Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 24 - Writing About The Future And For The Future by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World

Part 24

Writing About The Future And For The Future

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

The Index to previous posts in this series can be found at

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/index-to-marketing-fiction-in-changing.html

Recently, I was told by a contact on Facebook who was systematically reading through my Star Trek fanfic series, Kraith
http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/
that Star Trek should have picked up my vision of Vulcan Culture when they came to "reveal" the world where Spock grew up.  I've been told that before, but this was a new reader currently living in the modern context.

Meanwhile, I followed the political developments as the Republicans won and the Democrats lost, not just the Presidency but in States and local contests up and down the ticket.

Officially, publicly, the professional politicians are telling their bewildered constituents how shocking, unfair, wrong, unprecedented, and just plain unacceptable these losses were. 

I was not shocked, bewildered, or even mildly surprised.  But I ranged far and wide among news sources (even abroad) and from long experience, interpreted the news media "story" or "narrative" in terms of what I knew about the players and the Constitution.

I understand (as few do) both Journalism and the Electoral College -- artifacts of my odd upbringing.

So I saw the "game" Trump played was for the Electoral Votes and never mind anything else -- it took him a while to get a grip on that process, but he swept up advisers who know what I know, and he believed them and altered course to scarf up all the Electoral Votes that were "low hanging fruit."  And he ignored the rest.

Meanwhile, any sensible person could see that Hillary won the popular vote -- and with good reason.  She ran a well funded campaign.  I have noted over decades that all you have to do to predict the winner of a Presidential Contest is to find out which candidate has raised the most money.  Then you can ignore all the noise that money makes with advertising. 

This works well on local contests, too.  The State and County nominees with the most money win.  That's it.  Follow The Money.  Nothing else matters.

At least it has been that way until 2016.  In many contests it did go that way.  But it is no longer a certainty.

If you, as a futuristic Romance writer, intend to write novels that can be read (as Kraith is being read) decades hence and still captivate and stimulate readers to their own creativity, then you should think long and hard about how the 2016 Presidency went.

Trump ran almost no TV advertising -- got almost no newspaper endorsements -- and spent money mostly on his airplane, very tiny staff, and huge venues for his overflow crowds.

Frankly, it beats me why anyone would go to such a "rally" -- to hear him say in person exactly what you've heard him say on TV.  After a while, he honed his pitch down to a boringly repetitive set of points woven around his random, stream of consciousness commentary. 

Now think about this thing he did with the hats.  Tiny slogan fits on front of the hat - his first appearance was with a white hat and that slogan.  He threw the hat, just like they do at the Stock Exchange when the Dow hits a milestone, like 20,000.

Remember all the posts you've read here on SYMBOLISM. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/01/theme-symbolism-integration-part-5-how.html  -- has links to previous parts.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-16.html

Trump built a fictional world right before your eyes. If you want to gain greater respect and prominence for Romance as a genre, but science fiction romance in particular, for the concept of the Happily Ever After, consider what you can learn from what Trump did.

Remember Trump is a marketing genius -- not-so-terrific-products (often failing, often bankrupt) hitting TOP TIER, or just below that and making enough profit to offset losses on other products. 

Court costs of one "settlement" are just added on to the sale price of some other product of the business.  Likewise with "taxes" -- it is a principle of bottom line truth -- corporations don't pay taxes; customers do.  Tax on corporate profits is just figured into the sale price so the corporation makes the same or better profit.  It takes years to level it out because there is resistance by customers to paying more, but with time the corporation prices their product up to cover the taxes they pay, and the customers scream at the government to make the government stop inflation because the price of what the customer buy has gone up.

It is a game governments play, flimflammery misdirecting public attention.

In fact, it is a precise mathematical formula called Public Relations.  Using Big Data, this crowd management methodology is now targeting audiences with pinpoint accuracy.

Trump saw an audience that was starved for a product, and created that product, then sold it to that audience. 

Which product and which audience is irrelevant to you as a writer of fiction. 

Understanding the process of finding an audience, understanding what that audience wants before that audience knows it wants it, crafting the product to captivate that audience, and informing the potential buyers of that product where to find it --- those things you must understand.

Marketing Fiction In a Changing World is about foreseeing where the audience will be decades hence, way before that audience exists, and writing for that non-existent audience.

However, at the same time, you must craft your fiction for the current, contemporary, modern audience.  It has to be readable, understandable and about the modern issues.

Where the future's issues (themes) and the current reader's issues (themes) overlap, and where they differ (or conflict) will provide you with the big canvas against which to throw your characters.

Trump's campaign connected the past with the present and with the future.

Instead of compartmentalizing issues as separate things to be solved any-which-way was politically expedient, he connected all the apparently different issues into a coherent picture.

And he made the issues coherent by speaking incoherently.

It's impossible to follow that man's speeches unless somebody writes them on his teleprompter.  But he still includes -- makes up on the fly -- "applause lines."

Fiction writers who want to spin the most impossible (paranormal) tales and get readers to believe them should study speech writing - especially famous political speeches.

Trump captured the images, the symbols, churning through his audience's mind, and projected those images with conviction and power.

Hillary did the same for her audience, but with less power when speaking in person to audiences.  Why did she come across with less power?  Because the speeches were not in her own words.  She was smooth, polished, incredibly presidential, projecting a vision of how we all want our world to be.  She nailed the results we expect from a President.  And most of the time she was letter perfect - very studied, very focused on her audience.

So why didn't she win?  Her speech writers were even better at symbolism than Trump's stream of consciousness.

What really happened in this election - and how can you understand the Event and use it to write about the future in a way that will not seem "dated" to those who live in that decades-hence future?

Here's the thing.

They both won!

It was the Battle of the Titans - a classic Armageddon - and they both won.

Hillary won the popular vote and Donald won the power-vote.

Everybody loved Hillary, but everybody else trusted Donald to beat up their opponents.

This is shown clearly in the astrology of their Natal Charts.  Most astrologers missed it because it didn't seem important by most systems astrologers use.  But Hillary reached a lifetime peak of popularity on Election Day, and Trump reached a peak of unpredictable use of power, of explosive growth of power which will come into even higher focus on Inauguration Day. 

America elected a Champion, a Superhero. 

Note that Trump had started to run for President several times, flirted with the media over the notion, and backed off.  This time he drew out the flirting and stretched and stretched, then made a production number (very SYMBOLIC) of declaring candidacy coming down the Trump Tower elevator (down, not up).  He could have held the news conference UPSTAIRS and been seen going UP in that golden elevator.  He chose DOWN. 

The hats, the slogan, the direction - all symbolic.

The slogan is a succinct (have you ever heard him be succinct?) declaration of the theme of the novel he is writing before your eyes.

He could have done this years ago, but chose 2015 -- why?  Because he found his audience -- not through his TV Show (APPRENTICE) -- but through those who don't watch the commercials.

Note how the amount of money spent on political campaigns has escalated in recent decades.  The advertising, robocalls, actual person calls, signs, billboards, TV commercials, online commercials, emails, -- all is done by hiring and paying people to do these things.  The best, most expensive, advertising experts who have sold terrible products at vast profits for failing companies, are hired for Big Bucks to hammer the public with the candidate's "message."

In the post-mortem of the election, the Democratic Party is dissecting their "message" to see why it did not produce the predicted votes in the correct places.

Hillary Clinton should have won -- and she did win by millions of votes -- but her message did not draw her voters to the polls in the exact spots necessary to win the Electoral College.  So the Democratic Party is considering how to change their message -- not their behavior or the hearts of their people, but just their words -- to make people vote for them.

Just like the Republican Party (remember how emphatically the Party rejected Trump? He ran against the Republican Party - with a plethora of traditionally Democratic "messages." ) had used the same Public Relations "tricks" to make people vote for their candidates, the Democrats blame how they phrase their "message" not what they do when in office.

Fiction structure works the opposite way -- what the characters do is weighted more than what they say.  Readers decode Character by Behavior - not words. 

Readers - in the past, in the present and probably in the future - are intrigued by a disparity between what a Character does and what that Character says.

Compare that Reader preference to the 2016 political campaign.  The term "Liar" was thrown back and forth (facts were distorted no more than usual, but exposure was much more frequent.) 

Each of the Candidates was vetted by the media, comparing what they had done in the past with what they said in the present.

The Candidate who had done what she was saying she would do in the future as President garnered more votes.  The Candidate who had done things in the past that were starkly at odds with what he said he would do in the future, won a strategic victory.

Look at Trump vs Clinton as the "conflict" line of a novel - the typical love/hate novel.  You know that Clinton attended one of Trump's weddings - and other High Society Events hosted by Trump.  They "move in the same circles."

Study the history of that and you will find a Regency Romance in there.  You could write the same story set in the Roman Empire. 

Why did Trump focus all his energy on rallies, not TV ads?  But more importantly, why did that stupid strategy work?

Was it Trump's message, or his target audience?  Was it his war-gaming the Electoral College?  The Democrats have always been great at war-gaming the Electoral College - they carried California, a whopping prize.  Why did they lose Pennsylvania? 

Figure out a theory of why the election went to Trump and turn that theory into a theme, project that thematic truth into the far future, and write a novel for today's contemporary audience -- and you will have created a "Classic" that will be appreciated in the far future.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/10/how-do-you-know-if-youve-written.html

Think historically - from way back in Roman Empire times to now, and into the far future.

Have "messages" changed?  Or have audiences?

The reason ancient Greek and Roman plays are still performed and studied is that the messages, the politics, and the romances have not changed.  The reason those plays pull small audiences is that audiences have changed.

To write a classic, figure out what the audience of the future will be.

To understand audience change, consider the evolution of the media -- the medium through which a message must travel to reach a given person who wants that message.

That is what Trump did -- he understood that audiences have changed, are changing, and continuing to change.  I'm sure he saw and understood the advertising numbers from The Apprentice garnered between 2004 and 2015.  He knew that TV Advertising effectiveness was on the wane, and other political contest results (votes gained per dollar spent) bore out what he was seeing.

TV Cord Cutters are on the rise - college age people generally just don't subscribe to Cable, and won't waste time trying to find an over-the-air signal.  They access news and entertainment streaming.

The younger people seem to still prefer printed paper books, but watch TV on phone, tablet or sometimes a TV screen attached to a little Roku or Apple box (maybe game boxes are more common).

Tivo lets you click to skip a whole run of commercials. Nobody watches commercials - even if they play, everyone talks or leaves the room.  TV commercials don't deliver.

But there's a bigger trend behind that than cord cutters or inattentiveness. 

The real reason broadcast or cable TV commercials don't deliver value any more is very simple -- the audiences for each show is shrinking.

Here's the century long trend.

At the turn of the 20th Century, Radio was being deployed widely, radio sets came down in cost, and slowly 3 Radio Networks knitted the country together, CBS, NBC, ABC.

At any given evening hour there might be as many as a bewildering 3 choices of what to listen to.  The shows had sponsors -- usually one product or company would sponsor an entire half hour show - (fiction, news, music, standup comedy, variety). 

Eventually, there were some local stations that weren't part of the nationwide networks, and some shows on network affiliates were not broadcast nationwide. 

TV per-empted the explosive growth of Radio, but the same Big Three networks prevailed.  In the 1950's there were many hours during the day, late at night, even during Prime Time that there was only one show on TV.  Gradually, that exploded as TV Sets came down in price and were deployed into every living room (yes, max one per household!). 

So at any given time during the 1950's and even well into the 1960's, people talked at work, over the back yard fence while hanging out laundry, in grocery store lines, everywhere about whatever show was on last night.

About a third of the country would have seen the same show.  There was no way to record a TV show, so if you didn't see it, you never would, and would be out of the conversation.  Radio kept going strong through the deployment of TV (just as it is strong today via Web Radio and Podcasts), and not everyone watched TV. 

Companies that sponsored TV and Radio sold products so well, the market - the audience - for that product basically created the Supermarket (a store that carried a wide variety of products). 

In other words, the Mass Market was born of Radio audiences - huge percentages of the total number of people in the country.

Old World War II movies will show you how Baseball (broadcast on Radio, then TV) was used to source passwords and identify "real" Americans.

All Americans had certain things in common with each other that were not in common with those living in other countries.

America was unified by Radio - then TV.  Mass audiences became targets of Mass Marketing.  Concurrently - right before, during and after, the turn into the 20th Century - fueling the perfection of PR, Public Relations.

We've discussed PR and its effect on our fiction marketing efforts previously:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_25.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_18.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html (with links to previous parts in that series).

So media (from the first "broadside" published in the 1700's all the way through Newspapers and magazines to the Internet) has knitted a whole country into one market, unified our thinking, given us all something in common with each other that prevails over our differences.

And with that united Market, that Audience, to study, mathematics and psychology unite with statistics to produce Public Relations, the art and science of hammering individuals into identical consumers of identical products (because mass production is cheaper so everyone can have what only aristocrats could afford a few centuries ago.)

Then, the very success of Television and "networking" local stations into national syndication, took that unified audience and fragmented it.

We are in a massive fragmentation trend right now.

With distribution via DVD turning into Amazon Prime Streaming, Netflix Streaming, Hulu, various cable systems offering "On Demand" -- and other methods of getting entertainment without commercials had become commonplace rather than a yearned-for goal.

In the 1960's, people used to videotape (VCR) record TV shows they loved, with a finger on the PAUSE button, to stop the recording during commercials, thus producing a commercial-free copy they could watch or share with friends.  Copying VCR recordings was deliberately (by VC R manufacturers under laws created under the hammer of lobbyists) prevented from making good copies of copies.  Each iteration degraded until you got mostly snow.

There is a market for fiction that does not come interrupted by commercials.

People, having gotten Netflix and a taste of commercial free TV, now take it for granted.

Theaters run commercials but not DURING movies. 

As a result of commercial-avoidance and the advent of vast diversity of entertainment sources (Game Machines, DVR, DVD, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Tivo, or just hooking your laptop to your TV), and a proliferation content providers (Indie Movies, Foreign Movies and TV with sub-titles, all the networks, and now Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix Originals (and many more launching Originals) -- there is no appreciable percentage of the 330 million Americans that watch any given Show or Movie.

In 1964 there were fewer than 200 million people in the USA.  The TV show The Fugitive pulled 78 million viewers.  Typical audience size for a TV show that was wildly successful was about 60 million.  In 2010, when the population had increased 30% or so, it was 42 million.

The Presidential Debates of 2016 pulled around 84 million, considered record viewership, but percentage wise of total US, not so impressive.

126 million, maybe a bit more, voted. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_television_broadcasts#Most_watched_series_episode_of_the_decade

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/11/politics/popular-vote-turnout-2016/

So while our total population has been growing, viewership of any particular item has been shrinking percentage wise. 

Audiences have been fragmenting, and skipping or avoiding commercials.

The Democratic Party did not take that into account in 2016.  They did better at it in 2008 when they exploited online advertising -- but Trump used very little online advertising (if you don't count Twitter).  He posted YouTube videos on his campaign website, and some went viral.  Mostly his Tweets made TV News.

And there's the crux of the difference.  Commentators have repeatedly analyzed Trump's style as "dominating the news cycle" -- dominating being the operative word.

Remember I said above that he was in an astrological transit situation of massive POWER and unexpected growth.  He won by DOMINATING -- and what he dominated was the part of the world he understands best - the media, and branding.

Branding is a sub-set of advertising.  Trump branded each of his opponents in turn with a sobriquet -- and because the one or two word label accurately described the person, his sobriquet stuck. 

With ever more outrageous and unpredictable Twitter-storms and offhand remarks at rallies, Trump had the media focused on his every minute because (in competition with the other outlets) they had to have a camera trained on him every second in case he "said something." 

Unpredictable and Dominant -- all in the Natal Chart and Transits in effect during this time.  His disastrous mistakes were also highlighted in the astrology. 

Hillary Clinton could not match him for outrageous -- even her biggest controversies did not dominate the news cycle as much as Trump's commentary on her controversies did.

Why did Trump do that?  Because he saw his audience, and showed that audience a potential future (just as any Romance writer shows readers the potential Happily Ever After, leaving out the sleepless nights and smelly diaper changes.)

The 2016 Election has become notorious for being a low-turnout election, just over 50% of the voting age population voted, and made the decision for all the rest.

Again, though there are a third more people than in the 1960's in the USA, the number of people who know any one, given, thing about current events is smaller.

We are a fragmented society. 

Hillary Clinton tried to Unite this society using expensive mass marketing techniques  -- Donald Trump assessed the fragmentation and used it to his advantage using targeted marketing techniques (techniques that are still being invented and perfected.)

In other words, Trump played to his future audience as well as the present one.  He created a "classic" with his Election Campaign, a unique work of art that probably will never be copied.

So, what you as a fiction writer can learn from studying Donald Trump, is pragmatic marketing.

It wasn't Hillary Clinton's messaging that failed, but her assumption about the uniformity of America.  Trump and Clinton are of the same generation - he saw the change, she didn't.  We are a fragmented culture and each fragment has its unique taste.  No single medium reaches all the fragments.  As we have splintered over a century of technological change, so also will we unite over the next century.  Write for the audience of 2100, a united audience, but take into account that your current audience is an isolated fragment. 

Will one of the current fragments obliterate all the others, leaving only one fragment to dominate?  Or will all the fragments drop their unique signature brands, and unite via what they all have in common? 

Study how the 1800's and the Dime Novel turned into the 1900's and 300 Cable Channels, all with 24 hour programming.  Reverse that trend using the futurology we've been studying.


Take an Ideal Future -- such as Happily Ever After or Love Conquers All, the core themes of Romance Genre -- and sell it to the fragment of the current market that is hungry for it.

 So Kraith was written in a time when the TV audience was more unified, and still hits today's audience that is almost as fragmented as the world was before the Printing Press -- only today we have instant world wide communications (with Google Translate and subtitles!).  Nobody was predicting this social shift.  Will you predict the next swing of the pendulum?

If you guess correctly, work with a specific fragment of your audience, and that specific fragment's Brand becomes the Uniting Element among all our fragments -- then your fiction will be read a hundred years from now, and people will wonder how come it wasn't more popular back when.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Bits and Pieces of Catchup

I think one of my greatest ambitions is to write SHORT blog posts.

Didn't make it today. I did try. Really, I did!

I'm way behind on getting packed for Westercon which will be held in Tempe, AZ, right up the road from me over the July 4th weekend. I've just filled out the speaker questionnaire but don't have my schedule yet. Anyone reading this blog who's planning on Westercon? I didn't see any Alien Romance panels, but signed up for everything that might lead into such a discussion. Come help me open (warp?) some minds.

http://www.westercon.org/

I hope you have had time to read my previous post and all the stuff linked to it. Could take you a week to wade through all that.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/crumbling-business-model-of-writers.html

Waiting for everyone to catch up, here's some bits and pieces of followup on other open topics woven into a writing challenge.


I know there's a novelization of the Trek movie, and I haven't read it yet. (yet being the operative word -- I sooo want the DVD and book; I'll pass on the action figures.)

There's a wild and thriving ongoing set of posts on twitter about people seeing the new ST movie 4 and 5 times and more. Some posts saying "what's so great about ST?" and others in goshwow shock. Other long time fans of Trek are still seeing it FOR THE FIRST TIME.

Twitter is carrying some criticism of the actors, some snearing at the entire concept.

I saw one review that really lowered my opinion of both the reviewer and the publication, calling the ST movie melodramatic.

It isn't.

But I can see how someone assigned to review a movie set in a universe they think of as kiddie stuff or teen-action-stuff (SF has borne that perjorative all along) would find this script "melodramatic." That's a point of view that always happens when someone is not engaged in the fictional universe. If you're wholly engaged, the emotional tension does not seem overblown or out of proportion to the issue. But that works only if you really understand the issue.

If everyone is running for the exit in screaming panic, and you're just standing there, you should ask yourself, "What do they know that I don't know?"

Reviewers who slap the label "melodramatic" on a piece of fiction generally haven't asked themselves that question about the audience that does not see the story as melodramatic. In fact, the rest of the audience may be seeing the story as understated while "sophisticated" reviewers trash it as melodramatic. This is in general, not just about this particular Star Trek movie.

It's not the writer's fault usually. "Melodrama" is not a property of the text or script. It exists only in the reader/viewer's mind. (You won't likely find anyone else who holds such an opinion).

There is one flaw a writer might introduce that could give some viewers the impression of melodrama, and that's failing to display in show-don't-tell the character motivations, sensitivities, hot-button issues, loyalties, friendships, and relationships, all clearly derived from the theme.

The JJ Abram's Star Trek movie is written to give you as much of these character and situation traits as possible in the time alotted (and fit in all the commercially requisite action). Anyone have an opinion on what the envelope theme of this film is? Perhaps it's "The Challenges Temper The Character Strengths?" I.e. what character strengths are there already get made stronger by challenges.

When a reviewer sees a movie as "melodramatic" it may not be the reviewer's fault for being unobservant, disinterested, or prejudiced. It might be the "fault" of the review publication for assigning the wrong person to do the review. If someone has a strong emotional reaction to a piece of fiction, a reaction which embarrasses them deep inside, they might slap a distancing label on the fiction -- as if the fiction is at fault for their own refusal to confront their own emotions. You can't tell if that's the case just be reading a review of a film you have seen.

Or the negative reaction might possibly be the fault of the professional reviewer for choosing to review a product because it's popular so that the review will get read rather than reviewing something else that's less popular.

When I read that accusation of "melodrama" against Star Trek (in the context of "it's not a good enough movie for this much hype and people who are enchanted with it have something wrong with them") it brought up questions about how people interact with fiction, fictional universes, and with their own expectations and anticipations.

There's a lot of hype for the Trek movie, and as usual fans are divided into various camps regarding how well or poorly this or that favorite aspect was handled. In general, and overall, there's a consensus of approval and wait-and-see from the old fans, and some astonished interest from new or younger people. To them, it's just a good action movie without a lot of subtext. To veteran fans, it's ALL subtext.

So public discussion makes non-fans (or even non-viewers of Star Trek) curious, and they go see the movie, and express their reactions in public (on twitter maybe).

That's how you sell a lot of movie tickets, you see. Word of mouth (or tweets) motivates people better than any amount of paid commercial time on TV.

All these thoughts are related to some very abstract thinking I've been doing lately, about how fiction strikes a person at different stages of maturity. (I've been reading a number of children's books for my review column.)

And there are subjects flickering in the back of my mind about how the USA used to have so much of a common language and experience, and how that's all been destroyed.

The base cohesiveness of our society has been shattered. That lack of imagery and trivia in common is taking a huge toll, and most people don't realize why these horrific things are happening. New stuff will arise to take its place, because humans need stuff in common with each other, but meanwhile we've got a generation without a cultural connection to anyone other than those with interests in common. The wireless web is changing THAT, too, but it hasn't taken hold yet.

Not everyone paid attention to the Presidential Election! Those that did formed cliques, as usual in politics. But we can't even say "everyone" heard Obama's speeches other than snippets on news shows. You can read his words on the web, but it's not the same as watching his delivery.

Recently, I met someone who had worshipful, shining, beatific eyes every time she mentioned (often) how much she TRUSTS Obama to do the "right thing." She was absolutely pro-Israel, and seemed totally unaware of Hillary Clinton's declaration that none of the USA's verbal agreements with Israel will be kept, period.

I was thinking, as I watched her speaking to other pro-Israel and not-so-pro-Israel people, that if I put her conversation into a story as dialogue, the editor would X it all out because it's implausible the way she ignored everything everyone else said and insisted on how much she TRUSTS Obama, and that trust solves all problems. (talk about melodrama -- her conversation dripped melodrama -- I could hardly believe I was watching a real person not a character).

Other people listened to her politely, but didn't CHALLENGE her thinking (remember the idea the Star Trek movie is about character tempered by challenge). People just expressed their own opinions, without pointing out the fallacies in hers -- they could see she would explode emotionally if challenged, and that would be disruptive to the group. So she left without having her certainties questioned, as one would expect in DIALOGUE. Her "story" and "plot" did not progress because of this group conversation.

Which of course leads into a point I've made on this blog before, that:

A) DIALOGUE is not CONVERSATION.

B) CHARACTERS are not PEOPLE

Somone who prefers to read non-fiction, but has to watch the Star Trek movie ( because maybe their wife dragged them?) might take the film's dialogue as "melodramatic" because it tries, in a very short time, to lay out for you a set of comprehensible motives.

Also consider this is a feature film. The series was designed to be an ensemble show, and each of the characters got a 50 minute (back when there were fewer commercial minutes per hour - maybe 49 minutes) show in which to be introduced. But JJ Abrams was starting from scratch to introduce these (NEW) characters to a new audience, all in one movie.

The script actually does that introduction fairly well within the time alotted. The characters of course come off shallow if all you know is what you see in this new movie, shallow and perhaps overly impressed with themselves.

One of the requirements for good feature film script writing is that there is ONE star character, and maybe a co-star, and all the rest are SUPPORTING characters. Kirk is of course nominally assigned the "starring role" -- but the truth from the POV of many viewers is that Spock is the star. (yep, I'm one of those). Because this show was (will be again?) a TV show (already another movie is in the works), the ENSEMBLE CAST requires fudging the "star-co-star-supporting" paradigm.

If, in your mind, you're superimposing these characters on the old TV characters, you see disparities and are so busy thinking what the old characters would do that you don't totally engage in and thus BELIEVE the current characters.

The result is that you see melodrama instead of drama because you think the characters are OVER reacting.

Well, is this woman who "trusts" Obama "overreacting?" She doesn't think so, and most of you don't either. She thinks she has good reason to trust him, but can't say what those reasons are. She's just bewildered that anyone might squint sideways at Obama and wonder if WYSIWYG.

It all has to do with how we "judge" people and how we "judge" characters -- how we evaluate the values of another person.

And that brings us to the question of whether politicians (and say, actors?) whose "images" have been professionally built by spin-doctors are "characters" or "people."

And what has this all to do with creating that blockbuster TV show with Alien Romance that will change the world?

That woman was in love with Obama, even though she'd never met him. She couldn't separate the image from the man - the character from the person (as often happens with fans of a TV character who can't separate the actor from the character.)

The adoration I saw in her eyes was soooo totally "romance" -- it was Neptune at it's best, worshipful adoration. I'd seen fans of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Chekov, Uhura, and Scotty with that same beatific expression when discussing the lives of the characters as if they were the lives of the actors, or vice-versa.

I saw in her eyes the experience of JOY in being UNDERSTOOD and being SAFE AT LAST. (I'm not kidding; I saw that, but it may not actually have been there. I am always researching this Alien Romance problem even when wandering around the social fabric of my mundane existence!)

She was not an SF fan. She was ever so mundane. She was an older woman, well and securely married. Her husband was there and totally agreed with her assessment of Obama and apparently had no inkling that there could be a jealousy issue going on there.

Here was a woman so infatuated with a public image that is a "character" more than a "person" that she totally believes she's assessed him correctly.

That's what falling in love does. It cuts the critical faculties out of the circuit and allows you to believe the image you are projecting onto someone is the actual, real person and not a reflection of your own aspirations.

And that's exactly the state of mind you must have in order to "fall in love with" a real Alien From Outer Space.

Here's the thing about Neptune, though. What you see in another person through Neptune's veil is sometimes more TRUE than what you see through your critical faculties.

Sometimes, your critical faculties have been honed by training in very logical, practical ways. And because of that, sometimes your critical faculties will reject information that is actually pertinent simply because the information seems implausible.

That's how a professional reviewer could conclude that the JJ Abram's ST movie is "melodramatic." A reviewer often is trained as a critic (they aren't supposed to be the same function), and an art critic has to view art through his/her critical faculties.

But art, by its very nature, speaks to the subconscious, subverting all critical analysis. Even the art of the spin-doctor creating a politician's image for the media speaks to the subconscious. Spin-doctors work with the fabric of symbolism to get you to believe what they tell you in ways that mere words could never achieve.

The subconscious does not view the world through the conscious mind's critical faculties.

When the subconscious becomes convinced, it over-rules the conscious mind and asserts its opinion as the TRUTH. And subconscious can't be swayed by facts.

So, if we're going to create a TV show, an Alien Romance, that will argue our case the way Star Trek argues the case for SF, we have to include one character like the woman I met with the starry-eyes for Obama. This character has to speak for the human capacity to see past the obvious surface and into the true heart -- as McCoy does in Star Trek, and as this woman believes she has with Obama (which she may have; we'll see).

------and one more bit-------or maybe a piece?------

I've been talking a lot about social networking, the cure for the shattering of our culture as mentioned above.

Found this link on twitter
http://social-media-optimization.com/2009/02/top-twenty-five-social-networking-sites-feb-2009/

and on that page it says:

Interesting information from Compete.com that shows Facebook surging past MySpace in Monthly Unique Visitors and that Twitter has moved from #22 to #3 in the rankings of the top 25 social networking sites by monthly visits.
-------------

And another link on that social-media-optimization page is to an article on the "graying of facebook"

-----------------

http://social-media-optimization.com/2009/02/the-graying-of-facebook/

WHICH STARTS:

Last week I was at a meeting at Facebook and as Facebook was talking about their demographics, one of the statistics that struck me was facebook’s demographics is starting to mirror those of the U.S. of A.

-----------------

Nevermind reading these whole articles (hey, I'm not the only long-winded person on the web!), just those two facts juxtaposed with the snatches on ST from Twitter and various reviews is telling us so much about where to find a lever long enough and where to stand to move the world toward respecting Alien Romance.

Here's another bit of the puzzle.

http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2009/06/8-ways-science-fiction-romance-could.html

quotes my blog entry at
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

and reasons to the conclusion:

---------- THEGALAXYEXPRESS.NET ---------------
These days, authors aren’t just writers—they’re entrepreneurs.
----------END THEGALAXYEXPRESS.NET ----------

And that is what Jean Lorrah and I have been discussing with an ever increasing intensity.

Jean Lorrah is researching (she's a professor, you know? Research is her bag.) how to employ the techniques used by web based entrepreneurs to the needs of writers. Basically, it's not really a compatible set of techniques. A writer can't just take what these (big buck$ maker$) do and use it to sell books. Readers would run away in droves. But, as you can learn a lot by watching Mission: Impossible or McGiver or Burn Notice or Royal Pains, you can stoke your creative fires by subscribing to free things around the web.

Jean has found a Free Offer from one of the best teachers in the web-entrepreneur business which will open June 15, 2009 and run for a very short while.

See? That's one of their techniques -- short, quick opportunities that ignite your greed to get something others can't get! But to put our culture back together, everyone has to be able to get some specific thing that that everyone else has. We need things in common, not divisiveness.

Here's a link where you will be able to get the free offer (as of June 15th which is next Monday and I don't know how long it'll run). Jean says this is a good place to learn web marketing from Jim Daniels, who has been doing and teaching since 1996.

http://fc403pw6f3th2ke9upz2l1cngo.hop.clickbank.net/

Now to the writing lesson.

If you want to write a BURN NOTICE type TV program to pitch to TV producers, but using (say) a web entrepreneur ( tall, blond, built, and HOT!) as the male lead, and perhaps the actress who stars in (and probably writes and produces and creates the music for) his YouTube videos, getting this free subscription would be a good start in scoping out the character of these people and finding some of the web-entrepreneur tricks that are like the spy-tricks used on BURN NOTICE.

The web entrepreneur tricks can be used as plot devices as High School Chemistry often served McGiver (and now Royal Pains).

Remember how I discussed the use of SETTING in telling a story when a Producer, J. Neil Schulman, mentioned how a Psychic Cruise could be the setting for a Monk or Murder She Wrote episode?

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/medium-is-message_19.html

Here's a chance to do an exercise like that "USA Characters Welcome" pitch.

"Wagon Train To The Stars" became Star Trek because Wagon Train was the most popular, longest running, iconic TV show at the time (maybe other than Gunsmoke, but Gunsmoke took place mostly in one town).

What is the most popular TV show today? Or web-show? What is iconic in the USA? What is topping the ratings? What is the longest running or has the widest demographic? How do you pitch an Alien Romance to the general audience? What do kids and parents watch together?

Iconic Current Show into A New Setting.

We have to transpose that woman I met into the setting we need, and build a springboard into a CHEAP TO MAKE TV series. (Star Trek was cheap for its day, considering the state-of-the-art FX; and it looks it!)

A Web Entrepreneur's life would be a great SETTING, (mostly shot on a standing set of an office with lots of electronics; plus some location shots of hotel ballrooms for speeches; stock shots of airports; standing set hotel rooms -- pretty cheap) and I'm sure a worshipful woman would "fall for" his spin-doctored character in each episode, pissing off his Soul Mate.

Are there any Web Entrepreneur TV series yet? Have I come up with something new here? THE APPRENTICE MEETS MY FAVORITE MARTIAN?

Now consider what an Alien stranded on Earth would do for a living? In BURN NOTICE, we have a guy with no visible means of support using his spy skills to help people and make a few bucks in fees. Why wouldn't an ALIEN gravitate to electronic salesmanship to make a living?

Yes, of course there would be obstacles -- which points to conflict.

Today's audiences are filled with people who have been ousted from salaried jobs and are applying their talents to becoming "consultants" or self-employed entrepreneurs.

Tell me the story as an Alien Romance. I do hope you've read Linnea Sinclair's DOWNHOME ZOMBIE BLUES!!!

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review Subseries 5: Fitz and the Fool Trilogy (The Realm of the Elderlings) by Robin Hobb by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review

Subseries 5: Fitz and the Fool Trilogy (The Realm of the Elderlings)

by Robin Hobb

by Karen S. Wiesner

   

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. Also, reading my previous appraisals of subseries in the umbrella series The Realm of the Elderlings will foster understanding about certain facts that are required to make full sense of things included in this particular review. 

Robin Hobb is the author of The Realm of the Elderlings. Within this aegis, she's written five "miniseries" and numerous short stories. In previous Alien Romances Blog reviews, I covered The Inheritance & Other Stories, which contains a couple Realm of the Elderlings offerings. I also reviewed the first three trilogies within this series, The Farseer, The LiveShip Traders, and The Tawny Man trilogies; Rain Wilds Chronicles; along with two miscellaneous novellas in the series, "The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince" and "Words Like Coins". All of these The Realm of the Elderlings installments have been published over a span of twenty-two years. 

The Farseer Trilogy was focused on Fitz, the illegitimate son of Prince Chivalry of the royal line presiding over the Six Duchies. In that first subset, we learned something of the Elderlings (including dragons) and their ancient cities and settlements, now in ruins, around the world, especially in the Rain Wilds. In the second subseries, The LiveShip Traders Trilogy, we moved away from the royal Farseer lineage and problems within the nobility to focus on the Rain Wilds where "liveships" are crafted. These liveships are the outer cocoons of sea serpents that were in the process of transforming into a dragon. The logs were buried in the destroyed city of the Elderlings in the Rain Wilds and found by traders who excavated the ruins for valuable, magical artifacts. The Tawny Man Trilogy returned to Fitz and the Fool. In Rain Wilds Chronicles, Hobb fleshes out the re-emergence of dragons and Elderlings in the Rain Wilds. 

As soon as I finished reading the fourth installment of Rain Wilds Chronicles, I was thrust into Fitz and the Fool Trilogy. For the first time ever, the ebook of Book 1 was immediately available on my library app (getting what you want to check out on library apps can be difficult as so often you're forced to wait in a very, very long line for sometimes a single copy of the book), as was Book 2. I'd found a hardcover of Book 3 at a used bookstore so that was already waiting on my to-be-read shelf. Rather than waiting months to recover from reading four enormous tomes back-to-back, I jumped right into this one, not wanting to lose access to them since library app lines can take too long to move. I do admit, I feared the worst in reading the next series so fast after I'd finished the previous. I was very worried I'd be too burnt out to enjoy this concluding (unless Hobb writes more in the series at a later date) trilogy in the series. 

The author didn't cut any corners with this series set. Each book was absolutely massive! Of the ebook versions, the first book had 1,444 pages; the second 1,658 pages; and the third 2,092 pages! Unbelievably, from the very first words, I was mesmerized and yanked full body back into Fitz's world. My earlier fatigue was gone without a trace. Suffocating weight of volume aside, I had trouble putting this trilogy down from start to finish. 

Let's get to summarizing and reviewing these installments: 

Fool's Assassin, Book 1, was published on August 12, 2014. Here, FitzChivalry Farseer is in his fifties. With the death of Burrich, Fitz's original mentor, and Molly's husband, Fitz and Molly are finally free to wed and share their lives. Fitz (living under his Tom Badgerlock identity) and Molly are landholders of Withywoods, which had been his father and step-mother Patience's country estate. Despite her age, Molly becomes pregnant and her pregnancy lasts years. Fitz and Molly's older children are forced to conclude their mother has become addled, so desperately wanting another child with her first love Fitz that she's imagining the symptoms. However, after two years, a very small daughter is born and it's immediately clear that she's different. Molly holds her child closely, knowing others would have drowned this weak, sickly babe at birth instead of nursing her to health. Fitz isn't sure what to feel, nor Nettle, he and Molly's adult daughter, who lives at court as a part of a Skill (see previous reviews for a full understanding of Skill {similar to magic} and Wit abilities in this series) coterie, but he feels very protective of his new daughter. Molly names her little, late-life gift Bee. This wondrous child thrives under her mother's diligent care. Though Bee is tiny and her growth is so slow (one year is as two for her--just as when she was developing in her mother's womb), everyone assumes she's a dumb mute. Bee is anything but that. 

Fitz tries to forge a relationship with this young bantam, but Bee won't allow anyone to get close to her--not her father or her sister…at least she won't until Molly dies. Suddenly Fitz and Bee are thrust together, reluctant survivors, inconsolable mourners, almost unable to cope and get out of bed each day. The two are wary of each other at first but begin to find their way until Nettle arrives and insists she's taking her baby sister back to Buckkeep with her. Nettle assumes Bee is mentally disabled because she's refused to speak and become close to anyone other than her mother up to this point. She hasn't revealed she can, in fact, talk and, much more than that, she's highly intelligent and capable, able to read, write, and draw with great skill. With the threat of being separated, Fitz and Bee fight to stay together at Withywoods. Nettle will only concede to allow this on certain conditions, and these ultimately place a huge burden on everyone who lives on the estate. But all are determined to make it work. Initially, Bee wants this because her mother was here and their lives were entwined in this very place, but Fitz and Bee's bond becomes fierce as they finally come to know and love each other. 

Another subplot is that Fitz has spent these years haunted by the disappearance of the Fool (which took place in The Tawny Man Trilogy). Is he dead? If not, where is he? In the course of events, it's learned that the Fool has a son. As I said in The Tawny Man Trilogy review, the Fool has remade himself in many ways, shapes and forms in his appearances in the series. He worked as an actual "fool" at court in Buckkeep for the king in the first subseries. In the second, he was a she, the carver Amber in Bingtown. In later subseries, we learn that the Fool is a being called a White Prophet whose purpose is to set the world on a better path. As such, this creature invents and reinvents itself in order to serve its impetus. The Catalyst is the one who makes the changes, and the Fool believed that one was Fitz. In The Tawny Man Trilogy, the Fool reveals that he doesn't believe he's fulfilled his destiny correctly. Does this have something to do with the Fool's own child being the actual Catalyst, which means Fitz wasn't the Catalyst this whole time? Fitz and the Fool Trilogy is all set to answer that question. 

I fell in love with Bee from the moment of her mention. Her birth and the years she spent growing up under her mother's loving care and then Fitz's fumbling, penitent but protective adoration only sealed my need to see her triumph over all. She had to overcome some very definite handicaps, in part because she was so small and underestimated. That only made her more courageous and amazing to me. Tom's efforts to help her and keep her safe also endeared me to both of them. When the Fool was found at the end of Book 1, I had trouble sleeping. I was around 50 pages to the finish line, so to speak, and I knew that Fitz was going to have to make a fateful choice--the Fool or Bee? Catastrophic events rounded out the book, causing a shocking twist I didn't see coming at all. 

I borrowed the ebook of Book 2 days before I finished Book 1 because I didn't want any chance I wouldn't be able to start reading it as soon as I finished the first. That's how eager I was to continue. 

Fool's Quest, Book 2, was published almost exactly a year after the first, on August 11, 2015. Before I summarize the plot, I have to reiterate my frequent lament. This book is so long, reading it as an ebook caused no end of problems. The library app I used set the page count as 1,658! I live in a small town and have the worst internet imaginable, so I'd sit down to read and wait five or more minutes, just trying to get the book to load on my iPad. By the time I'd given up, sometimes it'd come up (too late), or worst case, refused to load at all. Ah, the joys of technology. Good thing I had a hardcover of the third book, so I at least didn't have to face the trial it would have been to try reading that 2,092 page ebook, considering my unreliable WiFi issues. 

A good third into this second story, we finally got back to Bee, whose part of the tale ended on a cliffhanger in the first book. Readers start this one with Fitz not even aware what's going on with his daughter for most of the story and, several times, giving her up for dead or getting distracted from her plight by other events. That slowed things down considerably. Added to that, the author spent a shocking amount of time summarizing past events in earlier subseries (or things that took place off-stage in those) in dialogue conveyed in long stories from one character to another. Let me tell you, these were no small speeches. They were frequently 20 pages long, setting down all the crucial elements needed to begin advancing the immediate story beyond those points. It felt a bit heavy-handed and tedious when I was so eager to return to the action in this particular book. As aware as I was that knowing all this was necessary, Hobb has proven to be such a skilled writer, I couldn't help noticing that this was the first time I've seen her resort to awkward frontloading techniques to impart necessary backstory. 

Beyond that, however, Book 2's main goal was to reunite Bee and Fitz (and to get the Fool healed enough that he could again participate in the story events), making everything to get to that point so tense, I just couldn't put it down.

Assassin's Fate, Book 3, was released on May 9, 2017 (and what torture that must have been for readers who'd no doubt consumed the first two books, to wait so long for this conclusion to arrive!). The main thrust in this installment of the trilogy were the parallel lines of Fitz and Fool rushing to save their daughter (yeah, that's another major subplot in this trilogy) while scrappy little Bee was trying to survive with the help of her "Wolf Father" (Fitz's shadow wolf). Along the way, the author brilliantly intersected all The Realm of the Elderlings stories--both the Fitz and the Fool adventures with Rain Wilds' stories--so readers could see proper progress and tying up of all series threads. In other words, we got to revisit the LiveShip Paragon, Althea and Brashen, Amber (who is the Fool; here the White Prophet takes up that identity again), Wintrow, Malta and Reyn, the dragons, among others, as well as returning to the Elderling city Kelsingra. The fate of the dragons and the new Elderlings are brought to some state of resolution as well as all of the Fitz and the Fool chronicles, including a nod to the very first trilogy, Farseer. In Assassin's Fate, King-in-Waiting Verity's ultimate fate is now glimpsed. Additionally, we finally learn what happened to the first age of dragons and Elderlings. Previously, there was speculation on the devastation that might have taken place to end them, bury their cities and the source of their power so abruptly, without explanation. That all came to light in this trilogy, deeply and closely tying in with a secret society called the Servants, whose members dream of possible futures but use them to add to their own wealth and influence. The Servants are similar to White Prophets, like the Fool, but the Fool is concerned with helping humanity reach a better state of being instead of profiting from them. These Servants are the very ones who want to possess Bee. 

This concluding trilogy in The Realm of the Elderlings series was hands-down the best. The characters were so vividly drawn, and my heart was invested in each and everything that happened to them. I wanted Bee, Fitz, and the Fool to succeed, but, of course, in order to make good fiction, they were thwarted at every turn. The tension was to-the-quick nail-biting all through the trilogy, never letting up until the epic end. While everything I wanted to happen for Fitz, Bee, and the Fool didn't come to pass under a beautiful canopy of happily-ever-after stars, ultimately the trilogy and series conclusion ticked all the boxes for me. We were even given a bit of a whispered promise for more stories about Bee. This final book in such an awesome saga was fantastic beyond my imagining. I unfathomably read the staggering volume in just a few hours. The pages flew by chock-full of exquisite suspense as I raced to find out what would happen with all the intersecting lines.

As deeply satisfied as I was by the conclusion of this trilogy and the series as a whole, I was left wanting more--in the best possible way. Though I'd been exhausted while I read each previous subseries because they were all so enormous, I fell in love with the characters, the locations, the intricate plots. I want more of all this world. Few series are this gratifying, intricately woven, and utterly heart quenching as well as heart wrenching (happy and sad aspects of the lives touched on within are intermixed beautifully). 

In my previous review in The Realm of the Elderlings series (specifically, Rain Wilds Chronicles), I bemoaned that the author didn't separate Fitz and the Fool adventures from the Rain Wilds installments. If I'd read them as two separate, connected series, I think they would have been so amazing and much less exhausting. With this final Fitz and the Fool trilogy review, I'm going to reverse the order I initially suggested reading The Realm of the Elderlings series' stories. Now that I've read all of the crucial, currently available installments, I now advise this order to read them all in: 

Fitz and the Fool:

1.     The Farseer Trilogy

2.     The Tawny Man Trilogy

3.     Fitz and the Fool Trilogy 

Rain Wilds:

4.     "The Inheritance"

5.     The LiveShip Traders Trilogy

6.     Rain Wilds Chronicles 

Short stories (listed chronologically in the timeline):

7.     "The Homecoming"

8.     "The Wilful Princess and the Piebald Prince"

9.     "Cat's Meat"

10.  "Words Like Coins"

11.  "Her Father's Sword"

12.  "Blue Boots"

Worthy of note: The Realm of the Elderlings shorts can be read in any order, as well as stand on their own, but keep in mind that some take place before the very first series story, Assassin's Apprentice, while others are somewhere in the middle of the first subseries. If you're picky about reading according to timeline, you might want to inject the short stories between the novels. For more information about where exactly everything in this timeline fits together, visit  https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/search?q=The+Realm+of+the+Elderlings where my "Series Review: The Realm of the Elderlings" contains all the details needed to guide you on this point.

        Be aware that the only story I haven't yet read (or reviewed) in The Realm of the Elderlings series (in fact, it's the only one I haven't read of Robin Hobb's, period) is a short story called "Blue Boots" that takes place "somewhere in the middle" of The Farseer Trilogy. This 30-page tale is set within the world of the umbrella series but I don't believe it's otherwise connected to the Fitz and the Fool stories or the Rain Wilds' ones. It's published in Songs of Love and Death Anthology as well as in Songs of Love Lost and Found ebook collection, neither of which I've been able to get hold of yet. It's on my list for the future, and I expect to review it at a later date on the Alien Romances Blog. 

Will there be more in The Realm of the Elderlings? It's unclear. There have been rumors that Hobb is working on a Bee FarSeer series (yay!), and I sincerely hope so. We'll see, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I've about aspirated doing that for Hobb's good friend George R.R. Martin, which was stupid on my part. I've resolved to be patient about these things. A hounded author retreats or, alternately, bites or craps on you--and some of Martin's fans deserve a double dose of those treatments, to be sure!

In conclusion, all of you entertainment producers out there, why aren't you making a television series or films out of The Realm of the Elderlings? You couldn't get something that's better set up, ready and waiting to be visualized in this media. (Apparently this series has been optioned many times before but nothing's come of it, though the author is open to the right company producing it.) Alas! On that uncertain note, I'm concluding this six-part review of Robin Hobb's magnificent The Realm of the Elderlings series. Whatever you do, don't miss it. 

One last note: Assassin's Fate is the 250th book I've reviewed on the Alien Romances blog! 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Babel Fish vs Brain Power

I have a mind like a dump. I can say that because it is my mind. One never knows what is buried in there and that might be turned up by an intergalactic bulldozer! Anyway, one of the authors participating in celebration of diversity in SFR currently going on at The Galaxy Express mentioned The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Jul 24, 2010 ... Science fiction for me was the dark dystopian future of 1984 stretching to the absurdity of HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. ...
www.thegalaxyexpress.net/

Google Alert.... credit Kim Knox http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2010/07/parallel-universe-one-thing-stays-same.html .

Following this diversity series has stimulated me to think about some of the less diverse aspects of SFR: how writers cope with communication between species and races. It seems to me, it's either some version of the babel fish (usually an implanted chip rather than a parasite) or it's brain power and hard work in the language lab (or hypnopedia in the only one of my books where I give a nod to the problem).

Is there anything else? Could there be? Possibly "Texting" gives us a clue. From time to time, I think about all the troubles we have with our computers and the internet (worms, Trojans, viruses, hackers, malware) and apply it to what might happen to people with a robotic "babel fish" implanted in their heads.

With that in mind, I allowed a "villain" (more of an opportunistic mischief maker who happened to be a world leader) to mess with undiplomatic holographic messages in Knight's Fork.

However, before posting what would have been a very short post on that point, I thought that I ought to check that the "babel fish!" reference that popped up in my mind was accurate and properly attributed. One does try to be responsible.

Imagine my delight when my "Babel Fish" research led to this! (Below. From Wikipedia. Apparently, free to share.) I love lists for worldbuilding.  Credits and attribution at the bottom of the post.

This is a list of races, fauna, and flora (as well as creatures without category) featured in various incarnations of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Races

Aldebarans

The popular anti-teleport song claims that "Aldebaran's great, OK", but the Aldebarans are better known for their liqueurs (sold at Miliways), and fine wines (as Trillian prepared for Zaphod after deactivating all the Heart of Gold kitchen synthomatics).

Altairians

Advanced species known for their love of the movie Fight Club and their intense hatred of rabbits. It will take less than thirty of their dollars a day for hitchhikers to see the universe; so long as said hitchhikers avoid buying fruit drinks at Ursa Minor Beta nightclubs, which cost sixty Altairian dollars.

Amoeboid Zingatularians

The Amoeboid Zingatularians appear as a stellar replacement in the long-running comedic play No Sex Please, We're British at the end of fit the third of the radio series.

Bartledanians

Inhabitants of the planet Bartledan. The people of Bartledan are similar to humans, but do not breathe. Due to their view on the Universe - that the Universe is what the Universe is, take it or leave it - they have no desires, dreams or hopes, to the point that the protagonist of a Bartledanian novel abruptly dies of thirst in the penultimate chapter of the book due to a briefly-mentioned plumbing problem earlier on. Bartledanian literature is renowned, and its books are notable for being exactly one hundred thousand words long. Netball is a popular sport among the people of Bartledan despite the fact that no one cares about winning.

Belcerebons

The Belcerebons of Kakrafoon Kappa had an unhappy time. Once a serene and quiet civilization, a Galactic Tribunal sentenced them to telepathy because the rest of the galaxy found peaceful contemplation contemptuous. Ford Prefect compared them to Humans because the only way Belcerebons could stop transmitting their every thought was to mask their brain activity (or its readability) by talking endlessly about utter trivia. The other approach to dampening telepathic communication was to host concerts of the plutonium rock band Disaster Area. Thankfully, during the concert, an improbability field flipped over the Rudlit Desert, transforming it into a paradise, and cured the Belcerebons of telepathy. A Disaster Area spokesman said that this was "a good gig".

Betelgeusians

A race similar to humans in many ways.

Blagulon Kappans

Blagulon Kappans are methane-breathing life forms from Blagulon Kappa, which only appear in the books as the sophisticated police that attack Zaphod Beeblebrox. They die because Marvin the Paranoid Android causes their ship to commit suicide by sharing his overly pessimistic view of the Universe with it. This in turn renders their space suits, which are remote controlled by the ship, unusable. This proves fatal because they cannot breathe in the thin oxygen atmosphere of Magrathea. However, in the TV series the police are simply humanoids and able to breathe the air.

Dentrassis

Dentrassis are the best cooks and the best drink mixers in the universe. The Vogons can now afford them by being professionally bad tempered. Described by the character Ford Prefect as "The best cooks and the best drinks mixers, and they don't give a wet slap about anything else." In most versions of the story, they help galactic hitchhikers board Vogon Constructor Ships "partly because they like the company, but mostly because it annoys the Vogons."
The Dentrassi were also a demo coding group for the Atari ST home computer.

Dolphins

Dolphins are the second most intelligent creatures on Earth, just above humans. They tried in vain to warn humans of the impending destruction of the planet. However, their behavior was misinterpreted as playful attempts to whistle for fish and jump through hoops. Their story is told in the novel So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

Flaybooz

Flaybooz are small, gerbil-like creatures. Though flaybooz have no ears, they are extremely sensitive to vibration and can actually explode in extreme circumstances. Thor, the Asgardian and sometime rock god, held the record for spontaneous flaybooz detonation when he debuted his new tune “You Wanna Get Hammered?” from a chariot in orbit around Squornshellous Delta. The record had previously been held by intergalactic rock stars Disaster Area, who dropped a speaker bomb into a volcano crater where the flaybooz were enjoying a static electricity festival.
Contrary to an almost universal norm, it is the male flaybooz who nurtures the young. A full-grown flaybooz can fit up to fifty young in his pouch, but generally there is only room for a couple, as males like to carry around a small tool kit in case of emergencies, maybe a few beers, and a copy of Furballs Quarterly. From the novel And Another Thing....

G'Gugvuntts and Vl'hurgs

Two species which existed in the distant past, a very great distance from the Milky Way galaxy. The G'Gugvuntt were enemies of the Vl'hurgs, and these strange and warlike beings are on the brink of an interstellar war, because of an insult uttered by the G'Gunvuntt leader to the mother of the Vl'hurg leader. They were meeting for the last time, and a dreadful silence filled the air as the Vl'hurg leader was challenging the G'Gunvuntt leader to retract the insult. At the precise moment, the phrase "I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle" (muttered by Arthur Dent to himself, which for some strange reason was carried by a freak wormhole in space back in time to the farthest regions of the universe where the G'Gunvuntts and the Vl'hurgs lived) filled the air, which in the Vl'hurg tongue was the most dreadful insult imaginable. It left them no choice but to declare war on the G'Gunvuntts, which went on for a few thousand years and decimated their entire galaxy.
After millennia of battle the surviving G'Gugvuntt and Vl'hurg realised what had actually happened, and joined forces to attack the Milky Way in retaliation. They crossed vast reaches of space in a journey lasting thousands of years before reaching their target where they attacked the first planet they encountered, Earth. Due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was swallowed by a small dog. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy states that this sort of thing happens all the time.
In the film, the phrase is stated as: "I wouldn't want to go anywhere without my wonderful towel." In the computer game The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, any remark that the text parser does not understand has a chance of triggering a story arc involving the player's poorly chosen words travelling to the negotiation table and becoming the aforementioned insult.

Golgafrinchans

The Golgafrinchans are a race from the planet Golgafrincham that appears in fit the sixth of the radio series, episode 6 of the TV series and the novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. In their ancient history, they tricked the most useless third (the middlemen) of their population to get on a spaceship and leave the planet, by spreading rumours of the horrific fates their planet was doomed to soon undergo, such as being eaten by a mutant star goat, or collapsing into the sun. The plan was to get them to crash on a "harmless" planet, thus losing any capacity for space travel; they would then be out of everyone's hair.
Soon after they managed to get rid of these people - including all the telephone sanitizers - the entire remaining population was wiped out by a plague contracted from a dirty telephone.
The survivors who left on the spaceship eventually did crash onto Earth, as planned. They managed to possibly wipe out the primitive, but wise, population of original inhabitants, thus corrupting Deep Thought's 10-million-year plan to discover the Ultimate Question to the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. They are presumed to be the ancestors of modern humans.
Ancient Golgafrinchan culture included a sect known as 'the great circling poets of Arium', who would abuse travellers, circle them and throw rocks at them. Afterwards, they would recite an epic poem which usually involved the rescue of a beautiful monster from a ravening Princess by five sage Princes on four horses.
See also: Listings for specific Golgafrinchan characters

Grebulons

The Grebulons are a race that appears in the novel Mostly Harmless. They are observing the Earth, but do not know why.
During the centuries-long spaceflight the Grebulons were all in suspended animation with their memories saved to the ship's computer (which was struck by an asteroid influenced by Guide Mark II). With the loss of the backup, after the robots carrying it also fell out of the hole made by the asteroid, the Grebulons awoke with no idea where they were going or who they were. What little instructions they could extract from the wrecked computer told them to "land" somewhere and "monitor" something, so they landed on Rupert and monitored the televisionEarth. transmissions from
Trillian later reveals that the Grebulons are a missing reconnaissance fleet from the war that she was meant to cover (which never happened because the Grebulons never arrived with their respective army).

Haggunenons

The Haggunenons of Vicissitus Three were encountered in the fit the sixth of the radio series when Ford and Zaphod attempted to steal an Admiral's flagship from the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. According to the Guide, the Haggunenons "have the most impatient chromosomes in the Galaxy. Whereas most species are content to evolve slowly and carefully over thousands of generations, discarding a prehensile toe here, [...] hazarding another nostril there, the Haggunenons would have done for Charles Darwin what a squadron of Arcturan Stunt Apples would have done for Sir Isaac Newton. Their genetic structure is based on the quadruple sterated octohelix...." Their tendency to evolve almost instantaneously has the downside of discarding one deficiency for another. For example, when they reach for sugar for their coffee, they may evolve "into something with much longer arms, but which is probably perfectly incapable of drinking the coffee." They resent stable species, and wage war on them in their horribly beweaponed chameleoid black battle cruisers.
The Haggunenon Admiral turned out to have been sleeping on his flagship in the form of a chair while Ford, Arthur, Zaphod, Trillian and Marvin returned it to its proper time and place at the vanguard of an invasion fleet. It then evolved into a copy of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, from which Ford and Arthur were able to escape, but which ate Marvin, Trillian and Zaphod. Those three later made their escape when the admiral evolved into an escape capsule.
This monster also appears in the "Dungeons and Dragons Epic Level Handbook" as the Hagunemnon. Like their Hitch-hiker's counterparts, they too are unstable shapeshifters with a deep loathing for non-shapeshifting lifeforms.
See also: Haggunenon Underfleet Commander

Hingefreel

A race with only a very small mention, at the start of Chapter 1 of the novel Mostly Harmless. Hailing from Arkintoofle Minor, they built spaceships powered by bad news, which is the only thing that travels faster than light. Their ships were very fast, but didn't work particularly well, and were extremely unwelcome wherever they arrived.

Hooloovoo

A Hooloovoo is a hyperintelligent shade of the colour blue.
Little is known of them, except that one participated in the construction of the starship Heart of Gold. At the launching ceremony one was temporarily refracted into a free-standing prism. This is probably analogous to the ceremonial multicoloured lab coats worn by the rest of the team.

Hrarf-Hrarf

Hrarf-Hrarf are a race of beings whose lifespans flow backwards in linear time. Their lives begin at death, and end "in a really quite extraordinarily pleasant birth." They are also described as the "only race known actually to enjoy hangovers, because they know it guarantees that a tremendously good evening will ensue."
The race is mentioned only in the radio series The Secondary Phase, written specially for that series by Douglas Adams in the mid-1990s.

Humans

Humans are bipedal creatures from Earth, and the third most intelligent species on that planet. (Surpassed only by mice and dolphins.) Originally thought to have evolved from proto-apes, humans may in fact be descendants of Golgafrinchan telephone sanitizers, account executives, and marketing analysts who were tricked out of leaving their home planet to arrive on the planet ca. two million BC. These Golgafrinchans apparently displaced the indigenous cavemen as the organic components in the computer designed by Deep Thought.
Interestingly, although the term "humanoid" is applied to many races throughout the galaxy, "humanity" refers specifically to the qualities of humans.

Jatravartids

Jatravartids are small blue creatures of the planet Viltvodle VI with more than fifty arms each. They are therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented aerosol deodorantwheel. before the
Many races believe that the Universe was created by some sort of god or in the Big Bang. The Jatravartid people, however, believe that the Universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. They live in perpetual fear of the time they call "The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief". The theory of the Great Green Arkleseizure is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI.
(A similar concept was used in the short story "God's Nose" by Damon Knight.)
For the 2005 movie The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams created a new character called Humma Kavula, a missionary whose apparent mission is to spread the religion of the Jatravartids. The Jatravartids are only seen on screen during two brief (and poorly lit) shots, though their discarded aerosol cans are found all over their planet's surface. "Caveman"-style illustrations of the Jatravartids feature in one episode of the Hitchhiker's GuideTV series.

Krikkiters

This race of quiet, polite, charming and rather whimsical humanoids caused the most devastating war in the history of the Galaxy (with over two "grillion" casualties). Their homeworld, Krikkit, is surrounded by a black cloud, so they had no knowledge of the universe outside their world. When a spaceship crashed on the surface of Krikkit, the inhabitants quickly stripped it of its secrets and used them to create their own "flimsy piece of near-junk" craft, Krikkit One. Upon reaching the outer edge of the dust cloud and seeing the galaxy for the first time, the people of Krikkit marvelled at its beauty before casually deciding to destroy it, famously remarking "It'll have to go." The Earth game of cricket is a racial memory of the events of the Krikkit Wars. The story of these events is told in the novel Life, the Universe and Everything.

Lamuellans

Lamuellans are a humanoid race from the planet Lamuella. It is on this planet that a passenger starship crashes, and Arthur Dent is the only survivor. There he becomes the planet's Sandwich Maker. The Lamuellans are led, more or less, by Old Thrashbarg, the tribe's priest to Almighty Bob. Other residents of the village include Kirp, a fisher, Grarp the Baker, Strinder the Tool Maker, and Drimple the Sandwich Maker's apprentice. The planet is also home to Perfectly Normal Beasts and Pikka Birds. The complete story is found in the novel Mostly Harmless.

Magratheans

They are sentient beings that live on planet Magrathea. In the past during the time of the Galactic Empire, they created and sold planets to rich customers. They are very mysterious and seem to show up whenever something important happens, which is seen the most in the third book:Life, the Universe, and Everything. In the first book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy it is revealed that they have been asleep waiting for the galaxies' economy to improve, but were awakened prematurely to rebuild the Earth after its destruction by Vogons. They are the race who built the Earth, at the request of the Mice. However, in the film, the Mice and the Magratheans are the same species.

Mice

Mice are the physical protrusions into our dimension of a race of hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings who commissioned construction of the Earth to find the Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything. As such, they are the most intelligent life form on that planet.
In their home dimension, a popular sport is Brockian Ultra-Cricket, a horribly violent game which involves hitting people for no readily apparent reason and then running away, before apologising from some distance - often through a megaphone. However, it is completely unrelated except in name to the earth sport of cricket.

Oglaroonians

Natives to the small forest world of Oglaroon, Oglaroonians have taken what is a fairly universal trait among sentient species (to cope with the sheer infinite vastness of the universe by simply ignoring it) to its ultimate extreme. Despite the entire planet being habitable, Oglaroonians have managed to confine their global population to one small nut tree, in which they compose poetry, create art, and somehow fight wars. The consensus among those in power that any trees one might observe from the outer branches are merely hallucinations brought on by eating too many oglanuts, and anyone who thinks differently is hurled out of the tree, presumably to his death.

Poghrils

An exceptionally pessimistic race from the star system of Pansel. Due to the Heart of Gold's Infinite Improbability Drive causing a wave of improbability when passing through the system, two-hundred and thirty-nine thousand lightly fried eggs landed on the surface of their home planet, unfortunately too late to save the vast majority, who had already succumbed to famine, though one did manage to survive for two further weeks, before dying of cholesterol poisoning.

Shaltanacs

The Shaltanacs are a race from the planet Broop Kidron Thirteen, who had their own version of the Earth phrase, "The other man's grass is always greener." Although, given their planet's horticultural peculiarities, theirs was, "The other Shaltanac's joopleberry shrub is always a more mauve-y shade of pinky russet," and so, the expression fell into disuse, and the Shaltanacs found they had little choice but to become exceptionally happy and content with their lot, which surprised everyone else in the galaxy, who had not realised that the best way not to be unhappy is not to have a word for it.

Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax

The Silastic Armourfiends were an insanely aggressive race who lived on the planet Striterax approximately twenty billion years ago "when the universe was young". They were extremely keen on fighting – one of the best ways to deal with a Silastic Armourfiend was to lock him in a room by himself, since he would beat himself up sooner or later. They wrecked the surface of their planet in constant wars, and the whole population lived within bunkers deep below the surface.
In an attempt to deal with the problems their violent nature created, the Silastic Armourfiends passed a law that anybody who had to carry a weapon as part of their normal work (including policemen, security guards and primary school teachers) must spend a minimum of 45 minutes each day punching a sack of potatoes. It was hoped that this would allow them to work off their surplus aggression. This plan worked only until someone had the idea to simply shoot the potatoes, and the Silastic Armourfiends were excited about their "first war for weeks."
During one of their more unpleasant wars, the Silastic Armourfiends asked the great computer Hactar to design the ultimate weapon for them. The computer complied, creating a hand-held bomb which would connect the core of every major sun via hyperspace, destroying the entire universe. The Silastic Armorfiends attempted to use the bomb to blow up a munitions dump, but fortunately Hactar had built a dud weapon since it could not conceive of any occasion when the use of the real thing would be justified. The Silastic Armourfiends disagreed, and pulverised Hactar.
Eventually, after smashing the hell out of the Strenuous Garfighters of Stug and the Strangulous Stilletans of Jajazikstack, the Silastic Armourfiends found an entirely new way of blowing themselves up, which was of great relief to the Garfighters, the Stilletans, and the potatoes.
"The best way to pick a fight with a Silastic Armorfiend was just to be born. They didn't like it, they got resentful"

Strangulous Stilettans of Jajazikstak

An enemy of the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax.

Strenuous Garfighters of Stug

An enemy of the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax.

Vogons

Main article: Vogon

Fauna

Algolian Suntiger

The tooth of an Algolian Suntiger is part of the mix for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. It "spreads the fires of the Algolian suns deep into the heart of the drink."

Ameglian Major Cows

See Dish of the Day (cow).

Arcturian Megadonkey

An animal featured in the proverb "to talk all four legs off an Arcturian Megadonkey", and also served grated at a dinner on the planet Magrathea.

Arcturian Megagnat

A creature from Kakrafoon. It is mentioned during a description of the many uses of towels whereby you can "huddle beneath it for protection against the Arcturian Megagnats under the stars of Kakrafoon."

Babel fish

The Babel fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and is a universal translator which simultaneously translates from one spoken language to another. It takes the brainwaves of the other body and what they are thinking then transmits the thoughts to the speech centers of the hosts brain, the speech heard by the ear decodes the brainwave matrix. When inserted into the ear, its nutrition processes convert sound waves into brain waves, neatly crossing the language divide between any species you should happen to meet whilst traveling in space.
Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.^[1] Arthur Dent, a surviving Earthling, commented only 'Eurgh!' when first inserting the fish into his ear canal. It did, however, enable him to understand Vogon Poetry - not necessarily a good thing.
The book points out that the Babel fish could not possibly have developed naturally, and therefore proves the existence of God as its creator. However, certain people say this proves the nonexistence of god as proof denies faith, and without faith, god is nothing. "'my, that was easy', says man, and goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

Boghog

The Boghog is the only native animal of planet NowWhat, "all other having long ago died of despair".
Boghogs are tiny, vicious creatures with unaccountably thin and leaky skins. Boghog meat is almost completely inedible and is the primary source of food for the settlers on NowWhat.
The language of the boghogs consists of biting each other very hard on the thigh and thus was never learned by anybody else.

Damogran Frond Crested Eagle

A Damogran Frond Crested Eagle inhabites Damogran, a desert planet where Zaphod Beeblebrox steals the Heart of Gold. A Damogran Frond Crested Eagle incorporated the first two pages of Zaphod Beeblebrox's speech into its nest, which it built out of paper mâché, and "was virtually impossible for a newly hatched baby eagle to break out of." Since apparently the Eagle had, for some reason, heard of survival of the species and become opposed to it.

Equinusian packbeast

At the beginning of the radio series The Quandary Phase, the voice of The Book describes any attempts to appeal to the better nature of the Vogons as "flogging a dead Equinusian packbeast." Director Dirk Maggs answered that this expression can be read as either referring to a horse (Latin name Equus caballus), or a separate horse-like alien species, or both.

Fuolornis Fire Dragon

A majestic creature that, despite having "breath like a rocket booster and teeth like a park fence" was revered in the land of Brequinda for the mystifyingly sexy way in which it flew about the fragrant night skies, along with their tendency to bite anybody who didn't revere them. So sexy were the dragons that they would induce mass exodus to private quarters when crossing the full moon. Although generally peaceful, they nonetheless managed to bite and burn other people quite a bit; behaviour which led eventually to their extinction and use in making hamburgers. The most current edition of the Guide has yet to mention this crucial fact, much to the disappointment of hitchhikers. Also according to the Guide, most of Brequinda now seems to contain restaurants selling the dragon meat burgers, possibly indicating that some find the meat tasty. Dragons are shown as part of the defense system of the godly planet of Asgard in the novel And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer, but it is never said whether or not these are the same or different dragons.

Greater Drubbered Wintwock

According to the novel Mostly Harmless, these are no longer found on the planet Stegbartle Major in the Constellation Fraz.

Mattress

Mattresses are friendly, dim-witted, docile creatures capable of speech. They are all called Zem and live in the swamps of Squornshellous Zeta. Many of them are slaughtered, dried out, and shipped around the Galaxy to be slept on by grateful customers, though they do not appear to mind this. Many of the movements they make, such as gupping and willomying, are so unique that etymologists have driven themselves half-insane tracking down new words for them.

Perfectly Normal Beast

The Perfectly Normal Beasts are a species that migrate across the Anhondo Plain on Lamuella twice a year (one direction in the spring then back again in the autumn). The migration takes about 8 to 9 days during which time they form a solid mass. They appear from thin air at one end of the plain then disappear again at the other. They are called Perfectly Normal Beasts because naming them normalizes the event of their migration and keeps people from worrying about its cause. It is likely that the Domain of the King was built to take advantage of this odd, mile-wide gap in the bi-yearly migration, situated as it is on a rather nice stretch of land that would otherwise be badly trampled every now and then (or, the space-time warp was specifically manipulated by the Domain's original builder as a matter of convenience).
The local Lamuellans capture the beasts and kill them for their meat. The method uses similar techniques to a matador but also requires use of the Pikka Birds to get their attention. The best of the meat is eaten straight away while the rest is salted and stored for consumption until the next migration. It was consumed on its own until the arrival of the Sandwich Maker and is now always placed between two slices of bread.

Pikka Bird

The Pikka Birds are birds native to Lamuella. They are known for being surprised by ordinary everyday objects and events such as the sun rising but completely ignoring unusual events such as spaceships landing. They are accustomed to staring blankly at a few anonymous atoms in the middle of the air. They are also used to attract Perfectly Normal Beasts. According to Arthur Dent's description of them in the radio series The Quintessential Phase and the novel Mostly Harmless, their eggs make rather a good omelette. On his first encounter with a Pikka Bird, Ford Prefect is disturbed by its physical similarity to the bird-shape taken by the sentient Guide Mark II.
(Pica pica is the Latin name for the magpie).

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal

The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal is a creature that hails from the planet of Traal, and will eat anything. The beasts are impossible to kill. To deal with a beast, one should wrap a towel around one's own head. This creature is so mind-bogglingly stupid that it assumes that if someone cannot see it, then it cannot see the person. Despite this, the Guide did state, erroneously, that "ravenous Bugblatter beasts often make a very good meal for (rather than of) visiting tourists" in its article on the planet Traal. This led to deaths of those who took it literally. The guide's editors avoided lawsuit by summoning a poet to testify under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty, and therefore prove that their claim, the nicer one, must be true. This led to life itself being held in contempt of court for being neither beautiful nor true, and subsequently being removed from all those present at the trial.
In the computer game The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Bugblatter Beast asks its victims their names before killing them, and carves the names on a memorial outside its cave. The game also describes the Beast as having Lasero-Zap eyes, Swivel-Shear Teeth, and several dozen tungsten carbide Vast Pain claws forged in the sun furnaces of Zangrijad, all implying that it is a cyborg.
According to the radio scripts, the Beast's eyes can turn red, green, then a sort of mauvy pink.
In the 2005 movie The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Guide has an entry on what to do if you face certain, unavoidable death at the claws of a Bugblatter Beast: the same method for "What to do if you find yourself trapped beneath a large boulder with no means of escape" from fit the eighth of the radio series. The entry is this: "Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your current circumstances seems more likely, consider how lucky you are that it won't be troubling you much longer."
In the movie, the Vogons apparently have a Bugblatter Beast trapped inside a metal box, about the size of a shipping container. The Beast is never seen (apart from a large green eye), but the box is continually shaking back and forth. The Vogons use it to execute people who are convicted of crimes such as kidnapping the President, and as such Tricia McMillan was nearly fed to it.

Scintillating Jeweled Scuttling Crabs

Scintillating Jeweled Scuttling Crabs live on the planet Vogsphere, the Vogons' homeworld. Vogons eat the crabs, "smashing their shells open with iron mallets." They cook the crabmeat with the native trees. Although the Vogons migrated to the Megabrantis Cluster, the political hub of the Galaxy, every year the Vogons import twenty-seven thousand scintillating jeweled scuttling crabs from Vogsphere and "while away a drunken night smashing them to bits with iron mallets."

Vegan Rhino

Little is known about Vegan Rhinos. They are mentioned once in The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy when, while having dinner on Magrathea, Zaphod asks Arthur to "try some Vegan Rhino's cutlet. It's delicious if you happen to like that sort of thing"

Vogon Slapsticks

Vogon Slapsticks are odd creatures from the 2005 movie The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. They originated, most likely, on the planet Vogsphere. In shape they look like rust-brown poles stuck into the ground with a rectangle on top, sometimes having a hand print inside it. Ford Prefect pulled one out of the ground, causing it to squeal in a high pitched frequency. It escaped Ford's towel and then slithered into the ground. They smack anyone who thinks or has an idea, then disappear back into the ground. Their name originates from slapstick comedy, which involves exaggerated physical violence.

Flora

Fallian albino marsh worm

The Fallian albino marsh worm spends its life absorbing hallucinogenic gas from the marshes of Fallia. After it dies, it turns into a stiff-ish, cigarette-like object. Hitchhikers call these joysticks.

• One puff and you feel blissfully happy. Love everybody, forgive your enemies, all that stuff.
• Two puffs make you curious about just about everything, including the horrible death that is probably coming your way for you to have lit this baby in the first place. This is going to be great, you tell yourself. I am about to experience an energy shift to a new plane of existence. What will it be like? Will I make new friends? Do they have beer?
• After the third puff, your brain explodes and you feel a little peckish. From the novel And Another Thing...

Fluff

While not, strictly speaking, flora by itself, four bits of fluff collected in the computer game The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy can be made to grow into a fruit-bearing tree. The fruit gives its eater a glimpse of future foresight (necessary for winning said game).

Joopleberry Shrub

A mauvey pink russet plant from planet Broop Kidron Thirteen. It is the basis for the no longer used Shaltanac phrase, "the other Shaltanac's joopleberry shrub is always a more mauvey shade of pinky russet."

Ratchet Screwdriver Fruit

A bizarre crop with an unusual life-cycle. Once picked, the fruit must be kept in a dark, dusty drawer for several years, after which time the outer skin crumbles to dust leaving an unidentifiable metal object with screw-holes and various ridges and flanges. This object will inevitably get thrown away when discovered. There is general uncertainty as to the benefits of this behaviour to the ratchet screwdriver species as a whole.

 

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NOTES

In my various adventures with ebook pirates, I've discovered that some pirates --who make declarations designed to bamboozle EBay staffers-- are under the impression that popular novels are available free, for all, under GNU licensing.

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

Only the author of a work ought to be able to "copyleft" (the opposite of copyright) her work, so if you see someone claiming that they have the right to "resell" a colleagues' work under a GNU license, you ought to report the instance.

Trivial Self-Amusement

Did the Staples (TM) saying "That Was Easy" come from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ?

'my, that was easy', says man, and goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

There's a rule of thumb that I was told (repeatedly) when I started entering RWA chapter contests and that is "no more than 6 adverbs per page". It might have been 6 adverbs/adjectives.

The adverbs and adjectives absolutely make this list. Are there any that you'd edit out?