Time Travel

[lockgar]

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the history of catering. It has been built on the fragmented remains of… it will be built on the fragmented… that is to say it will have been built by this time, and indeed has been—

One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can't cope with. There is no problem with changing the course of history—the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.

The major problem is simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveler's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you, for instance, how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be descibed differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is futher complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations while you are actually traveling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own mother or father.

Most readers get as far as the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up; and in fact in later aditions of the book all pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.

[Ventara]

*Swoooosh*

Woah! Something just flew over my head!

[Darth-Paper-Boy]

I prefer the passage about the rain god myself.

[Ventara]

Oh, is this from the sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? I only read that one, and then I spoiled myself by reading the ending to the last novel. I shouldn't have done that, cause it totally ruined whatever motivation I had to read it.

Anyways, it still confuses me.

[Dust]

I always wanted to read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I never really got around to it.

[Ubiquitor]

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a great literary series. Incidentally, while both of my brothers have read it, I have not.

[WoottWinds]

I audiobooked Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and just could not get into it as much as I had wanted too... Too much nonsensical strangeness for car rides to school at 5 AM in the morning.

[lockgar]

Get the BBC radio broadcast version. They hire a full cast of actors, and put in a good effort of sound effects .

[WoottWinds]

Get the BBC radio broadcast version. They hire a full cast of actors, and put in a good effort of sound effects .

Sounds interesting, and I've been meaning to give it another shot. It's not a very long read/listen so if it turns out it's just really not my cup of tea, then I won't have really wasted much audiobook listening time. I think the one I heard was only like 6 hours long total, so it will probably only take me about a week or so to get through it. I'll seek it out!

[GeeLW]

Heh... I remember listening to the BBC version waaaaaaaay back when it was broadcast here in the US on NPR (i think it was 1979 or 1980) and that got me interested in Adams' work (as well as that sort of humor in science fiction). The six-episode 1981 TV series was a hoot as well. It's definitely not a series for short attention span folks or people who don't like cross-referencing stuff (although Adams does a hilarious job of "footnoting" his own work with excellent descriptions).

Still, the smarter you are in general, the more everything clicks. Even if you're not keen on this type of humor but happen to be open-minded, you'll catch on pretty quickly and enjoy it all the more. NPR also had the Star Wars radio show, which was pretty amazing stuff as well...