earth gets interrupted when they find themselves trapped inside of an addictive virtual reality game and they must find a way to escape before their real world bodies die. This proves to be no easy task though since they can't leave unless they want to, and even after reaching that state they face many additional obstacles preventing their escape. This book was pretty funny and I enjoyed reading it just as much as the first book. Like with the ending of the first book, it didn't exactly end on a cliffhanger, but it did make me want to read the third book right away.

This book picks up right where the first one left off, so you really do need to read Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers before reading this book. There are differences between the show and the books, so if you plan on watching the show as well, I'd recommend watching all of the seasons before starting on the books as going back and forth can get confusing.

Review of Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor

Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor is a novel based on the British sci-fi comedy show Red Dwarf. Dave Lister, a lowly technician on the mining spaceship Red Dwarf, gets put into stasis as a punishment for smuggling a cat on board. When he emerges from stasis he finds that a nuclear accident wiped out the rest of the crew and it is now three million years in the future. The only other survivors are a feline-humanoid life form that evolved from his cat, and his bunk mate who died but was revived as a hologram. Tensions are high as they do their best to survive and navigate the various obstacles they must face as they try to make their way back to earth.

This was a quick but fun read. The ending wasn't exactly a cliffhanger, but it did make me want to read the next book right away. I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or anyone that just enjoys British humor. Though I did enjoy the book a lot, I thought the show was funnier. I think this is mostly due to the fact that sometimes humor translates better in an audio-visual format than the written word and for this reason I also found The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio plays to be funnier than the books. I don't think it's necessary to watch the show before you read the books, but it's more fun that way because it's easier to imagine the character's voices and what they look like. The book does give some background story to the show, but it's different in a lot of ways. Some events happen in a different order than they do in the show and many plot details are different. If you do decide to watch the show before reading the book, I'd recommend watching the entire series before starting the book. I started reading the book after I'd only watched most of the second season and then started going back and forth between the show and the book. I started to find this rather confusing due to the differences between the show and the book and it became harder to keep the storylines of each one straight in my mind. I'm hooked now though and I definitely couldn't wait to finish watching the entire series before starting the next book.

Review of Meet the Austins by Madeleine L'Engle

Meet the Austins by Madeleine L'Engle is an episodic type book about events in the lives of the Austin family. The book starts off with them being informed of the death of a close family friend and then shortly afterward they take in a little girl who was orphaned due to the same accident that killed their friend. The child turns out to be a difficult spoiled brat and it takes the family a long time to adjust to her living with them. Each chapter tells of different random events in the lives of this family until the future of the orphan can be decided. For the most part I found this book to be rather dull and I was glad that it was a fairly short read so it didn't take me too long to get through it.  I probably would have rated this book as two stars, but there were some parts of the book that were really quite funny and made me laugh, so I gave it an extra star for that. I doubt I'll be reading it again though. I still plan to read the other books in this series because there are some character's that overlap with the author's Time Quintet series which I love, and I recall reading other books in this series as a child and enjoying them much more than I did this book. I probably wouldn't recommend this book unless you are a big fan of the author or a completionist as far as series go.

I also have some additional thoughts on this book. I found a lot of similarities between the family in this book and the family in the author's other book, A Wrinkle in Time. Both families have four children and multiple pets and they both live in similar types of houses. They both live in small towns and both live in the same part of the country. The main character in both books is the eldest daughter and both of them are rather plain looking and insecure about their appearance. I also noticed at least three character names that were used in both books, though there were some variations in two of the names. I'm not saying that all of this is a bad thing necessarily, but it did give me the impression that the author had some creative difficulties. I can overlook most of the similarities, but I found the name thing a bit annoying and feel it shouldn't have been too difficult for the author to come up with more original character names.

Review of Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

Small Gods by Terry Pratchett is the story of a dimwitted novice priest of the god Om, named Brutha, with an eidetic memory who becomes a prophet rather against his will. Unfortunately when Brutha meets his god, Om happens to be trapped in the form of a tortoise and is almost powerless. It's up to Brutha to help Om figure out why this happened and to help restore his god to his former glory. In the process Brutha learns the truth about his religion and that much of what he had been taught was false.

This is a very funny religious satire. It made me grin a lot and at times even laugh aloud. I'd definitely recommend this book to Discworld fans as well as anyone who enjoys British humor, provided you aren't sensitive about the subject matter.

Review of Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

In Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett an old fairy godmother dies and passes on her wand to the young witch Magrat. She travels, with the other two witches in her coven, to a far off city to complete the work her predecessor started. The trio encounter lots of strange events on the journey and things get even stranger once they reach the city. Someone's been making stories out of people's lives and they must be stopped before it's too late. This story is basically a retelling of Cinderella done Discworld style with a bunch of other fairy tales thrown in for good measure. There's lots of laughs on this adventure, and as always the footnotes are very amusing. I'd definitely recommend this book to fans of Discworld, British humor, and fairy tales.

Review of Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh is a collection of hilarious short stories and essays about the author's life that range from her crazy antics as a child to her current outlook on life as an adult. I was a fan of the author's blog and was excited when I found out she had published a book as well. There is all new hilarious content in the book not available on the blog which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I was a bit disappointed that some of the stories from the blog did not make it into the book. Here's hoping the author puts out a second volume.

This book made me laugh so much and I'd highly recommend it. To get an idea of what is in the book, visit the author's blog at http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/. Don't let yourself be scared off by the juvenile illustrations. I assure you that it's all a part of the humor. If you enjoy the blog then you should definitely read the book.

Review of The Princess Bride by William Goldman

The Princess Bride by William Goldman is a satirical romantic fairy tale. A young girl named Buttercup falls in love with the farm hand Westly. After she declares her love to him, Westly leaves to seek his fortune promising to send for her. When Buttercup receives news that Westly's ship was attacked by a pirate that is known to leave no survivors she is inconsolable. When the local prince learns of Buttercup's beauty he orders her to marry him or face death and seems not the least bit concerned that Buttercup will never love him. Shortly after the engagement Buttercup is kidnapped as part of a conspiracy to start a war.

I found the story a bit hard to get into at first but it picks up after the first couple of chapters. I would say that I didn't find the book to be quite as funny as the movie, but I think that's just because the actors really bring out the humor with the inflections of their voices and the way they say the lines. I found it really enjoyable though to read the background stories of some of the characters that they really don't go into in the movie. One thing about the book that's a little annoying is that the author as a narrator often interrupts the story and goes off on tangents. Some of it is amusing and often starts out as sort of relating to what is going on in the book, but tends to end up far off course before you return to the actual story. Overall I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone who has seen the movie or anyone who enjoys humorous fairy tale like stories with plenty of action, adventure, and romance.

One final thing I want to mention is that there is no unabridged version of this book. No matter how much the author tells you that he abridged a story originally written by S. Morgenstern, don't believe him. This is merely a humorous plot device and there is no such person as S. Morgenstern(though the author has used it as a pseudonym in other works). Many details of the author's life in the introduction to this book are also completely fabricated.

Review of Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

In Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett the Death of Discworld finds himself out of a job when the powers that be fire him for developing a personality. Death is now mortal and must live out the rest of his numbered days among humans until the new Death arrives to take him away. With the Disc temporarily without a Death things can't die properly and a huge amount of excess life force accumulates causing some very strange things to happen. This is a very hilarious book. I enjoyed it immensely and highly recommend it.

Review of Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett

Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett is a humorous tale about what happens when alchemists learn to make film and subsequently movies or "moving pictures". Then suddenly lots of people feel compelled to travel to the small town of Holy Wood and become a part of the moving pictures business. I'm sure it goes without saying what Holy Wood is a satire of. A sort of strange magic is involved with the moving pictures though that not only compels people to get into the business, but that also seems to make the actors go into trances while making the films and be able to do things that they have no experience with. However this magical force is not benevolent and it feeds off the moving pictures growing stronger and more powerful with disastrous results. I would not count this book among my favorite Discworld novels, but it's definitely good for a laugh in places and I'd recommend it to fans of the series.