Book Description

Richard Mayhew is a plain man with a good heart -- and an ordinary life that is changed forever on a day he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. From that moment forward he is propelled into a world he never dreamed existed -- a dark subculture flourish in abandoned subway stations and sewer tunnels below the city -- a world far stranger and more dangerous than the only one he has ever known...Richard Mayhew is a young businessman with a good heart and a dull job. When he stops one day to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk, his life is forever altered, for he finds himself propelled into an alternate reality that exists in a subterranean labyrinth of sewer canals and abandoned subway stations below the city. He has fallen through the cracks of reality and has landed somewhere different, somewhere that is Neverwhere. ... Read more

Reviews (420)

What a bloody marvelous novel!
I had the pleasant encounter with Neil Gaiman himself at the DreamHaven bookstore in Minneapolis, MN. As well a large number of people turning out to see him in person. Before seeing him in person, I've read his first major novel, "Neverwhere". Wow, it's truly the best modern fairy tale novel for adults since "Alice in Wonderland"! London came really alive to me, the above world never knew about life hidden in the under world. Literally I mean way under the above world. The characters are so fascinated and I love those two crazy killers acting like some english nobles with perverse sense of humors. Neil Gaiman is very inventive and creative with the story and based on his past stories he'd written for the comic book industry, this man is destined for greatness. I've sweared that Neil Gaiman is the modern William Shakespeare! No one have ever write the stories as well and marvelous as Gaiman...not even since James Joyce and William Shakespeare. I told Neil this and he was rather flabbergasted but it's the truth! Read the novel, then read "Stardust", then read every story Neil has ever written and you'll know that we may have a William Shakespeare for the 21st century! Oh, by the way..."mind the gap!"

Gaiman is a Pro at Weaving Worlds You Get Lost In
I read American Gods last year and loved it, eager to read what else the author of the fabulous "Sandman" graphic novels has written, I picked up Neverwhere and read it in a day.

Here, Gaiman takes the real life "London Underground" system of subways and tube stations and adds a twist, a magical world beyond the underground, London Below where pockets of lost time and places are filled with the forgotten people of the world.

London Below is a world of Baronies and Fiefdoms, of angels, beasts and killers. Richard Mayhew, a securities analyst gets drawn into this secret, invisible world when he helps what appears to be an injured homeless woman. Because of his contact with her and some of the people from her world, he slowly disappears from his own reality. It seems that most people aboveground cannot deal with the reality of London Below so they conveniently can't see them or anything they do.

A classic quest follows with an interesting cast of characters. Richard and The Lady Door, together with a reprobate Marquis and a bodyguard head off through danger to find answers. You enter the world of rat speakers, sewer dwellers and secret societies. It's all very interesting and funny as well as giving the reader the occasional scare. Below is a world where nothing is what it seems and danger lurks everywhere and yet, its inhabitants seem to derive pleasure from their lives despite that.

As with Gods, Gaiman weaves his mythical world into the tapestry of the "reality" of every day life and there are times when you aren't sure if what is happening is just a manifestation of Richard's insanity or not. It's a nice tension.

This book will please the fantasy reader as well as those who love a good mystery. It's a worthy read.

Sorry about the confusion
this a good book. it is reaeally good fool. It is like fantasy, but not really. it is good. it is a good book that is good and it is a book, see, it is a good book and i liked this book beacuse it was a book that was a good book that was good.

Lovely dark fantasy
Richard Mayhew, a young London businessman finds himself mixed up in the weird alternate reality of "London Below" when he rescues a strange girl named Door. He joins her and a few other denizens from London Below --- such as the (ah, hell, why not?) irrepressible Marquis de Carabbas and the rather intense Hunter --- in her search for the Angel Islington, whom Door's father told her she could trust right before he and the rest of Door's family were murdered by two henchmen named Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar (who were hilarious, by the way).

Gaiman obviously had a lot of fun with names of tube stops and prominent places in London and with the possibilities for parallels between London Below and London Above. I loved the sense of wonder and the sense of humor in Neverwhere, though both were balanced by the sense of darkness in the story. Quintessential Gaiman. A wonderful and imaginative book.

Great novel from Gaimen.
From author Neil Gaimen (Sandman, Good Omens) come this enchanting novel about a world underneath London where magic and violence reigns. The novel's hero, Richard Mayhew, is a simple man with a simple life until one day he sees a bleeding girl lying in an alley. The choice he makes to help the girl opens a whole new world to him. The very next day, Richard's life, as he knows it, has drastically changed. No one seems to know who he is. All records of his life have disappeared. His only hope is to find the girl (called Door) again and see if she can offer any explanations on why his world has turned upside down. His search for the girl leads him to a whole underground world beneath modern London where nothing is at it seems.

This novel was much better than I anticipated. Full of action and a great storyline, Neverwhere will stretch your imagination to its fullest. Great characters round out this superb story of love, vengeance, magic and escapism. ... Read more

Amazon.com

It's safe to say that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the funniest science fiction novels ever written. Adams spoofs many core science fiction tropes: space travel, aliens, interstellar war--stripping away all sense of wonder and repainting them as commonplace, even silly.

This omnibus edition begins with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which Arthur Dent is introduced to the galaxy at large when he is rescued by an alien friend seconds before Earth's destruction. Then in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur and his new friends travel to the end of time and discover the true reason for Earth's existence.In Life, the Universe, and Everything, the gang goes on a mission to save the entire universe. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish recounts how Arthur finds true love and "God's Final Message to His Creation." Finally, Mostly Harmless is the story of Arthur's continuing search for home, in which he instead encounters his estranged daughter, who is on her own quest.There's also a bonus short story, "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe," more of a vignette than a full story, which wraps up this completist's package of the Don't Panic chronicles.As the series progresses, its wackier elements diminish, but the satire of human life and foibles is ever present. --Brooks Peck ... Read more

Reviews (257)

A comic genius!
Douglas Adams is possibly the funniest author I've read. His "Guide" is a wacky, crazy, hilarious tale of a totally clueless human's (Arthur Dent) travels in the big bad galaxy out there. Arthur, like millions of other humans, is totally ignorant about the Universe. Indeed, until the day the Earth is demolished (to make way for a hyperspace bypass!), he doesnt even know that his close friend Ford Prefect belongs to another planet - and is a researcher for the hugely successful book The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy.

But Ford & Arthur escape from Earth, and set out on a journey of a lifetime, spanning 5 novels so far, where time and space are equally trivial barriers that can be crossed at a leap. Along the way, Arthur finds out a lot he didnt know, and lots more than he ever wanted to know, from hitching rides on passing space ships and teaching their computers to make tea, to the real history of his planet and the knowledge that his is the third most intelligent species on earth(and not, as was widely believed, the second) He also grapples with scientific concepts way beyond his grasp like the Infinite Improbability drive, Somebody Else's Problem field, discontinuities along the probability axis, not to mention the End of the Universe(the universe's most spectacular & profitable catering venture) Douglas Adams serves up one wacky idea after another, a universe wildly beyond our imagination, yet very familiar in its core values of crass commercialization and tasteless marketing hype. The reader is hurled through a series of increasingly improbable events, all held together by equally crazy characters and brilliant, witty(and ofcourse crazy) dialogs.

So if I'm raving so much about the book, why do I give it only 4 stars? Because, like all artists, Adams has his highs & his lows, both of which are present in this collection. I would wholeheartedly recommend the first two novels - Hitchikers guide & Restaurant at the end of the universe. But coming after them, Life, the Universe & Everything is somewhat of a letdown, and So Long & Thanks for all the Fish even more so. Mostly Harmless is better, but still doesnt meet the standards set by the first two. All in all, this book is a collectors item for Adams fans - and I dont regret buying it. But for those just starting out on Adams, I'd recommend they try individual copies of the first two novels.

Don't Panic! A long review means much good things to say...
This collection deserves to be read in one continuous read. It refers to itself backwards and forwards, sideways and down, so it's a real treat (and quite a convenience) to have the whole tangled mess between two covers. However, each of the six sections deserves its own sub-review.

'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' is the name of both the most popular portable comprehensive galactic encyclopedia, and the book that begins Douglas Adams hilarious space saga. It neatly sets up the tale by giving away the answer to the meaning of life! Don't panic, it's not all it's cracked up to be, because they don't have the question! We meet a great cast of eccentric characters, get to fly around on the 'Heart of Gold' (powered by the ludicrously simplistic Improbability Drive), and discover that planet Earth will be destroyed to make way for an interstellar roadway.

'The Restaurant at the End of the Universe' builds on the logic of the first book, and tweaks it enough to keep things really interesting. Milliways (the aforementioned restaurant) is a great comic creation, walking a grossly absurd existential tightrope to become a fascinating setpiece. There's a great moment about how Zaphod Beeblebrox's great-grandfather is named 'Zaphod the fourth' while he's 'Zaphod the first' ("An accident involving a contraceptive and a time machine"). The whole gang narrowly escapes flying into the sun, and are saved by a piece of specious bureaucracy. The whole mess ends with Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent landing on a familiar planet, and discover that evolution ain't all it's cracked up to be.

The strength of the first two books is that when Adams goes off on these incredible leaps in logic and flights of fancy (two of my favourite modes of transportation) they always seem to follow some kind of narrative thrust. In 'Life, the Universe, and Everything', they seem like non-sequiters, or at most just interesting tangents. I enjoyed the concept of the poem that was never written due to a reckless time travel expedition, and the guy who was injected with too much truth serum and now told The Truth. But they seemed more ornamental than consequential to me. Maybe I just didn't understand the plethora of cricket references (although I did get a kick out of them). Furthermore, the installment was hurt by a serious deficiency in Zaphod Beeblebrox.

A grand comeback is made in 'So Long and Thanks for all the Fish'. This manages to be a really touching love story, interlaced with grand questions about the nature of existence and what happened to all the dolphins. Arthur Dent and Fenchurch (don't call her Fenny) slowly but surely realize that the universe has a higher purpose for them, and they have no choice but to fall in love. And the scene describing their first consummation of that love is actually quite original, and very beautiful. That all being said, the story still manages to be a strong link in the overall chain of events, periodically keeping track of Ford Prefect until it becomes necessary for him to swoop in near the end (deux es machinas-style) and save the cosmic day. Adams also manages to include several more comic illogicalities (probably not a word, but whose rules am I following here?), the standout being the description of Wonko the Sane's inside-out house. A great little interlude, that.

'Young Zaphod Plays it Safe' is a confusing little mess, that I hope gains some meaning in hindsight, once the entire book is complete (**I've just finished reading 'Mostly Harmless', and I'm still in the dark over this one. Oh well.)

'Mostly Harmless' is a little less frenetic than its predecessors are, and a little more assured in its narrative structure. Its story is one of those that begins with three different plots, and as time goes on the plots slowly begin to converge into one final conclusion (kind of like an episode of Seinfeld, now that I think about it). Arthur and Ford get into some seriously mixed up situations, but they are perfectly explained through some more of that demented Douglas Adams logic. Ford actually jumps to his death, miraculously escapes, and then jumps again. And he has a perfectly good reason for doing it both times. My one complaint is that the book doesn't give each plot equal attention, so when you haven't read about one of the characters in a while, you tend to forget what they were doing when last you met them. On a positive note, the whole enterprise actually validates the mess that was 'Life, the Universe, and Everything'.

The series can be read in two ways: as comic fluff (albeit high comic fluff), or as a satire on the nature of existence. A third way, and probably the most effective, would be to read it as both. Or neither. Just read it!

One of the Funniest Series Ever!
When you've just finished a book that's as thick & heavy as a dictionary, it is all too tempting to write pages and pages in review of it. However, I will spare you as much as I can.

The basic premise of the novels is that Ford Prefect is a hitchhiker and writer for "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." He hitches rides all around space, writes up his experiences and sends them in to his editors. As the novel opens up, it's roughly 1980 in England, and he's been stuck on Earth for 15 years because Earth (as we know) has not really made contact with other planets and so he can't find a ride out of there (here). In that time, he has made friends with Arthur Dent, one of the absolutely most endearing characters I've ever come across in literature (even more than a Hobbit).

When we first meet Dent, he thinks his greatest battle for the day will be to lie in front of the bulldozers which want to knock down his house. Little does he know that Earth is also about to be knocked over (obliterated really) for a hyper-space by-pass. Prefect, however, catches on and rescues Dent at the very last minute...Whether or not this was a good thing is up to the reader to decide.

While Adams shows his literal genius for comedic timing and absurd humor within the bounds of Earth at the beginning, once he is freed of all constraints his writing style blazes with unique talent. Every page is so filled with parody, dry wit, perfect timing, and mind-boggling fictitious science that it leaves you laughing aloud and reeling at the same time. I realize that his humor is not for everyone...but for anyone who enjoys satire and for anyone who is frustrated with the insanity of life, this book brings the proverbial comic relief.

From what I've read from hard-core Douglas Adams fans (and there seem to be quite a few of those), books #1, 2, and 4 in this series are Adam's purest works. #3 and 5 are a bit heavier in tone. #6 (Young Zaphod Plays It Safe) is simply baffling.

For those who don't like science fiction, I would say that that shouldn't really be a problem here. While Adams does invent some very funny alien races (like the race with 50 arms that was the only one to invent deodorant before the wheel), his focus clearly isn't imagining how different life can be. Everything in his novels is a satire of humanity - from the bureaucracy to the androids to the laws of physics.

Of all the wonderful things I could dwell on in Adam's work, the last thing I would like to mention is that of all action/adventure stories I have ever read, I think Adams has created a few of the most realistic heroes. Dent, Prefect, and Zaphod - though somewhat resourceful - aren't particularly strong, bold, courageous, intelligent or smooth. They bungle any number of situations, and only Trillian has a real moment of brilliance. And yet, no matter how much they might want to simply run and save their own hides, a sense of duty to man/life nags at their conscience and keeps bringing them to help save somebody. Ultimately, I think this balances out so much of Adams ironic humor about how stupid life can be. Yes, life is absurd at so many levels, but Adams never abandons our Western Civilization ideals of the value of life and our duty to help each other.

Oh, and the dialogue is priceless!

Wit and ridiculousness.
There are those who don't get "The Far Side" by Gary Larson. It's too wacky and weird. There are those who don't like the wit of "Calvin and Hobbes," passing it by for simpler humor.

There are those who hate "Monty Python" because it's "stupid" or "ridiculous." And there are those who hate the humor "A Midsummer Night's Dream" or "Pride and Prejudice," as its wit is deep and veiled.

Now try and envision an amalgam of these two approaches to comedy. Witty lines, and wordplays, combined with floating penguins and Vogon poetry. You have to be pretty quick to understand some of Adams' jokes regarding quantum mechanics, yet silly enough to laugh at the manic depressive robot, and the apathetic mention of the destruction of Earth. Douglas Adams is simply the best at combining wit with irony and absurdity. And this is simply the best book in which to find his genius.

The best comedy writer since spike milligan.
If you are an Adams fan then this is for you, My copies of the 5 books are all in a rotten state after years of reading and rereading, and I wanteed a tome to keep. Apart from the additional Zaphod story I will not read this for many years. i know it verbatim. Those raised on Pratchett and Rankin might find Adams' humour a little dated to be fair, but he was first and he cannot be replaced.

Cleverer than Pratchett and nowhere near as predictable, Adams seems to start at the beginning and then just bimble along through the narrative, but previous issues reemerge to show that the first three books, at least, were all part of a masterplan. ... Read more

Book Description

At last in paperback in one complete volume, here are the five classic novels from Douglas Adams’s beloved Hitchiker series.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Facing annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat.

Life, the Universe and Everything
The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky– so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription conspires to thrust him back to reality. So to speak.

Mostly Harmless
Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself? ... Read more

Reviews (39)

Cosmic comedy
Part humor, part science fiction and part philosophy; that's how I'd sum up the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. There are five novels in this collection with a 'bonus' story which is a really a waste of space. I liked the first three stories the best as these were pretty funny. Adam's humor is similar to Terry Pratchett's (Don't read Pratchett) and having read Pratchett at a much earlier age I could appreciate the weird twists and turns and the countless non-sequiturs. It's the kind of book you'd enjoy if you're used to the type of Monty Python humor. Douglas manages to poke fun at nearly all the professions on earth, and he never lets up in his 'attacks' against the church, most noticable in the last book 'Mostly Harmless'.

If you are looking for logical connections between the books, you may be disappointed as these stories seem to develop on their own, with explanations of unexpected twists and turns provided as the book proceeds. Along the way though, Adam's does provide some interesting food for thought about our place in the universe, and about the nature of the universe(s) themselves. His classic thinking-outside-of-the-square style shows when he describes the difficulties faced when dealing with the grammar of time travel.

The tone of the last book 'Mostly Harmless' was a bit too serious for my liking, especially after some of the sidesplittingly funny lines in the earlier books. He really did bring the book down to Earth on the last one. All in all, not a bad effort, though as a Christian I had to constantly remind myself that his attacks on religion were his views alone. Even though it's a comedy, this book made me realize the enormity of the universe and our own insignificance in it.

Read this book, if you like out of this world comedy.

Simply Amazing
wow. this book is one of the best science fiction books i have read. humourous and wacky, it's the kind of book you don't want to miss. it's amazing how Douglas Adams can mix science fiction and humour in such a good package. it's an excellent read for any day, anytime, with or without tea. the whole thing includes the 5 books from the series and a short story. it can keep you entertained for a few weeks the first time and after your first read you won't be able to put it down.

A humorous review for the too serious science or techno:
These books are wonderfully hilarious. You can immediately recognize new friends if they have read and loved these books. I have read all of Adams' books but this 4 book series is the best. While chaperoning a bus tour of England with my students, I began reading the series again. Even at 52, it kept me giggling throughout the tour. Everyday objects and events take on new possibilities of the absurd. You will laugh out loud even in the most serious places-NYC subway

Crazy Insane
Starting out with a guy from Betelguese and a file cabinet locked in an unused lavatory with a "Beware of the Leopard" sign, the first book blasts off into one of the best series I've ever read. Only other book that can compare to this in its insanity is Catch 22 and currently I'm trying to find more book's like these. Adams does an awesome job of laying out an intricate story with tons of random bits that make it so extreme. If you don't know if you want to buy this book then go ahead and buy it. Otherwise go be boring. The only people who won't like this are those non-fun people who get kicks out of working in an office or at a school like that awful CONAface of an english teacher.

Great Book
I read this book after my friend recommended it to me. A t first I as a bit confused with the description of the setting and characters but as I read on it was great. It's absolutely hilarious and a book everyone should read. ... Read more

Amazon.com

At one point in this final book of the Dark Tower series, the character Stephen King (added to the plot in Song of Susannah) looks back at the preceding pages and says "when this last book is published, the readers are going to be just wild." And he's not kidding.

After a journey through seven books and over 20 years, King's Constant Readers finally have the conclusion they've been both eagerly awaiting and silently dreading. The tension in the Dark Tower series has built steadily from the beginning and, like in the best of King's novels, explodes into a violent, heart-tugging climax as Roland and his ka-tet finally near their goal. The body count in The Dark Tower is high. The gunslingers come out shooting and face a host of enemies, including low men, mutants, vampires, Roland's hideous quasi-offspring Mordred, and the fearsome Crimson King himself. King pushes the gross-out factor at times--Roland's lesson on tanning (no, not sun tanning) is brutal--but the magic of the series remains strong and readers will feel the pull of the Tower as strongly as ever as the story draws to a close. During this sentimental journey, King ties up loose ends left hanging from the 15 non-series novels and stories that are deeply entwined in the fabric of Mid-World through characters like Randall Flagg (The Stand and others) or Father Callahan (Salem's Lot). When it finally arrives, the long awaited conclusion will leave King's myriad fans satisfied but wishing there were still more to come.

In King's memoir On Writing, he tells of an old woman who wrote him after reading the early books in the Dark Tower series. She was dying, she said, and didn't expect to see the end of Roland's quest. Could King tell her? Does he reach the Tower? Does he save it? Sadly, King said he did not know himself, that the story was creating itself as it went along. Wherever that woman is now (the clearing at the end of the path, perhaps?), let's hope she has a copy of The Dark Tower. Surely she would agree it's been worth the wait. --Benjamin Reese

Visit the Dark Tower store
Over 30 years in the making, spanning seven volumes, Stephen King's epic quest for the Dark Tower has encompassed almost his entire body of fiction. Find every volume of this fantastic adventure, an interview with the master himself, and much more in our DarkTower Store.

Authors on Stephen King
Mystery writer Michael Connelly thinks Stephen King's "one of the most generous writers I know of." Thriller author Ridley Pearson says "King possesses an incredible sense of story..." Read our Stephen King testimonials to find out what else they and other authors had to say about the undisputed King of Horror.

The Path to the Dark Tower
There are only seven volumes in Stephen King's Dark Tower series but more than a dozen of his novels and short stories are deeply entwined with the Mid-World universe. Take a look at the non-series titles, from Salem's Lot to Everything's Eventual. Can you find the connections?

History of an Alternate Universe
Robin Furth, an expert on Stephen King's Dark Tower universe if ever there was one, has created a timeline of Mid-World, the slowly crumbling world of gunslinger Roland Deschain. Read it and get up to speed on a world of adventure.

Hail to the King
Fans applauded and critics howled when Stephen King was awarded the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Service to American Letters. In typical fashion, King accepted the honor with humility and urged recognition for other "popular" authors. Listen to a clip of his acceptance speech, then order the entire speech on audio CD. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Join Douglas Adams's hapless hero Arthur Dent as he travels the galaxywith his intrepid pal Ford Prefect, getting into horrible messes and generally wreaking hilarious havoc. Dent is grabbed from Earth moments before a cosmic construction team obliterates the planet to build a freeway. You'll never read funnier science fiction; Adams is a master of intelligent satire, barbed wit, and comedic dialogue. The Hitchhiker's Guide is rich in comedic detail and thought-provoking situations and stands up to multiple reads. Required reading for science fiction fans, this book (and its follow-ups) is also sure to please fans of Monty Python, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and British sitcoms. ... Read more

Reviews (458)

The BEST Hitchhiker's guide book
This novel is Douglas Adams' best ever. Here is his true wit, his British humor, his, well, hoopiness! The book picks you up, drives you to the movies, and never lets you go! Ford is hilarious with his insane logic. Trillian is a wonderful as the only really sane one on board the Heart of Gold. Marvin is so pathetic that he makes you cry every time you read the book. And through it all, the hapless Arthur Dent just tries to understand what is happening. The plot involves the earth being blow up to make a hyperspace bypass, which everyone should have known about if they had checked the record hall in Alpha Centauri. The plans had been on display for fifty years. Can't complain about it now, can you? Anyway, throw in an ancient race of planet builders, some towels, a stolen space ship, and a restaurant at the end of the universe, and you get the first novel in one of the best sci-fi series ever. A must read for any science fiction fan or fans of British comedy

"The Hitchhikers guide is the greatest book of all time..."
Above is a quote directly from the novel. The book follows Arthur Dent, an Englishman, or former Englishman I should say as the Earth has just been destroyed to create a galactic bypass, and his Betlegeuseian friend Ford Prefect as they traverse the galaxy with their supplies: a towel(the most widely useful object ever to be invented) and of course the fabulous Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a book in the form of a computer because if it were in regular page form, the carrier would have to lug around seven inconveniently sized buildings full of paper. The pair meet wierd aliens, robots, and other creatures. Don't be confused at first with the names: Zaphod Beeblebrox, for example, is a main character who's name you'll easily catch on to. This book is just flat out hilarious. It's Brazil (the 1984 spoof, not the country) meets Star Wars. Douglas Adams is more or less the master of confusing but hilarious plot as well as dialouge. Now, I'm not just writing this review because I love all sci-fi books. In fact, I read very few, about 20%, sci-fi books, although I still like the genre. So you can see I'm not a Die Hard sci-fi comedy fan. This book is extremely funny. Adults as well as children (teenagers really) will find the material and dialouge side splitting.

A Splendid Trip
I picked A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy off of a list of classic novels or something like that, having no idea who Douglas Adams was or how significant the book was. I was pleasantly surprised, and now know where several popular phrases originated.
The book begins with humanoid Arthur Dent waking up and finding a bulldozer in his yard about to demolish his house to make room for a highway. Arthur is understandably upset, but this doesn't really matter considering the fact that unbeknownst to the human race, earth is about to be destroyed to make room for a hyperspace bypass. Arthur is rescued from the fate of earth by his friend Ford Prefect, who it turns out is an alien who knows how to hitch rides on spaceships. With their jump into space, Arthur and Ford are launched into a round of interstellar escapades, accompanied by the egotistical but lovable Zaphod Beeblebrox, his girlfriend Trillian (who happened to have come from earth), and Marvin, the perpetually dismal android with a "brain the size of a planet".
A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy makes an interesting combination of two genres- science fiction and comedy- and it works marvelously. The plots moves along quickly, making it an easy read, and also providing opportunities for multiple readings to catch all the humor. A Hitchhiker's Guide is imaginative, witty, and in places downright hilarious. In addition to this, the writing is very intelligent without being overbearing; the book gently prods at several of our own silly social conventions in a comical and lighthearted way. A Hitchhiker's Guide was a delightful read, and I heartily recommend it- to sci-fi lovers and non.
One word of advice; don't waste precious mental energy trying to understand how an Infinite Improbabily Drive works, or any of the many other gadgets in the book, because this isn't the sort of book where it matters whether you understand how things work or not. I realized about a quarter of the way through the book that I was taking things much too seriously and that the ludicrous descriptions were placed there mostly for comic effect.

Unbelievably Witty
With Douglas Adams it really doesn't matter if your a miserable old bat who hates fiction or a fun loving freak who loves it; his books can appeal to all. They have a bit of everything in them, a bit of sci-fi, a bit of nature conservation, a little bit of adventure and LOTS of humor. They even have the nice little moral at the end to boost up your spirits when you finish the book.
I first found this book years ago and I'm still unable to figure out how i lived without it. the seqeuls and other books that come next in the series are just as fun and Adams has managed to spread his wit evenly out throughout the whole series. any other author would've given up and returned, mentally exhausted, to dry writing after the first page.
The characters are original and fun, the scenery and setting ever-changing, the plot dances around and the dialogue will leave you in tears. Marvin the Paranoid Android ended up being one of my favoirte characters, as did the Vogons and psycologists, and their unique outlooks on life and 42 are new.
There are only a few things readers attempting to read this book must have:
-a sense, however lame it might be, of humor
-a large mug of really hot tea
-a few packets of peanuts
-and, finally, a really comfortable sofa

Eyorre needs Paxil
Just came off reading the Dune series & needed a bit of a break. And this book provided a perfect, entertaining read.

I had planned on reading only the first in the series before embarking on Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver jouney. But now, I plan to read the remaining four in this series first.

Anyway, if you like dry humor and brilliant characters, such as a gloomy robot that makes Eyorre's disposition seem as sunny as Richard Simmons', you will LOVE this book. ... Read more

Book Description

Nowadays firemen start fires. Fireman Guy Montag loves to rush to a fire and watch books burn up. Then he met a seventeen-year old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid, and a professor who told him of a future where people could think. And Guy Montag knew what he had to do....
... Read more

Reviews (969)

Burning on the mind
Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a thought-provoking book about censorship centered around book burning, seemed to get off to a slow start by following the life of the main character, Guy Montag, a firefighter who does not put out fires, but rather burns books for a living. Some of the descriptions given at the beginning of the book were confusing at first, like those of the parlor walls, which really turned out to be futuristic video screens, and the mechanical hound, a robot which is used to track and kill people by the chemical scents they leave behind. However, as I got into the book more, I felt that the almost boring way Bradbury wrote the introduction helps give the reader a sense of what Montag's life was normally like, and allows the reader to see the vastness of the changes he encounters in his lifestyle.
I also felt that as the plot thickened, Bradbury did an excellent job of giving Guy human qualities, such as making him impulsive and sometimes hot-tempered, and showing how he strove to do what he thought was right. His interactions with other characters are very real, especially those with his boss, Beatty. When Montag starts to regret burning books, and starts to perceive that there is more to the books he burns for a living than he and most other people believe, Beatty senses Montag's change in emotion, and does his best to set him straight, telling him that books are only filled with useless thoughts and people and places created by writers that are long gone. This is the main conflict that leads to the rising action of the novel. Montag is told that books are bad, and thus by human nature becomes even more interested in them. However, the conflict is greater than this, as it is not just Montag versus Beatty. Besides also trying to get his ditsy wife interested in books, Montag faces an internal battle with himself. He has to weigh the consequences of getting caught with books with the rewards of what he could possibly gain by reading. I especially appreciated the effort Bradbury went through to bring the feelings and emotions Montag goes experiences to the reader by his word choice, and the way he showed the reader how Montag was playing a sort of tug-of-war in his mind.
I think Bradbury did a good job surprising the reader whenever possible, such as with Montag's actions. Just when you begin to think that you might see how Guy will act in a situation, Bradbury twists the outcome, keeping you on the edge of your seat in some cases, or at least wondering what will happen next. Such is the case with Faber; a man Montag becomes friends with who also has interests in the forbidden world of books. Just as Bradbury leads the reader to believe that Faber will be somewhat in control of how Guy responds to the remarks of his boss Beatty, Montag leaves Faber in the dust, taking matters into his own hands and acting on impulse.
Bradbury uses a serious tone throughout the novel, which helps to bring forth the importance of the subject at hand. I liked the serous way in which Bradbury presents the world Montag lives in, a world without books or leisure reading material. This made me question what I would do if I were in Montag's situation, even though in this day and age it is quite unlikely that books would suddenly be totally banned. It really got me thinking about censorship in general, and how at times in the past we made steps toward making Montag's world a reality by banning books from libraries and bookstores. On the other hand, in brought to light the fact that the bans placed on many books were lifted after such acts were declared unconstitutional, which somewhat renewed my faith in the ability of our government and society to recognize and correct some of its mistakes.
The novel is still thought provoking, however, because no matter what kind of society we live in today, we can all imagine living in one that is totally different, one we do not feel comfortable in, one that we let our imaginations run wild in creating it, making it painful to think about let alone live in. I enjoyed how the novel made me realize how many freedoms we have nowadays, and how they can easily be taken away.
Without spoiling the ending, I just want to say that I thought it was very fitting. As Granger says near the end of the novel, "You're not important. You're not anything." Montag and his group would have appeared to be insignificant to any unsuspecting stranger, even though they were the keys to a vast world of knowledge, one they hope someday the world will get to experience again.
Though I do think that Ray Bradbury did a very good job of writing Fahrenheit 451, I feel that it has a few weaknesses. First would have to be a shortness of description, especially at the beginning of the novel when the reader is trying to form an image of the world Montag lives in. His short initial description of things such as the parlor walls and the mechanical hound left me somewhat confused about what they really had to do with the novel. Another case of confusion occurred with the mechanical snake that was used to empty Montag's wife's stomach and change her blood while she was sleeping after Montag found out that his wife, Mildred, had swallowed some thirty sleeping pills. It is not so confusing how this event happens but rather why it happens, and it does not seem to be important later in the story.
Despite some weaknesses, the main point of Fahrenheit 451 is clear, and makes the book a definite "must-read."

A Prophetic Novel of Censorship
Guy Montag is a firefighter who burns things. Specifically books, and the houses they are found in. He lives in a state where books, and possesion of them, is illegal. Guy enjoys his job until the day he meets Clarisse McClellan.

Clarisse makes Guy doubt his motives and he soon becomes daring enough to break the law and read a book. He finds he loves litereature, he keeps steals books from the houses he's burning and reads them at home. He finally goes as far as to skip work one day, and his Fire Department Captain, Captain Beatty, shows up at his home. He tells Montag that it's normal for a Fireman to go through such doubts at a stage in his life. Then proceeds to go through a long monologue as to the history of banning books. According to him, special interest groups objected to books that criticized, belittled, or undermined their causes. For this reason, books became more and more neutral in order to avoid offending anyone. However, this still wasn't enough. So society agreed to outlaw books.

Montag is not convinced and begins to plot with a professor he had previously met named Faber. They plan on planting books in the houses of Firemen as a way of discrediting the profession and destroying the governments unit for censorship. However, thing go when the alarm sounds at the firestation and Montag goes to the last house he'll burn in is career, his house.

Unlike its fellow dystopia-themed predecessor, 1984, much of Fahrenheit 451's depiction of modern society came true almost prophetically. Although not outlawed, literature now holds a narrow audience. And the brainwashing televisions Ray Bradbury depicts aren't far off of today's one-eyed-boxes.

Ray Bradbury's adjectival descriptions in this book are strong, even at times; on occasion, one could even say they became monotonous. However, the books never crawls forward for to long; the progress, although not quick, still moves fast enough to keep the reader's attention.

Overall a strong novel censorship. Although not perfectI would recommend Fahrenheit 451 to any reader interested in either mere science-fiction, or one actually interested in a political criticism of censorship. Both will find their time well spent, the latter will definitely get more out of it, as for the previous. . .
Maybe you would enjoy Star Wars??

Definition of a classic...
I've heard so many people say they've been influenced by Bradbury (writers and others) and I can see why--this is simply a great novel. Bradbury is really a national treasure. If you ever get the chance to hear him speak, don't miss him. His stories are priceless. (Especially the one about his anger at people telling him for years that he was crazy to believe man would set foot on the moon in his lifetime. He said he called up every person who laughed in his face the night Neil Armstrong did--and pretty much laughed in their faces!) There is a fantastic one-on-one interview with him in the Walt Disney Tomorrowland-Disney in Space and Beyond DVD (interviewer is Leonard Maltin). His friendship with Disney (a fellow futurist) was fascinating. But it's the sense of wonder and child-like curiosity and optimism (not childish or blind optimism as he clearly understands what can create a dystopia) that make you realize why he is a national treasure. He's inspired me to look to the future, to look up, to look forward, to always be wary and alert to what can go wrong, (and the dangers of closed or lazy minds) BUT not to let any of that stop you--that anything is possible in a world willing to believe, in a free world with open and curious minds.

A book that continues to touch on modern life
Though I was long familiar with many of Bradbury's works, I had put off reading "Fahrenheit 451" in favor of other books until a friend lent it to me recently. After reading it, I'm angry with myself for having taken so long to pick it up. This book is a fantastic tale of a future society that abandons intellectual development and destroys its books. Like all great literature, it offers insight into our society today despite having been written over a half-century ago, and it continues to reward reading today.

This book is more than a seminal work of dystopian literature, however; it is also one of the most elegant meditations on the value of literature in modern society that I have ever read. In envisioning a society that destroys books, Bradbury has to explain what is lost as a result. His answer, as we see in Faber's expositions during Montag's visit, is the exact thing which makes this book worth reading - the insights we gain into our own world and our own lives through reading. Integral to this process, of course, is the fact that people must read them and put what they take from them to good use for a society to thrive; as Bradbury notes, the first step towards the world of his novel was taken when people stopped reading. It is this message which makes "Fahrenheit 451" essential reading, especially in a society where entertainment today bears an ever-closer resemblance to the noise-dominated media depicted in Bradbury's nightmarish future.

Reply to a response
How does someone miss the point of a REVIEW by such a vast margin? I agree with your and Mr. Bradbury's alarm about the state of politics and culture, but my review was not concerned with his message, but with his storytelling. Just because one agrees with an author's stance does not mean that one has to like the way in which the author conveyed that stance. Mine was a literary critique, not a political one, and those who rate this book so highly simply because of the gravity of the message are deeply misguided. Message aside, it's an awfully cheesy and childish book. Admit it.

Anyway, I said the DIALOGUE was wooden. The characters were flat. ;) ... Read more

Book Description

"DOUGLAS ADAMS IS A TERRIFIC SATIRIST."
--The Washington Post Book World
Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons is a curious time to have a craving for tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his curious comrades in arms as they hurtle across space powered by pure improbability--and desperately in search of a place to eat.
Among Arthur's motley shipmates are Ford Prefect, a longtime friend and expert contributor to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed ex-president of the galaxy; Tricia McMillan, a fellow Earth refugee who's gone native (her name is Trillian now); and Marvin, the moody android who suffers nothing and no one very gladly. Their destination? The ultimate hot spot for an evening of apocalyptic entertainment and fine dining, where the food (literally) speaks for itself.
Will they make it? The answer: hard to say. But bear in mind that the Hitchhiker's Guide deleted the term "Future Perfect" from its pages, since it was discovered not to be!
"What's such fun is how amusing the galaxy looks through Adams' sardonically silly eyes."
--Detroit Free Press
... Read more

Reviews (84)

Hilarious Sequel
Picking up right where "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" left off, Douglas Adams' "The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe" continues the hilarious intergalactic adventures of earthman Arthur Dent, his alien chum Ford Prefect, the two-headed freakazoid Zaphod Beeblebrox, earthwoman Trillian, and Marvin The Paranoid Android. When we last left this ragtag bunch, they were still on the run from the intergalactic authorities in their stolen souped-up spacecraft, The Heart Of Gold. Book 2 includes Zaphod's outrageous adventure to find the man who rules the Universe, a memorable stop at Milliways, The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, the gang's close shave with having their ship plunge into a sun (all part of a rock concert spectacle put on by the rock group Disaster Area), and finally, Ford & Arthur's adventure onboard an Ark ship manned by a clueless bunch from the planet Golgafrincham. Oh, a startling revelation will also be made, and The Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer of "Forty-Two" will also be revealed! (Well, sort of....). Once again, Adams' brilliantly clever wit & writing style shines through on every page, and the book, like it's predecessor, is a real gutbuster.If you have enjoyed the adventures of Arthur Dent & Ford Prefect & company so far, why stop now? Please go to Book 3 in Adams' marvelous sci-fi comedy series, "Life, The Universe, And Everything"....

Fabulous Follow-Up
Often follow-up projects are a let down, especially when the original is as successful at The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Well, this one lives up to expectations. While looking for the question to the answer of life, the universe, and everything, our lot of characters experience more unpredictable (should I say improbable) events. Traveling through time, or even understanding how to talk about it, will really blow your mind. The restaurant at the end of the universe and the total perspective vortex are also worth the visits, although for very different reasons. And don't worry, it appears that the universe is in good hands - at least so says Trillian. Arthur and Ford's encounter with the Galgafrinchens also puts them a step closer to the ultimate question.

I wouldn't start with this book. Adams has written it in such a way that the background of the first book (as I mentioned above) is really good to know. I would have given this 4 3/4 stars if possible, as the ending isn't quite as tidy as the first book; but rounding forces us up to the top mark. This book is another fun, quick read, which I think is the way Adams intended it.

As great as everything else Douglas has written. But still..
This is a review of the Restaurant At The End Of The Universe
(AUDIO CD rendition).

The Book is fantastic! Totally hilarious. A welcome sequel to
any first-time reader of HGTG. The CD set consists of five (5)
CDs, and the story is read by Douglas Adams (the author) himself.
For anyone not familiar with the voice of DA, his reading,
inflections, and ease in switching voices during dialog passages
adds greatly to the presentation. The CD does have some
'electronically-modified' voices (Marvin & the ship's computer,
for instance), but they're all Douglas Adams, and he makes
it quite difficult not to laugh out loud while listening.
It's also pretty hard not to consume the whole book at one
sitting.

My two complaints on this media presentation are that it is
simply a straight transfer to CD of Douglas Adams'
CASSETTE-TAPE recordings. They didnt even remove all of the
'End of Side' notations from the original. Imagine that
you're listening to the story, and in the *middle* of a
disc, you hear Douglas say "End of side TWO". Then the story
continues. I also have to mention my biggest
beef with this presentation (as with ALL of the CD renditions)
which is that each disc is comprised of only ONE track!
You cannot jump forward or backward by chapters. If you
cannot listen to an entire disc at one sitting (about an hour),
then you cannot resume midway if you happen to stop the disc.
In this regard, the cassette-tapes excel over the CD renditions.

Considering that Douglas was pretty-much a techno-hound, I think
he'd be pretty disgusted that his works were being stamped-out
in such a shoddy fashion.

All-in-all, the book is as good as, if not better than,
the HITCHHIKERS GUIDE. Adams fanatics will love it. It's a
book that demonstrates that DA was an accomplished wordsmith,
and that he spent considerable time and effort to add hundreds
of subtle cross-references between passages that cannot be
caught at first reading (listening). In this regard, you'll
find something new each time you consume this book.

Secong helping of classic series
"Restaurant" is the follow-up to the first one, and it doesn't disapoint. Hilarious bits like the universe's loudest band, and of course, the scene at the Restaurant is great. The ending is a bit ironic, but funny. You can quite tell that there was going to be a sequel. We still wonder at this point was the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is though.(The next books tells us). Another great book that you'll laugh with.

A definate let down
After reading the first volume, I was looking forward to this one. What a disappointment! This book went around and around and ended up no where.

Save your money. If you enjoyed the first volume, be satisfied. That's as good as it gets. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

Few books have captivated the imagination and won the devotion andpraise of readers and critics everywhere as has George R. R. Martin’s monumental epic cycle of high fantasy. Now, in A Feast for Crows, Martin delivers the long-awaited fourth book of his landmark series, as a kingdom torn asunder finds itself at last on the brink of peace...only to be launched on an even more terrifying course of destruction.

A Feast for Crows

It seems too good to be true. After centuries of bitter strife and fatal treachery, the seven powers dividing the land have decimated one another into an uneasy truce. Or so it appears....With the death of the monstrous King Joffrey, Cersei is ruling as regent in King’s Landing. Robb Stark’s demise has broken the back of the Northern rebels, and his siblings are scattered throughout the kingdom like seeds on barren soil. Few legitimate claims to the once desperately sought Iron Throne still exist--or they are held in hands too weak or too distant to wield them effectively. The war, which raged out of control for so long, has burned itself out.

But as in the aftermath of any climactic struggle, it is not long before the survivors, outlaws, renegades, and carrion eaters start to gather, picking over the bones of the dead and fighting for the spoils of the soon-to-be dead. Now in the Seven Kingdoms, as the human crows assemble over a banquet of ashes, daring new plots and dangerous new alliances are formed, while surprising faces--some familiar, others only just appearing--are seen emerging from an ominous twilight of past struggles and chaos to take up the challenges ahead.

It is a time when the wise and the ambitious, the deceitful and the strong will acquire the skills, the power, and the magic to survive the stark and terrible times that lie before them. It is a time for nobles and commoners, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and sages to come together and stake their fortunes...and their lives. For at a feast for crows, many are the guests--but only a few are the survivors. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Sin City launched the long-running, critically acclaimed series of comics novels by Frank Miller. Having worked on some of the most important comic books in the 1980s, including Marvel Comics's Daredevil and the influential Batman graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, Miller was already a heavy-weight cartoonist, but he hit his stride with Sin City. It gave him the freedom that doesn't come when working on someone else's characters. While the art isn't as polished as in later books, it is in many ways the quintessential Sin City story: tough-guy Marv finds the girl of his dreams, an incredible beauty named Goldie. But when Goldie is murdered on their first night together, Marv scours the bars and back alleys of Sin City to find her killer in hopes of avenging her death. ... Read more

Reviews (65)

Really good novel
This is a great graphic novel. The art is very good and unique however, it can look a little sloppy at times it's sill great. The story is very goodand the words are in the movie. Also the diologue and monologues are very natural and discriptive at the same time. If you don't like sex and violece avoid this at all cost. If you're into that sort of thing pick it but, it's a little short for 17 bucks but it's very good.

Great beggining to Sin City
I have to say that as soon as I saw the trailer for Sin City on TV i became obssesed. After that it was sin city this sin city that. Although I haven't seen the movie yet, i cant till its on video. Anyways this is one of the best comic books/graphic novels I have ever read. Frank Miller's way of drawing in all black or white is amazing. The storyline definately keeps you wanting to know who Marv is killing next. The basic plot of the story is about a brute of a man by the name of Marv who falls in love with a hooker named Goldie after one night. He wakes up and finds her dead next to him, and spends the rest of the story fighting and killing his way to the culprit. Kevin is by far the most disturbing character ever made (a mute cannibal who cuts the heads of women and eats the rest of them). The comic book does have nudity and some violence in it and isn't appropriate for young kids who are used to stuff like spider man or x-men. this is definately a must read.

Marv introduces you to the comic noir of Miller's "Sin City"
In a note in the back of "The Hard Goodbye," Frank Miller explains that this one got away from him.What was supposed to be a 48-page crime thriller turned into a 200-page graphic novel, all because Marv, the story's brutal misanthropic protagonist, started bossing Miller around.If you have seen "Sin City" the movie where Mickey Rourke steals the film as Marv, then you can understand Miller's explanation.You will understand it even more when you read the graphic novel, the first volume in the Miller's comic noir saga.

For me Frank Miller began the road that ends in "Sin City" with "Daredevil" #164, which retold the hero's origin.There is a series of panels in which Daredevil is chasing down the Fixer, the man who arranged the fight that Battling Murdock refused to throw.In each frame Daredevil gets closer to his quarry and cutting across the panels is a line representing the Fixer's heart beat, which goes from blind panic to full cardiac arrest before flatlining.It was at that point that I knew Miller was starting to think of what he could do with art in a comic book.After his work on "Daredevil" there was "Ronin" and "The Dark Knight Returns," and eventually Miller gets to Marv.

There is no doubt that Marv is the walking path of destruction that dominates this narrative.He is extremely violent, deeply disturbed, and whatever medication he is taking is just not doing the job.Still, he is a sympathetic figure because pretty much everybody he is maiming and killing are the real scum of the earth and he is on a mission to avenge the death of Goldie, the beautiful blonde who gave him a toss in the hay.He falls asleep in bed with her, having one of those moments of true happiness that never bodes well, and wakes up with her dead and the cops on their way.Marv is being set up, but that is incidental in his mind to the fact somebody killed Goldie, so somebody has to pay along with everybody else who stands in his way.The grand irony here is Marv and his interior monologues are the voice of sanity by the time he finds the killer.

The characters and the dialogue are easy to characterize as Mickey Spillane types on steroids.Then there is Miller's artwork as he explores what can done with just black and white on a page.The result is wildly experimental and sometimes you can a sense of how rough Miller's ideas are by the time he finishes a page.The first page of the story is more black than white, with Goldie's lips, the outline of her hair, the white skin exposed by the strapless gown and gloves etched out in seductive folds sets the tone for the artwork.The second page is the opposite with more white than black and offers a more conventional view of Marv and Goldie, and already you like the first page better.The third page offers a synthesis of the first two and it is like Miller is laying out the new ground rules.There are figures reduced to silhouettes except for hair or teeth (or bandages), and others reduced to white images against a field of black.Then we get to Marv standing in the rain in Chapter 8 and looking at the statue of Cardinal Roarke, at which point Miller is trying something completely different from the rest of the book.

I have no doubt that if Miller was to do "The Hard Goodbye" today that there would be significant changes in the artwork that would provide a refinement of the raw energy displayed here.There are times when the justification for the artwork seems to clearly be that it is different from the pages Miller has just drawn as opposed to be the best way of illustrating that part of the narrative.But this is the first story in an ongoing series, so allowances can be made if Miller really did decide to do a page a certainly way for no other reason than he had not done one that way yet.After all, it is not like he was coming up with 200 different pages of artwork and by the time you get to Chapter 8, which I think is artistically far and away the best of the entire graphic novel, it is equally clear Miller knows exactly what he is doing and all of the pieces are falling into place.The joy of watching the art evolve in this story makes up for the rough patches.

These stories were originally published in issues #51-62 of the Dark Horse comic book series "Dark Horses Presents" and in the "Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special."This second edition has come out with the rest of the extant "Sin City" collection in term to be gobbled up by fans of the movie version and those who come from the theater to the graphic novel will probably be surprised how faithful Robert Rodriguez was to Frank Miller's story and vision.Then again, that was the whole point of doing the film the way it was done.

High impact artwork
"See the life through the eyes of an artist, and the art through the eyes of life."

It's not easy being green...
...or black and white for that matter. The good guys in this book are bad and the bad guys are just plain disgusting! A pill popping murderer(with a soft heart) battles a flesh eating priest and his misunderstood cannibal friend. It just doesn't get any darker than this.

Besides the unnaturally sexy women (most of whom are prostitutes), there is nothing attractive about this world that Frank Miller has created. Yet still you will find yourself sucked in by that part of yourself that wants to slow down as you drive by an accident. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

"HYSTERICAL!"
--The Philadelphia Inquirer
The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky above their heads--so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals stand between the white killer robots of Krikkit and their goal of total annihilation.
They are Arthur Dent, a mild-mannered space and time traveler, who tries to learn how to fly by throwing himself at the ground and missing; Ford Prefect, his best friend, who decides to go insane to see if he likes it; Slartibartfast, the indomitable vicepresident of the Campaign for Real Time, who travels in a ship powered by irrational behavior; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-head honcho of the Universe; and Trillian, the sexy space cadet who is torn between a persistent Thunder God and a very depressed Beeblebrox.
How will it all end? Will it end? Only this stalwart crew knows as they try to avert "universal" Armageddon and save life as we know it--and don't know it!
"ADAMS IS ONE OF THOSE RARE TREASURES: an author who, one senses, has as much fun writing as one has reading."
--The Arizona Daily Star
... Read more

Reviews (71)

Decent Entry In The Hitchhiker's Saga
After being marooned on prehistoric Earth for several years, Arthur Dent and his alien chum Ford Prefect are rescued by the sudden appearance of a runaway sofa, which transports them millions of years into the future to a cricket game in England, a mere days before the Earth is due to be demolished by the evil Vogons. From here, the duo are reunited with their old friend Slartibartfast (from the first book), with whom they must embark on a mission to save the Universe. And yes, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, and Marvin the paranoid android all have roles to play, too.... Book 3 in Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" series, "Life, The Universe, And Everything," is certainly an amusing, occasionally hilarious entry in the zany intergalactic adventures of Arthur Dent and friends. Unfortunately, it falls short in comparison to the briliantly funny pair of books, "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" and "The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe," that preceded it. This may be because Books 1 & 2 were adapted from Adams' hilarious BBC radio play that started the whole "Hitchhikers" saga, while "Life" is a "Hitchhiker's" work that's not based on any previous material. Therefore, Adams' writing style for "Life" feels very different from the first two books, and doesn't flow as well. It's still funny, it's just not AS funny. The jokes are more fragmented, and Adams breaks apart *many* of the sentences that the characters speak in Book 3, which gets tiresome after awhile (ex: "The difficulty with this conversation," said Arthur, after a sort of ponderous look had crawled slowly across his face like a mountaineer negotiating a tricky outcrop, "is that it's very different from most of the ones I've had of late."). Therefore, some of the jokes miss the mark. Also, there's less excerpts from the Hitchhiker's Guide book itself, so often quoted in the first two books, so that's missed as well.And yet, "Life, The Universe, And Everything" still has some great comic moments, such as Zaphod Beeblebrox's drinking binge, Arthur's encounter with the creature Agrajag, the chapter on how to play Brockian Ultra Krikkit, and a pretty outrageous dinner party in space that Arthur & the gang crash. Overall, "Life, The Universe And Everything" is a decent entry in the "Hitchhiker's Guide" saga, and it's funny enough for me to give it a passing grade. Thankfully, though, Douglas Adams gets things right back on track with the brilliant fourth book, "So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish"....

Life, the Universe and Everything
Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Slartibartfast, and Trillian are back in the third novel of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Trilogy, Life, the Universe and Everything, published in 1982. After being stranded on prehistoric Earth, Arthur and Ford find a rip in the space-time continuum that catapults them through time to one day before the Earth's destruction. Luckily, however, they are rescued by an old friend, Slartibartfast. Once aboard Slartibartifast's ship, Arthur and Ford find out from Slartibartfast that the people of Krikkit are out to destroy the Universe. Their motive: they are sick of looking at the sky above their head, which, according to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is the "...least interesting sight in the entire Universe."
When Arthur is diverted while teleporting to a strange planet, he discovers that he is inside a giant mountain dedicated to the people he has killed. However, these thousands people are, coincidentally, all the reincarnations of the same being named Agrajag. This being was finally going to get his revenge when, accidentally, Arthur killed him yet again. With his last ounce of strength, Agrajag managed to set the countdown for the demolition of the mountain. During his escape, Arthur tripped and, while falling, his attention was drawn by a bag on the ground, which he recognized as his own. He then realized that he was hovering a few inches off the ground and had successfully thrown himself at the ground and missed, and was in fact, flying. Arthur later meets up with Slartibartfast and Ford at the Universe's largest party in search of Trillian. Upon finding her, the head out to Krikkit to try and stop them from using a small bomb that will destroy the entire Universe.
Adams' writing style is extremely humorous and descriptive. He uses many literary devices such as simile and personification. Adams colorfully describes a strange being out to kill Arthur Dent, "Each of his three eyes was small and intense and looked about as sane as a fish in a privet bush." I thought that the book was great and lived up to its legacy, the same wacky adventures and all-out mayhem in the previous books is all here. For all of those who couldn't get enough of the craziness of the first two Hitchhiker's books, this one is a must read.

42!
I have no idea why no one seems to give this book good reviews! It is uber funny, just as much as the first two. I liked the exclusive terms for the actions of matresses and the whole Agrajag thing, which was honestly the funniest thing I have ever read! As for the Krikkit peoples, this line is one of Adam's most memorable, besides the number 42: "It's got to go." Also, I have established Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged as an all time favorite literary personality, because, well, seriously people, his dream is to insult the universe! Original. Personally, I don't see what all the fuss is about.

Third book starts Hitchhiker slump..
"Life, the Universe, and Everything" is the third book in the five-book series, and it feels that away. It is not quite as great as the first two, but still enough to be good. The puns are great, as Dent and Co. go up against the evil Crikket aliens. Brit-isms abound, and some great moments of humor here, but doesn't get you rolling around in the seats. 42!

I love the Universe
Life, the Universe and Everything was interesting to follow the first two. The main theme is obvious same the universes, unlike in the other books it was kind of hidden under what was going on in them. The book was great with the whole time traveling. Plus you get to see what happens to every character one at a time then they all come together at the end to complete a nice third book.

I would have to say I like this book for the plot twists. Also I like how it flowed with the other books nicely unlike some, trilogies if you will, done have a lot to do with each other just the characters. You find out more about the white robots and cricket....

This book, its great... sorry but I believe it is. It doesn't follow the typical style of book writing most people are used too. But I loved the couch (you'll see why if you read the book), also that poor rabbit... so sad. This and many other interesting twist's and turns await you in this book. ... Read more

Book Description

Back on Earth with nothing more to show for his long, strange trip through time and space than a ratty towel and a plastic shopping bag, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription, the mysterious disappearance of Earth's dolphins, and the discovery of his battered copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy all conspire to give Arthur the sneaking suspicion that something otherworldly is indeed going on. . . .

God only knows what it all means. And fortunately, He left behind a Final Message of explanation. But since it's light-years away from Earth, on a star surrounded by souvenir booths, finding out what it is will mean hitching a ride to the far reaches of space aboard a UFO with a giant robot. But what else is new?
... Read more

Reviews (58)

a Hitchhiker's love story
"So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish" is without a doubt the best book in the entire Hitchhiker's trilogy (even though its book four).

This book strikes me as having a very similar tone to Adams' Dirk Gently novels--of which I am a huge fan. While there is every bit as much hilarious caper going on in this book as there was in the previous three, we get the added bonus of some great character development, a few of the most poignant moments in the entire series, and Marvin's moving farewell to life, the universe and everything.

We also discover God's final message to his creation.

Woven throughout all the other stuff of this story is a tale of Arthur falling in love. I was surprised by Adams' ability to write a great love story. Rarely have I encountered one as powerful in any form of popular fiction (the only other that deserved to stand with it is Stephen King's "Wizard and Glass"--but that's apples and tank treads).

Now that I've managed to blather ineffectively about this great book...just take my word. Get it. It is more than worth it.

just as good as the original trilogy
This is the fourth volume in the Hitchhiker's Trilogy and it is just as good as the first three books of this increasingly inaccurately named trilogy. Douglas Adams brings Arthur Dent back to Earth after a long trip hitchhiking across the universe. Yes, Arthur Dent is back on the same Earth that was destroyed by the Vogons to make an intergalactic highway. Exactly how the Earth and all of its original inhabitants are recreated is teased and hinted at and if you pay attention to what you're reading you'll easily figure out why (more why, than how).

Arthur Dent is back on Earth and pretty confused as to exactly how there is an Earth to be back on. Throughout this novel we learn that all the dolphins are gone (which is old news and no longer newsworthy), and we meet a Rain God, find out what God's Final Message to Creation is, revisit Marvin the robot, and find out that Arthur finds love with a woman named Fenchurch. That's a whole lot to fit into one book. On top of that, we have levitation, a small house that walled in the entire ocean, Ford Prefect, and the world's stupidest dog. All of this is handled with the offbeat humor that we expect from The Hitchhiker's Trilogy.

This novel, for a change, focuses on Arthur Dent and takes place almost entirely on Earth. In this way, it is different from the Universe hopping we got in the first three novels. In both quality and content, this is a worthy addition to Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Trilogy.

The series curveball..
"So long.." is the fourth in the classic series, and it seeks to twist you up and down. It blatently contradicts what was learned in the first three, so we can be introduced to new, odd characters. Arthur's romance with Fenchurch is good, but we do wonder what the point is. Wonko's philosophy is interesting, but that's the only real laugh in it.

A Great Escape to...Our Own Planet!
Oh, Douglas Adams! What humor! It's been a really really long time since I read him, and I honestly don't remember which books in the Hitch-Hiker trilogy I've read. However, I recently picked up "So Long, and Thanks..." without much trouble. I knew I was missing some references and character development, but it seemed like I could gather enough threads in this random plot to get a gist of his story.

The basic idea of "So Long, and Thanks..." is that Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent both suddenly realize that earth still appears to exist - even though last they knew it was to be demolished for a hyper-space bypass. Neither understands, but both hitch-hike their way back there (er, here) to check it out.

While Prefect gets hung up along the way nabbing free meals, fighting aliens, and setting up inane pranks, Dent makes it back to England fairly quickly. As he walks towards his home, which he hasn't been to in roughly 8 years and a bizillion miles, he hears the phone ringing and so rushes into his house to get it. Just as he picks up the receiver, it stops ringing. And so begins his adventures back on his own planet.

From there, you roughly stay with Dent as he settles back in on eart, falls in love, and reconciles the past 30 years of his life. He meets Wonko the Sane, who really does seem quite sane, and learns what happened to all the dolphins. He finishes this installment with a journey to see God's final message to his creation. It probably took guts for Adams to come up with something that's supposed to be God's final message, but he pulls it off quite well.

Overall, I would say that Adam's story-telling nature seems to be so erratic, so creative, so outside the normal bounds that you get transported to another dimension in reading his work. Even though most of this story takes place on earth, you begin to see physics, dolphins and junk mail in a whole new light. You feel witty just catching on to his allusions and subtle writing quirks. For instance,
"["The Hitch Hiker's Guide"] is, essentially, as the title implies, a guide book. The problem is, or rather one of the problems, for there are many, a sizeable proportion of which are continually clogging up the civil, commercial and criminal courts in all areas of the Galaxy, and especially, where possibly, the more corrupt ones, this.
The previous sentence makes sense. That is not the problem. The problem is: Change. Read it through again and you will get it. The Galaxy is a rapidly changing place..."

If you are looking for a good laugh and/or a good escape that essentially deals with the questions of your own world, this book would be a good fit.

The REAL Conclusion To The Hitchhiker's Saga
Still hitchhiking his way through the galaxy on an alien spaceship, Arthur Dent passes by the area in the Solar System where his home planet of Earth used to be (before it was blown up by the evil Vogons), and is absolutely astonished to discover that the Earth is still there. He's dropped off by the spaceship nearby his home, where he slowly but surely comes to grips with being back on his home world. Arthur soon discovers that the demolition of Earth by the Vogons has now been written off by the planet's population as a great big, possibly government-induced "hallucination." Arthur also discovers that all of the planet's dolphins have mysteriously vanished. However, there's also love in the air for Arthur, as he soon meets a beautiful young woman named Fenchurch, who may hold the key to the mysterious re-appearance of Earth, and the equally mysterious disappearance of the dolphins. Meanwhile, Arthur's old alien friend Ford Prefect, hitchhiking in a different part of the galaxy, also discovers that the Earth has suddenly re-appeared, and plots a course for Earth to rejoin Arthur. And, for the coup de grace, God's Final Message To His Creation will also be revealed by the book's end...."So Long And Thanks For All The Fish" is Book 4 in Douglas Adams' popular five-part sci fi/comedy series, "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy." Call me a "Hitchhiker's" purist, but as far as I'm concerned, "So Long" is the final "Hitchhiker's" book, as Douglas Adams *originally* intended. I've completely disowned Book 5, "Mostly Harmless," which Adams, by his own admission, only wrote on a whim, and, in my opinion, is the worst book of the bunch, an incredibly disappointing and totally unnecessary extension of the saga. Now, if Adams had stuck to his original plan and left the "Hitchhiker's" series alone after "So Long," it would've been perfect, for "So Long" is a brilliantly funny book that's just as hilarious as Books 1 & 2, "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" and "The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe," and picks up the slack that Adams left with the unspectacular Book 3, "Life, The Universe And Everything." Adams revisits his clever, witty writing style from the first two books, with all of the jokes squarely hitting their targets, and his amusing love story for Arthur and Fenchurch is very nicely done as well (hey, it's about time Arthur got himself a woman!). Many great scenes throughout, such as Arthur's initial road-accident courtship of Fenchurch, the plight of Rob McKenna (who has rainclouds follow him everywhere he goes), Ford Prefect's attempt to pay for a gargantuan drinking bill on another planet with a credit card, Arthur & Fenchurch's flying escapade, their meeting with Wonko The Sane, Ford's drunken reunion with Arthur, the re-appearance of Marvin the android, and, of course, God's Final Message, which really does seem to put all of Arthur's misadventures throughout the galaxy in context in a single sentence.I have an old, leather-bound edition of the "Hitchhiker's" saga, printed in 1987, that only goes up through "So Long," with a forward by Adams in which he refers to "So Long" as the "last" book. I, personally, have chosen to honor Adams' original intentions, and simply refuse to read Book 5, "Mostly Harmless," ever again. In my opinion, "Mostly Harmless" is a hallucination, a hologram, a figment of everybody's imagination. It does not exist. For me, "So Long And Thanks For All The Fish" is the TRUE final "Hitchhiker's" book, a wonderfully funny & touching conclusion to the adventures of Arthur Dent & friends, as Douglas Adams originally intended it to be. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.

Don't let the ease of reading fool you--Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters..." Slaughterhouse-Five (taken from the name of the building where the POWs were held) is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the sameimagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy--and humor. ... Read more

Reviews (448)

A Wonderful Absurdity
This book is as fascinating as it is strange. It takes an important and normal concept like W.W.II, and through narration, repetition, and dark humor, turns it into a strong political statement before you realize what it is really saying.
Vonnegut writes this so that it is easy to read and it moves quickly. When he talks about violence or death, he points it out so blatantly and casually that it is disguised, and the reader quickly passes over it.
It is very serious and well thought out, despite its casual narration and humor. Kurt Vonnegut uses strange ideas like aliens to help paint a clear picture of the main character Billy Pilgrim's life, and provide a way to break up the war story and the horror of the Dresden bombing with other information.
The alien concept of time is also very interesting and provides something to think about for quite some time after reading the novel.

Logical and confused
When the movie based on the book was presented in Italian cinemas, I was in my pre-teens and, being it rated NC-14, all I was allowed to look at was its trailer. Even it, alone, left me a strange impression, as a result of an usual mix of war, science fiction and sex (very few, however, but then considered enough for rating). The book has been a full confirmation of that boyhood memory: strict language, dark humour, plenty of references (The Execution of Private Slovik is an interesting historical note), an underlying structure uncorrelated events are attached over, build up an environment logical and confused at the same time. All books by Vonnegut I have read so far are someway related to previous references or boyhood memories, so I sensed a hint of completion of old knowledge by their reading. So considering him as the best author in science fiction may be an exaggeration, but I am glad I have read this book now: I think I could have not appreciated the random jumps in the thread when I was used to the "fairy tale" SF.

Read it again
I know this novel fairly well having read it several times (once aloud to my students). It is about all time being always present if only we knew, or could realize it, or had a sense about time in the same way we have senses for light and sound.

It is also about the Allied fire bombings of Dresden which killed more people than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. (And so it goes.) Kurt Vonnegut begins as though writing a memoir and advises us that "All of this happened, more or less..." Of course it did not, and yet, as with all real fiction, it is psychologically true. His protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, an unlikely hero, somewhat in the manner of unlikely heroes to come like Forest Gump and the hero of Jerzy Kosinski's Being There, transcends time and space as he bumbles along. This is a comédie noire--a "black comedy"--not to be confused with "film noir," a cinematic genre in which the bad guys may win or at least they are made sympathetic. In comédie noire the events are horrific but the style is light-hearted. What the genres have in common is a non-heroic protagonist.

This is also a totally original work written in a most relaxing style that fuses the elements of science fiction with realism. It is easy to read (which is one of the reasons it can be found on the high school curriculum in our public schools). It is sharply satirical, lampooning not only our moral superiority, our egocentricity, but our limited understanding of time and space. And of course it is an anti-war novel in the tradition of All Quiet on the Western Front and Johnny Got His Gun.

Vonnegut's view of time in this novel is like the stratification of an upcropping of rock: time past and time present are there for us to see, but also there is time future. Billy Pilgrim learns from the Tralfamadorians (who kidnapped him in 1967) that we are actually timeless beings who experience what we call the past, present and future again and again. And so Billy goes back to the war and forward to his marriage, and to Tralfamadore again and again. He learns that the Tralfamadorians see the stars not as bright spots of light but as "rarefied, luminous spaghetti" and human beings as "great millepedes with babies' legs at one end and old people's legs at the other." So time is not a river, nor is it a snake with its tail in its mouth. It is omnipresent, yet some things occur before and some after, but always they occur again.

And so it goes.

What I admire most about this most admirable novel is how easily and naturally Vonnegut controls the narrative and how effortlessly seems its construction. It is almost as if Vonnegut sat down one day and let his thoughts wander, and when he was through, here is this novel.

In a sense, Vonnegut invented a new novelistic genre, combining fantasy with realism, touched by fictionalized memoir, penned in a comedic mode as horror is overtaken by a kind of fatalistic yet humorous view of life. Note here the appearance of Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut's alter-ego, the science fiction writer who is said to have invented Tralfamadore.

Bottom line: read this without preconceptions and read it without regard to the usual constraints. Just let it flow and accept it for what it is, a juxtaposition of several genres, a tale of fiction, that--as fiction should--transcends time and space.

Great Satire, Sad Implications
This book though one of the less artistic from Vonnegut, it however, is one of the most poignant. The great adventure of a WWII veteran seeking both a story to tell in his book and a rationale for all the people who died there. "So it goes." Vonnegut takes us in the psyche of many a soldier who served in that fateful war. His characters are so human and realistic that it is not hard to get involved with the story. The author, since he found wars to be utterly and shamelessly stupid and pointless, found a rationale and consolation in an explanation given to one of the character in a planet millions of light-years away. Among other things, Vonnegut shows us how time travel is already possible and we all can achieve it by just thinking about it.
This books is a great satire and quite funny at times. What forbids it from being funnier is the fact that the subject matter is indeed very serious and depressing. A must for modern meta-fiction readers.

Poo-tee-weet
That the victims of the Dresden firebombing were, by and large, innocent
bystanders caught in the cogs of a grisly machine called 'war' is irrefutable.
That a man named Kurt Vonnegut was there, witnessed it from the ground-level
(and below), and carried the psychological burden of it around with him for
years is obvious. That he was able to write such a brilliant book on such a
dark subject is, quite frankly, amazing.

On the surface, 'Slaughterhouse-Five' deals with the trials and tribulations of
one Billy Pilgrim, ophthalmologist and erstwhile WWII chaplain's assistant,
whose life is apparently filled with more death and destruction than his mind
has the capacity for. At least, that's what his daughter thinks when Billy
starts behaving erratically. Little does she know that he has become unstuck
in time, experiencing his life in a random, non-linear fashion forever. Since
Billy has no way of knowing what will come next, all he can do is enjoy the
good moments when they come, and deal with the bad as best he can.
Who can make sense of a life like that?

And in a larger sense Mr. Vonnegut asks us, who can make sense of a world where
people blow each other to bits for arbitrary reasons? What is there to say?
It really is for the birds: poo-tee-weet.

Truly a masterpiece of 20th-century literature. Should be required reading for
every high-school student. ... Read more

Book Description

The next-to-last novel in Stephen King's seven-volume magnum opus, Song of Susannah is a fascinating key to the unfolding mystery of the Dark Tower.

To give birth to her "chap," demon-mother Mia has usurped the body of Susannah Dean and used the power of Black Thirteen to transport to New York City in the summer of 1999. The city is strange to Susannah...and terrifying to the "daughter of none" who shares her body and mind.

Saving the Tower depends not only on rescuing Susannah but also on securing the vacant lot Calvin Tower owns before he loses it to the Sombra Corporation. Enlisting the aid of Manni senders, the remaining ka-tet climbs to the Doorway Cave...and discovers that magic has its own mind. It falls to the boy, the billy bumbler, and the fallen priest to find Susannah-Mia, who in a struggle to cope -- with each other and with an alien environment -- "go todash" to Castle Discordia on the border of End-World. In that forsaken place, Mia reveals her origins, her purpose, and her fierce desire to mother whatever creature the two of them have carried to term.

Eddie and Roland, meanwhile, tumble into western Maine in the summer of 1977, a world that should be idyllic but isn't. For one thing, it is real, and the bullets are flying. For another, it is inhabited by the author of a novel called Salem's Lot, a writer who turns out to be as shocked by them as they are by him. ... Read more

Reviews (194)

Dark Tower VI - The best thus far?
I never thought I'd say I loved a book more than I love The Drawing of The Three. Even as I read the second installment of the still-forming Dark Tower story, I knew I was in love and that no other story (or piece of a story, as the case may be) would ever come close. However, I'm glad to say that I have proven myself wrong. Song of Susannah excels in doing what all the DT books have done so far: giving us great action, making us jump out of our seats, creating a rich backstory, and of course, it will make you turn the pages faster than you thought was possible. Without getting into spoiler material, DT6 clears up a lot of what happened in Wolves. Susannah's bond with Mia is explained, as are some of the Crimson King's desires. Some readers were scared that the story was getting too schticky when Roland and Crew discovered that Callahan and the events in 'Salems Lot were apparently works of fiction from a writer named Stephen King. Rest assured, this issue is dealt with in a decidely appropriate manner. Also, there's always the question of the rose. I won't say much, but the rose is handled. In true Dark Tower fashion, the book ends with multiple cliffhangers, but I think they're definitely better than the excrutiating ending of The Waste Lands. I'm sure it sounds like I've ne'er seen the book, much less read it, but I'm being vague as to not give too much away. Trust me, when you read this you'll love all of the "Holy Crap!" moments. It seems as if each chapter (stanza) is packed with them. All in all, I'd rate it as my favorite thus far, and I am officially a slave to King until the final installment hits the shelves. Hopefully the next few months pass without incident, say thankya.

Fast moving story with some scary ideas.
Sometimes it's hard for me, being the only person in my group of friends to be a true DT junkie, not having anyone I can truly discuss the books with. However, "Song of Susannah" is one of those novels where a person doesn't exactly have to be a fan to talk about some of the ideas it conveys. Duty, personal responsibility, sacrifice, theories of existence, coming-of-age, the bold (and somewhat unnerving) idea of God as being just some sort of middle-man for an even greater force... all of these things are qualified fodder for any snooty literary chat circle.

Of course, as a novel on its own, "Song of Susannah" seems more like just an appetizer to that bad boy that some Tower fans have been waiting over two decades for, Volume 7 of the series, "The Dark Tower". It is incredibly fast-paced (a welcome return to the hectic action of "Drawing of the Three" and "The Waste Lands"), and it manages to get across a hell of a lot of necessary info, in a bit over 400 pages. All that, plus even more character development and some nasty surprises. For one, the business with the chap and its parentage? Threw me for a loop.

It is true that the style of these last two novels seems to differ a bit from the first four. It's hard to describe, more a feeling than anything else, but it feels like some kind of magic has been lost. Mr. King said in his Amazon interview (short but kinda interesting) that he felt the need to finish the series, but it seems to me he could have waited just a bit longer. With the other novels, there was like a little hibernation period in between each one. It always felt like a long wait between stories, but I can't say I was ever disappointed when the novels DID come. Now, it almost feels like Mr. King jumped the gun on his "muse", or whatever you want to call it... the latest novels are very well-written in a workmanlike sort of way, but that true EPIC feeling, prevalent in the first 4 books, only makes a half-hearted appearance.

One surefire thing about "Song of Susannah"? It will you make wish the summer was only a few days long so you can get right to September, the release month for DT7 (!!!).

P.S. If you're an impatient reader like me and you want to look for any possible clues as to how to the series might end (of course I'm not guaranteeing anything), you might try looking out for a copy of "Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came", which I recently read the whole way through for the first time. As I've read through the series again in anticipation of the final book, I've noticed a load of parallels to the poem that I had never picked up on before reading Browning's work. If you can get past the poetic language and Victorian English (I had a tough time at first), it's really beautiful, with an aptly bittersweet ending.

Approaching the Big Bang...
...and I don't mean Creation, either.

Song of Susannah contains more action and fast-paced material than any of the previous DT books, even Drawing of the Three, but at the same time it seems to move in slow-mo, and for good reason: This book takes place primarily in one day, and King goes into tremendous detail on the sequence of events leading up to the end of this epic. Would we have it any other way?

I got the feeling while reading this book (and accurately so, I have little doubt) that it is simply the first chapter of the very last Dark Tower book. That is to say, the last two books were originally written at pretty much the same time, as one, and King later separated them into two, for reasons of his own (probably for marketing and profit reasons, sure, but it also makes one hell of a cliffhanger!). The most recent example I can recall of this having been done was with the last two Matrix films (please forgive the reference).

I scoffed at first when King brought himself into the story, and regarded it as a plot-thinner, rather than just the opposite. However, I feel that this must be a vital part of the entire series, that is essential to reach the conclusion King is going for, and has been going for all along, otherwise why would he dare?? I wouldn't say King is modest about his talents as a writer, really, but I don't think he's a fool either. I applaud his courage to venture into such an unusual realm, and sincerely hope he makes it worth our while and patience.

There is a lot in this book that King answers ("What's going on inside Susannah?" being the main issue) and leaves unanswered (read the book for yourself to witness its monster ending!). I have found some of the turns he's made very curious, but not enough to decide whether they were or weren't good ideas. Like I said before, I think this book is simply a necessary prologue to the last book, and shouldn't be judged as a novel in itself (i.e. Don't expect to be satisfied!).

Right now I am going on faith in his imagination, just as I have through this entire series, and enjoying the ride.

As they say, it ain't over 'til it's over. So, for your father's sake, wait until the man finishes the story!

Underrated
I don't see how anyone could have given this a zero. The entire thing was very well written, and my only complaint with this book is that it is too short, but even that isn't really a problem because the next one is coming out so soon. So far, it seems like all the peole badmouthing it said they hated that Steven King brought himself into the series. I guess it might have been better if he hadn't, but he did it pretty well, it's not like he just popped up and said"Hi I'm Steven King, and I am your God" the way some people have made it sound. Instead he slowly tied himself in to explain many of the things from the Dark Tower 5 and 6. Even if you still can't stand that he was in it, he was only in it for about thrity pages(not counting the author's journal at the end) and (warning:spoiler) he killed himself off in the journal anyway so he can't be in the next one.

Excellent
Fortunately I bought this book (and read it) before reading the reviews. While I was expecting some controversy regarding the fact that King writes himself into the novel, the extremely hostile reaction of so many surprised me. I was shocked when I read where King comes into the book, but it doesn't seem to be an ego-trip or anything of the sort. For one thing, King doesn't portray himself as a very likable guy. Not the sort of thing you write if you're on an ego-trip. Most importantly, the inclusion of his character seems almost inevetible. After reading it, it seems the only explanation that makes sense. It's the final piece to the puzzle.

I've been reading DT since the beginning, and for me this was the best of the series. The most disappointing aspect of it is seeing so many negative responses. This probably wouldn't be the case if King wasn't in the novel. I wish that others could enjoy it as much as I did.

The book has *extreme* suspense that builds throughout. It leaves you at a climax (somewhat like Waste Lands - but not quite THAT much of cliffhanger). Fortunately I won't have to wait long for VII. Mentioning Waste Lands reminds me of the controversial ending of that one. So many people made similar comments about it (how it trashed the series) then and now seem to view it as 'the high point. ... Read more

Amazon.com

In a Sin City short story, "The Babe Wore Red," Frank Miller deviated from his stark black-and-white artwork by adding tiny bits of color throughout the story. The girl's dress was red, her lips were red--you get the picture. In That Yellow Bastard, the fourth Sin City graphic novel, Miller's experiment with yellow ink is also a tremendous success.The setup is simple. On the last day before he retires, Hartigan, an old cop, gets a call about an 11-year-old girl who has been kidnapped by a lunatic.Hartigan has got just one more thing to do before he retires: save the girl. Saving her is the easy part, because Hartigan has uncovered something really bad that is not going to stop until it catches up with him.That Yellow Bastard is nerve-racking to the very end. ... Read more

Reviews (19)

THAT YELLOW BASTARD!
The story starts with Hartigan, who is a 60 year old cop with a heart condition during his last day before his retirement. Not more than an hour before he's ready to leave he gets a call about an eleven year old girl whos been kidnapped. The girl is Nancy Callahan, the kidnapper is senator Roark's son. Hartigan risks his life to save her before she's raped and killed. When he shoots Junior and saves the girl all hell breaks lose. He is held captive by Junior's father and is beaten for eight years. And framed by senator roark for raping Nancy. Junior Roark undergoes a surgory because of Harigan shooting him. The surgeory ends up turning him all yellow. Hartigan gets out of captivity and uknowingly leads yellow bastard right to Nancy. This story will definately keep you reading all the way to the tragic ending. yellow bastard is by far the most disgusting character creating by Miller. He's a pervert child rapist who gets turned on by listening to women screaming in pain. This is definatetly innapropriate for younger kids, but if your older you'll love it.

A classic in its own right
To be frank (ha ha), I haven't seen another Greek tragedy realized in the noir genre as well since "Taxi Driver". "That Yellow Bastard" just nails it, thanks to Frank Miller, who I consider not only a legend in the comics industry, but in the literary mainstream as well. He is a Grade-A knock-you-on-your-ass storyteller and artist, plain and simple. This is not an introspective tale, and it will not make you feel warm and good inside, but then again neither do all the other Sin City yarns. This is probably more tragic than "The Hard Goodbye" in an emotional aspect, because even though Marv was a tough-as-nails, morally-confused man, whom everybody wanted dead in the first place, Sin City beat Hartigan down harder in every which way. His life is torn to shreds when he fights a war against corruption that he couldn't win in the first place. In my eyes, the downward spiral for Hartigan is as enduring as "Hamlet" or say "Romeo and Juliet", since Hartigan has this unshakable bond with a girl he saved 8 years prior, but in the end, any chance of happiness he could share with Nancy Callahan ultimately falls apart and trust me, if the last three or so pages doesn't kick you in the gut, nothing else will. I sincerely hope that this will be remembered in the far future as a great piece of storytelling. Raymond Chandler and Sam Spade would be proud.

The Best Sin City Book
"That Yellow Bastard" is Miller's best work on the Sin City series."A Dame to Kill For" is a close second.The movie has helped to make these books more widely available.A year ago, this was a tough book to find.

There are a bunch of Sin City books out there that are collections of short stories. I prefer the longer stories, so they feel more like a book than a comic. If you feel the same way, order the titles I mentioned above, and also pick up "The Big Fat Kill."

"That Yellow Bastard" is represented in the movie with the Bruce Willis/Jessica Alba parts, mostly in the final third of the movie.

I was riveted for the whole book, couldn't put it down.Buy it!

BOOM!
This is the fourth graphic novel in Frank Miller's Sin City series.John Hartigan is one of the few honest cops in Sin City, and it's his last day on the job before he retires.He saves a little girl from a rapist/child killer, but the murderer has a big shot politician father.Hartigan's life goes to Hell afterwards, and that's all I will say about the plot.This is another awesome black and white "noir" comic by Miller (with yellow used to color "That Yellow Bastard").Just a great example of graphic storytelling.This is one of the stories being adapted in the upcoming Sin City motion picture.Here is a list of who plays the characters from this book:

John Hartigan - Bruce Willis
Nancy Callahan - Jessica Alba
Junior - Nick Stahl
Bob - Michael Madsen
Lucille - Carla Gugino

"I take his weapons away from him...both of them"
What makes Frank Miller tick?What drives one of the most renowned writers in comic history to write the kind of character driven, gritty and hard edged stories he is famous for?Who knows, but from his early work on Daredevil to his groundbreaking Dark Knight Returns story, the man has proven he is a master writer.His Sin City stories for Dark Horse are no exception, and That Yellow Bastard is without a doubt the best Sin City yarn Miller has ever penned.John Hartigan is an old cop on the verge of retirement, and on his last day on the job, he responds to a kidnapping call.What results is a showdown with a deranged psychopath in order to save a young girl named Nancy, but regular Sin City readers know that in this city, things don't always work out for the best.By the time That Yellow Bastard reaches it's climax, you'll be left in awe at one of the absolute greatest comics ever created.Miller's art is about what you might expect: unpleasent, gritty, and well suited to the story.Not to mention, you'll never look at the color yellow the same way again.That Yellow Bastard is devestatingly surreal and brutal at the same time, and if you've never read any of Miller's Sin City works, now has never been a better time to dive in, and with the upcoming movie coming out, you might want to check this out first. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Because of a shocking ending to the first Sin City book, many people wondered how successful Frank Miller could be with future tales of his no-holds-barred city noir. Enter Dwight McCarthy, a clean-living photographer who tries to avoid trouble because he knows what he's capable of. His tactics don't do him much good when a girl from his past (who he can't say no to) shows up and professes her love for him. When he finds out she's in way over her head, it looks as though trouble has found him. What's going to happen? You guessed it: people get hurt. ... Read more

Reviews (24)

Sin city is so cool
I really liked Marv in Book 1 and in the movie.Marv was my favorite movie story.I was really sad to see him die in the first book.

But, this book is really cool, because it takes place about the same time as Book 1, chronologically, and Marv is in this story a lot.This story is the first story with Dwight in it, back before he got his facelift.

I was also relieved that they didn't cherry pick the best story lines for Sin City 1, the movie.This story is every bit as well written as the other stories.

There's a lot more nudity in this book than the first one, and the book is printed entirely in black and white.

Better have tough innards
After the horrific ending in Sin City 1, I wasn't sure I could handle another in the series. Enter Sin City 2, "A Dame to Kill For," and photographer Dwight McCarthy. Not the coolest guy in the world, but, then I guess it fits the genre. His life is ugly and boring. He'd like to make some changes, but then Ava returns from his past. Sleazy Dwight falls hard, again, and the result is violent, sadistic and infatuating.

Don't know how many of these I can take, but I am hooked on the visual, comic book imagery Miller creates. I'd definitely not recommend this book for teenagers (my 13-year-old is my sample) or for the faint-of-heart.

The story of how Dwight ended up with a new mug in Sin City
"A Dame to Kill For," which is Book 2 in Frank Miller's "Sin City" series, is now going to be known as the only one of the first four books that was not part of the "Sin City" movie.Given the options it was a smart move because this one tells the story of what happened that made Dwight get a new mug and "The Big Fat Kill" is the better tale of the two if you are going to do one Dwight story and if you want to do a story in two parts "That Yellow Bastard" is a better choice as well.

Dwight is reduced by circumstances, most notably an attempt to stay sober, to spying on men cheating on their wives with prostitutes so that he can take their photographs.What he desperately wants is one clear chance to wipe the slate clean and get his life together.Four years earlier Ava left Dwight for another man and he knows that seeing her again is nothing but bad news above the fold even without the banner headline.He should just kill her or at least walk away, but when she begs him for help none of the cold harsh realities of what she has done and what sort of woman she really is matters to Dwight.He is going to need all the help he can get to deal with Ava, because being sober is not making Dwight smart enough to avoid making one big mistake.

In terms of the "Sin City" chronology, "A Dame to Kill For" comes before "The Hard Goodbye."We know because Marv is not only in the bar where Nancy is dancing as Dwight comes by for a visit, he helps his pal out when the hero of this story finds the man mountain named Manute to be insurmountable.This ends up working against this story in a couple of ways.You had to agree that it is hard to think of Marv as just a sidekick given how strong of a character that he is, and the fact that Dwight cannot handle Manute makes him a lesser hero.After all, it is Marv who labels Ava with the titular appellation.I knew that he was going to get his act together in the end, given what happens in the next book, but for most of this one Dwight is getting beat up, thrown through a window, and shot a whole bunch of times.Clearly Miller is making a point about the healing power of a burning desire for revenge

Overall, the black & white artwork (or, I should say, white on black artwork) is less experimental in Book 2 and if anything looks like it was drawn with white ink on black paper rather than the other way around.For me the sequence that stands out is in Chapter 2 when Dwight heads to a bar to meet with Ava and all of the panels have smoke drifting through them, although some of Miller's panels where the blinds on the windows make for alternative parallel lines of light and darkness are interesting (there are others that are just overkill).For the most part Miller is laying out the story so that it looks more like a conventional comic book than Book 1, so there is not the sense of boldness from before.But then the story is less ambitious as Dwight comes across as just another guy who made the mistake of thinking with some other part of his anatomy besides what is between his ears.

In 1995 "A Dame to Kill For" won Will Eisner's Best Limited Series Award so it is not like it is a book to skip.If you make it to Book 2 in the "Sin City" series you should be in for the long haul and more of those hot nights, dry and windless, that are the kind that make people do sweaty, secret things.

May not be the best in the series but is still very good
I definately thought the hard goodbye was great, but a dame to kill for wasn't the best. The story is about a guy named Dwight who is trying to forget his past. Until he meets Ava again, she is an old girlfriend who left him for a richer man. This is where the story got a little too mushy. Dwight starts loving her again and starts trying to save her when she tells him her husbands abusive gaurd named Manute beats her and tortures her. You'll find Marv is also in this story because this story takes place before and during the hard goodbye. Although this book does have a very good twist to it i just wasn't interested in Dwight's love life. it is still a good book though.

Love and death and grey all over...
Sin City may be black ink on white paper, but it's nothing without the grey. The characters in this book are grey--all over.

A Dame to Kill For is the story of Dwight. Dwight is a good guy with 2 bad habits--booze & broads. But he's sober now. He's taking great pictures of husbands doing nasty things to women who aren't their wives in order to make a living as a private-eye. Dwight is damaged, but on the mend--until Ava shows up. Then it all gets messy. Really messy.

This is the 2nd tale of Sin City and about mid-way through the story Marv, the star of the first book, makes a guest appearance. This book stands completely on its own from book 1 (The Hard Goodbye). However, Marv's story in The Hard Goodbye begins to intertwine with Dwight's and Miller throws in a few cameos for those who read The Hard Goodbye.

This is probably my favorite Sin City yarn. I love them all, but in my opinion creator Frank Miller found his stride in book 1 then ran with it in spades with this book.

And for those folks delving into the world of Sin City because of the 2005 film, this book will be a special treat cuz it's the prequel to Dwight's story in The Big Fat Kill, in which Clive Owen, Michael Clarke Duncan & Rosario Dawson starred in the 2005 film.Do yourself a favor and throw down the cash for this book now. Trust me, $12 is peanuts for the all entertainment packed in these pages. ... Read more

Amazon.com

With The Big Fat Kill Frank Miller is at it again with another comics packed with guns, lovers, losers, and surprises. In Sin City's Old Town, the prostitutes run the show. "The cops stay out.That leaves the girls free to keep the pimps and the mob out." Sounds like an OK place, right? It is until a pushy, loud-mouthed guy who has had one too many drinks comes into Old Town and gets himself killed by the ladies. When they find out who he is, they realize that "it'll be war. The streets will run red with blood. Women's blood." ... Read more

Reviews (15)

The Dwight story from the movie
Frank Miller has done such an excellent job with each of his books.I'm reading all of the Sin City books, and I just finished this one.

I'm totally amazed at how closely the movie follows the book, and yet there were subtle differences that make the movie better, and the book more interesting to read.For example, this book references a few things from earlier books, and those references didn't make it into the movie.

The artwork in this is incredible.The story is incredible.

This book, and the other two books have been entirely black and white, except for the pictures of the comic covers in the first few pages, which really doens't count.

I recommend this book to everyone, except those who are turned off by blatant violence, nudity, and language.

ANOTHER GREAT, BLOODY, BRUTAL, GORY TALE FROM SIN CITY
So far this is one of my favorite sin city books. The story starts off at Dwights girlfriend Shellie's house. Jackie Boy (who is Shellie's previous lover) is outside her door and wont leave her alone and insists he comes in. So he comes in drunk with some friends. Dwight is at her house and is waiting for Jack in the bathroom. Jack hits Shellie and Dwight roughs him up a little bit and scares them off. Jack and his friends drive off to old town with Dwight following them. The girls of old town then gruesomely kill jack and his friends. They then find out something about jack that makes them wish they never killed him. From then on it turns into a bloodbath of revenge and murder as Dwight and the girls do there best to keep all of sin city from crashing down on them. This is a very well written and illustrated story. But keep the young kids away.

Dwight has to help out the ladies of Old Town with a problem
"The Big Fat Kill," Book 3 of Frank Miller's "Sin City" graphic novels once again focuses on the character of Dwight, who got himself a new face and a new attitude in the previous story, "A Dame to Kill For."The latter was the more important part, because Dwight did not come across as being anyway as interesting as Marv, the hero of the first "Sin City" story who is back to lend Dwight a helping hand in the second.Dwight is not exactly alone this time either, but he is certainly more capable of holding his own than previously.

Dwight is spending some time with Shellie the waitress when Jackie Boy shows up with a mean drunk and four of his friends.The old Dwight would have had some problems with that situation, but our hero has definitely grown up.Getting Jackie Boy to leave Shellie alone should be the end of it, but Dwight is convinced that the night will not end until Jackie Boy hurts somebody and Dwight takes the responsibility for making sure that does not happen.But when Jackie Boy ends up to Old Town where the ladies ply their trade of prostitution and are the law, "beautiful and merciless," it looks like Dwight's help is not need at all.This, however, turns out to be the biggest mistake of the night and suddenly Dwight's services are most decidedly needed.

It will seem strange to pick out this particular "Sin City" story and say it is a bit over the top, since obviously all of them are.The ending is certainly brutally efficient but at the cost of any notion of elegance, which is usually preferred in a comic noir story such as this.Miller is certainly not experimenting as much in terms of his artwork as he was in the first novel in the series, but the rough way in which Dwight and Jackie Boy's faces are drawn is not to my liking.The full-page panels in this one have Miller's best artwork.This includes Dwight introducing Jackie Boy to the toilet, Dwight jumping into his car, and some of the ladies of Old Town.Still, all things considered, this ends up being a second tier Miller story and Dwight is still a second tier hero, still well worth the reading but not as good as it gets in "Sin City."

This trade paperback collects together the five issues of the original Dark Horse comic series, along with their covers (which actually introduce some color to Miller's artwork).In the back of the book you will find a Gallery of "Sin City" art contributed by the likes of Arthur Adams, Sergio Aragones, Joe Kumbert, Mike Mignola, John Romita, Walter Simonson, and some other artists who present their interpretations of Nancy Callahan, the ladies of Old Town, and other "Sin City" characters.

The Big Fat Cool
After getting this yesterday (...), I began to read with extremely high hopes. Those hopes were met. The action from the Sin City film was delivered.

(...)

Five out of five.

Nice art, good story, great dialogue, and a nice noir feeling to it. Recommended to fans of the flick, even though they're getting basically the same thing.

Frank Miller hits his stride with this one
"The Big Fat Kill" is a fantastic tale, told in a classic "noir" style with the modern touch of Frank Miller.

My favorite character is a supporting one, Miho, a Crouching-Tiger-style martial arts expert.The main story is about Dwight and... well, I won't ruin the book by giving away the whole story.Just buy it, you won't be sorry.

"Dame to Kill For," and "That Yellow Bastard" are also excellent."The Hard Goodbye" was a little gory for my taste, so if ultra-violence isn't your bag, you could skip that one (it's a "stand-alone" story anyway).

"The Big Fat Kill" is represented in the movie with the Clive Owen/Rosario Dawson parts, about the middle third of the film.

This is one great book! ... Read more