The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Publisher: Random House (2005)

Narrated by Stephen Fry

Blurb from Amazon.com: Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!

I read this for the first time perhaps 15-18 years ago. It was good to pick it up again, and extra good as an audiobook. Douglas Adams filled this book to the brim with quirky British humor that had me snort laughing in the car on my commute to work. Have no fear; I did not inflict my snort laughter upon anyone else as I am a single-occupant vehicle most of the time.

Ford Prefect takes his buddy off-planet (by hitchhiking) just seconds before the planet is destroyed. They eventually end up on the stolen ship, The Heart of Gold, which is a super-duper, brand plastic-smell vehicle which includes the stunning feature of the improbability machine. President Zaphod purloined this ship in order to find the mythical planet of Magrathea. Now keep in mind that Zaphod recently had an extra head added, and therefore, might not be in the best frame of mind.

The unseen, often rumored about, Magrathea is the home of the Planet Builders. Yep, pre-order now your perfect vacation planet. These guys were pretty snazzy when they were active, with glossy pamphlets and everything. Imagine our heroes' shock when they actually find this planet. Only to ambushed by the mice.

Yep, mice have been using Planet Earth as one gigantic experiment to find the right question to the answer 42. It sounds quite silly until you read the book, which is very well laid out. If you saw the latest movie version, I believe it went beyond the first book. But I could totally picture Mos Def as Ford Prefect the entire time listening to this audiobook.

Stephen Fry was the narrator for the latest movie as well as this audiobook. He has the perfect voice for this. He performed the dry, snarky British humor without flaw. His rendition of the Volgon poetry reading had me laughing out loud.

Pluses: Lots of British humor, concise story, a whale, the Babel fish, practicality of towels.

Minuses: Lots of British humor, only a single female character, Trillian, (unless you count the bowl of petunias, the ship's female personality, or the brief appearance of 500 naked female skydivers).

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley

A woman wakes up in another woman's body. Oh, and she has amazing superpowers. Awesomeness ensues.

Publisher:Little, Brown and Company

Date: January 11, 2012

Blurb (From Rookfiles.com):

“The body you are wearing used to be mine.” So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her.
She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Checquy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.
In her quest to uncover which member of the Checquy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined.


The Rook is told through two different peoples' eyes, Myfawny (sounds like Tiffany) Thomas, and Myfawny Thomas. Sounds crazy? Well, the main part of the story comes from New Myfawny Thomas, the person in the body during our opening scene in the rain with the weirdos with latex gloves. The rest of the story comes in the form of letters and entries in a large binder by Old Myfawny Thomas, Rook of the Checquy, a seemingly mousy and somewhat pathetic paper-pusher.

The very first thing I want to comment on is how well I felt the female characters were done. I don't always pay attention to this in books, but I came away impressed with what I thought were well-written females. They weren't men with breasts. They also weren't all emotional wrecks or nagging housewives or Martha Stewarts (the baking kind, not the insider trading kind). Good work, Daniel! Now, with that out of the way, let's move on to some of the things that might cause readers trouble in this novel.

I enjoyed the letter portions of the story immensely, as that's something that I really like to see in novels. It was also a clever way for O'Malley to work his way around that old "show, don't tell" chestnut. But for some, these letters might be overlong and not give enough to the current plot to keep the reader interested. The only time I had a problem with any of the journal entries were when the came directly after a cliffhanger in the current plot.

As far as the excellent background O'Malley gives us in these letters is concerned, I was left feeling like it was a necessary evil. While this story does start our character out in a place of weakness (loss of memory, under attack) it doesn't start her out low on the food chain. Instead, The Rook starts the main character off in a very high position of authority, scrambling to get her legs under her and figure out what's going on. The letters are the only way this character could possibly impersonate Old Myfawny. Thus, necessary evil. For some readers, though, it might make the novel drag just enough to make it feel too long. On my Kindle, it shows that The Rook is roughly the same size as The Lies of Locke Lamora, while other one-lead urban fantasies are about 75% of that. For me, the letters added a lot of color to the story, and explained why other people didn't immediately realize she had lost all her memories, but your mileage may vary.

The characters of The Rook were very well done. Everyone that shows up in The Rook feels real, living and breathing. Even those characters that died during some of the action scenes were people we had developed some sort of connection with. No Red Shirts in The Rook, and that's a very good thing.

I was very impressed with the ending of the book. O'Malley finished The Rook in a way that was very comfortable, and will not lead to massive fanboy ranting for a sequel. But rest assured that there's plenty of stuff going on at the end of the book that warrants one. The ending was sharp, enjoyable, and fulfilling, like a wheel of cheese.

I loved:

• The letters between Myfawnys. But this could go in the other column for many people.
• The superpowers. We've got 4 bodies with one mind, a crazy flexible dude, a human squid and much much more.
• Female characters that aren't just men with breasts.

I hated:

• The length. It was sort of necessary for all the worldbuilding he did, but it felt just a tad too long.

The Rook gets 8.75/10.  If you enjoy Larry Correia or Myke Cole, this is the slower, more British version of those, and it's great. There's plenty to enjoy here, and I suggest you go out and enjoy it very soon.