Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy (Book)

Once upon a time there was a book called Douglas Adams written by a guy called Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy. Lots of SCI-FI fanatics loved this book. It was later turned into a movie that was kind of random, nonsensical, not very funny, and pointless.

But this is a review of the book, not the movie.

HHGTtG (hooray acronyms) is meant to be read as a comedy book. And as such, it lacks any real form of plot such as the kind you would find in any Star Trek or Star Wars movie. For that matter anyway, the book also lacks any real conflict, tension, or suspense, and the plot is basically pointless until the last quarter when there is a small revelation that puts the whole sequence of events into perspective but then the book just quickly ends. If the book didn't have that revelation, the whole story would basically be, 'earth man gets world destroyed --> hops on a ship of random alien men --> they frolic around the galaxy for no apparent reason --> the end.' Actually, that's pretty much the entire story, in both the book and the movie, minus the plot revelation.

Since there's no real conflict in the story, the movie tried to fix that by adding in a whole subplot where the crew go save one of their fellow kidnapped crew members from ugly aliens on an enemy world. This didn't really save the movie, but just turned out to be a pointless attempt to add a plot to a comedy story that didn't have one.

Speaking of which, the comedy in the book falls under two categories: narrator comedy, where the author goes off into whimsical facts about this odd universe where everything is so ironic, or, situation comedy, where strange things happen to the characters or they make jokes and have quirky mannerisms.
Narrator comedy works fairly well, but to me, it easily seems to fall under the pretentious category and as such, I can't enjoy it as much while the author blabbles off about space ships and galactic wars about a misunderstood transmission from a planet never yet discovered.
The situation comedy works better for me, but most often times the characters seem to fail to be characters just to create these oddly comical scenes for the narrator.

In the end however, I would recommend the book, as it does have its truly funny laugh-out-loud moments, but as a coherent story, there's not much substance here.
Final Score: 8.1/10

Short Stories of Isaac Asimov

(The guy who made the book called "I robot" which was turned into a less-than-deep science fiction movie)

The Last Question
Two scientists ask the megalopolis-sized computer named Multivac the most important question of all time: 'Can entropy ever be reversed?', that is, can we ever stop the universe from dying down and ending all life as we know it? Millions of years pass while humanity sprawls across the known universe, yet Multivac still cannot answer this question. The scientists of each generation become increasingly worried by the prospect that the trillion/zillions of humans will eventually die if we don't answer this question. Can they find an answer?
Worth Reading? Yes.

Jokester
This story also contains Multivac, but it really has nothing to do with the other story. In this story, a scientist loves to tell jokes, because that's the only way he finds himself socially acceptable among his peers. When doing this, he becomes interested in the nature of humor and all jokes since the dawn of time. It is through this that he realizes that he has never heard anyone create a genuinely unique joke. All the jokes people come up with are either bad puns or retellings of old jokes in new settings. He asks Multivac who made up the original jokes, that is, where did the first jokes come from? Once again, you have to read it to find the answer out.
Worth Reading? Probably.

Nightfall
In a world where there is no night, humans on a planet orbited by five suns finally come to a technological advance in astronomy to predict a day where all five suns will finally be eclipsed by a moon that was never previously visible during the day. During this day, mythical objects called 'stars' are prophesied to appear which will steal the souls of all men and cause civilization to become mad. Since nobody has ever seen a star, and night has never fallen on this planet in over two millenniums, most of the citizens are skeptical. So, the entire story revolves around the final sunset of the last sun to see if there really is such a thing as total darkness, and if these stars truly exist.
Worth Reading? Yes, probably.

The Ugly Little Boy
In the near future on Earth, a special company develops the power to create bubbles in time in which they may extract certain objects, items, or people out of different eras and bring them back to the current time in an enclosed environment. However, if the object attempts to leave its special bubble it is enclosed in, this may cause a massive power fluctuation which could knock out the power for miles around.
After the company successfully retrieves inanimate objects from past eras, they proceed to extract a three year old Neanderthal boy from the past and keep him in the present. It works, and they assign a young nurse to take care of him. She teaches him how to behave and slowly shapes him into a boy of society.
Trouble comes however when the company needs new space for new acquisitions (such as a knight from the crusades!), so they announce to the nurse that the boy must be sent back. She protests and things get woeful.
Worth Reading? The ending is predictable.

I Am Legend (Book)

I Am Legend is a compelling novel to me for two reasons: it is the story of one man's struggle to live in isolation with no hope, and it is the exploration of a dangerous and interesting world where vampires rule the night and whatever is left of humanity rules the day.

The world created in I Am Legend is thoroughly explored throughout the book. The main character must hide in his house (in a suburb of Los Angeles) by night, and by day he must go out and kill the vampires to dwindle their numbers--for they have no power during the day and try to hide--while also building up his own supplies and fortifying his position. The book chronicles these events and the effects they have on the main character, turning his life into a monotonous chore with seemingly no end and no hope in sight.
An interesting thing to note about the story is that it is by no true means a supernatural one. The main character is just as incredulous about his situation as the reader, and his search to find logical and scientific rules for why the 'vampires' act as they do is very interesting to see unfold. By the time it's over, an extremely convincing scientific case of why vampires behave as they do is presented.

As stated earlier, the second main conflict in this book is that of the main character's conflict with himself. He is essentially the last man alive on Earth for one reason or another and spends the remainder of his days in depression, uncertainty, and alcoholism. When hope finally comes to him in one form or another, it is moving for the both the character and the reader.

To get into the plot any more would be to spoil it, something which I have already done to a lesser extent, so I won't say any more. Also, this is a short book weighing in at about 170 pages, so that is a huge plus in my book.

I Am Legend
8.9/10

A Scanner Darkly (BOOK)

A Scanner Darkly is a SCI-FI novel written by Philip K. Dick, who has established himself as a renowned sci-fi author along with others such as Isaac Asimov.

The plot goes something like this: Fred is an undercover agent who is trying to find the source of an illegal drug called Substance D. Bob Arctor is a Substance D addict, but he is really Fred undercover. However, it gets confusing as a story since you don't really know when Fred knows he's Bob Arctor, or when Bob Arctor knows he is Fred. It appears that he knows his double role at the beginning of the story, but by the end it is finally made apparent that Fred doesn't know he was Bob Arctor at all. This is due to Substance D splitting the brain into two distinct entities.

The plot progression, if there's any, is almost non-existent. The whole story is basically four druggies talking nonsense and driving around Southern California being spaced out. There are a couple of memorable scenes, but other than that, it's hard to find a real plot.

The ending was good, although I expected it right before it happened.

Overall, it's a decent book, but I found it hard what to figure out what point of view the author was trying to give the reader. It's hard to understand the situation when you don't know the characters' identities.

Worth Reading? You can skip it.