Road Train to the Stars
597933
I read this series as a child and loved it, and discovering it again as an adult it's just as much fun. DeChancie takes the familiar science fiction trope of the ancient alien transport system (usually a series of wormholes) and makes it a literal roadway that begins on Pluto and extends throughout the galaxy through a series of gates. The books are full of rough and tumble adventure as the heroes make their way through the seedy pit stops of the galaxy in search of the road builders, pursued by half the known universe who want to gain control of the roadmap.
3015543
Dear friends,
  one of my travel dreams is to take the train ride covered in this DVD. Until I get to actually do it, this DVD will keep me happy and informed of what I will someday see in reality.

John Barnes,
Bangkok, Thailand
3956208
This is quite simply the only practical way to go to the stars.  Yes, by levitation and teleportation.  Physics does not provide any basis for a technology of star travel.
2227974
The scenery was great the storyline was up to date. very interesting concerning all the equipment that JPL sent to Mars.  After seeing this movie need to go visit JPL.
4248562
Very good story about mans first venture to another star system. Many stories and adventures to carry the story over decades. On book 4 now, and the story gets better.
Humans future and the good and the bad that always follows.
4056287
great movie had you wondering if  anyone could survive this space mission. Seemed very real in the way it was filmed  camera angles and special effects were amazing. I would love to see this movie in 3D !
4843327
Loved the movie. Wonderful story about a really posh car. The excellent acting from vintage stars, to the magnificent scenery.  A real entertainment.
1120131
I could wish that we could start to go to the stars . But it is not to be . I enjoyed this book because I believe it will fall on the shoulders of the light units of the future space navies . To deal with every thing out there . Economically the cost of a heavy unit (  Heavy Cruiser , Battle Ship or Carrier ) could not be born by anything less than a few dozen planets
3331204
Agent to the Stars (2005) by John Scalzi is a good read. The story is told first person past tense from Tom Steins POV. It reminded me of The Space Merchants (1953) by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, which is told first person past tense from Mitch Courtenays POV. The Space Merchants is an environmental satire against consumerism.

Scalzis Agent to the Stars is a fast read with a happy ending. Most of the story takes place in L.A, with a few side trips to the alien ship and Arizona. Most of The Space Merchants takes place on earth and the moon.

Ive read a handful of Scalzis other books like Fuzzy Nation (2011), Redshirts (2012), The Human Division (2013), Lock In (2014) and The End of All Things (2015). All of them were good, entertaining.

If you're going to read one story by John Scalzi, I recommend you read Old Mans War (2005). Its one of my top five favorite military science fiction adventure stories. The story is told first person, past tense, from protagonist John Perrys point of view.

Starship Troopers (1959) (not like the movie) by Robert A. Heinlein is the book that got me started in sci-fi adventures, and has remained one of my top five favorite military science fiction adventure stories for decades. The Forever War (1974) by Joe Haldeman, Armor (1984) by John Steakley, and Enders Game (1985) by Orson Scott Card, round out my top five military sci-fi adventure stories.

If you like any of the above you might also like Jack Campbells The Lost Fleet series, Taylor Andersons Destroyermen series, Andre Nortons Star Soldiers, Andy Weirs The Martian, or Frank Herberts Dune. Other sci-fi and fantasy authors I like include Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Paolo Bacigalupi, Arthur C. Clarke, Earnest Cline, Suzanne Collins, Abe Evergreen, Terry Goodkind, Hugh Howey, Robert Jordan, George Martin, Larry Niven, Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson and J.R.R. Tolkien.
2526123
Great story and cool pictures of yesterday's stars, etc.
3555843
This is Season Two of Highway Patrol ,starring Academy Award winner Broderick Crawford. Crawford had a long and varied career in Vaudeville,the stage,radio and in films,all before 1940!During the war he was heard as part of Glenn Miller's broadcasts from Harvard University as part of the Air Technical Training Command,doing short skits for the Army Air Corp to bolster enlistment./49 saw him grab an OSCAR and then in /55 he was offered a part in Highway Patrol. Still making films during his time on Patrol,the grind of churning out the TV shows took its toll on Crawford. His voice can be heard to be quite raspy at times and he looked tired.(This may also be due sometimes to his drinking).
Season Two starts in 1956 and goes to /57. Crawford always had a by-line at the end of each show. This Seasons lines were:It isn't the car that kills,its the driver and Leave your blood at the red cross,not on the highway. Crawford had a distinctive rapid fire delivery and as a result the pace of the show was notched up all due to him. This led to a fast editing which in turn started a new industry standard. Stars in view this season include,Bing Russell(Kurt's father),Ruta Lee,Gene Roth(3 Stooges),Ed Nelson,Bowery Boys alumni Stanley Clements and Bobby Jordan,Rhodes Reason(This Island Earth),Barbara Eden(I Dream of Jeannie),Stuart Whitman,and Harold Goodwin, who appeared in many of Buster Keatons films,spelled here Herold,among others. One writer to become really famous was Gene Roddenberry(Star Trek) and later TV producer Quinn Martin is here as a sound supervisor.
The discs come in two keep cases,one with three discs and one with two. All are one sided. Both are in a thick box. The shows themselves have been transferred,like Sea Hunt,with great care and look as if they were filmed just yesterday. Beautiful to look at.
There are a few sound drop outs throughout this series and this season is no exception. I can only imagine the audio tracks were  slightly damaged over time.
All in all it is an absolute delight to see these fast paced wonders back on the small screen for everyone to enjoy again. They look even better than I recall,and that's not having seen them since their debut on a small,snowy b&w TV set. Thank you MGM and TGG Direct for releasing them.
267189
When I had first heard about the new movie "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", I have to admit to entertaining some misgivings about them being able to get the book into a feature length movie of a reasonable length. Having seen the original series from television many times, my misgivings were deep. I saw the movie and was very pleasantly surprised that they had covered the book very well, and the movie was as good as the series.

While the movie kept much of the humour and the character of the original series, I was pleased with the innovations of the prop designs. The new-look Marvin, (very round), was excellent, and looked very good. The new look Guide, which was a electronic book that opened and closed like a coventional book was also a nice touch. Zafod Beeblebrox's stolen ship was also nice, being totally round, like Marvin's head. With the technological advances over the last decade or so, it goes without saying that the effects were stunning. Despite these little changes, the movie retains the "feel" of the series and the book. You might notice that the old Marvin shows up as an extra bit of prop in the background, as well, though only briefly and only his head.

Martin Freeman was an excellent choice and carries the almost ironically normal Arthur Dent well. His ablility to act boringly normal in the most extraordinary situations brings out the contrast that Arthur Dent is. Mos Def is an excellent counter point as Ford Prefect, though there was not so much emphasis on why Prefect was on Earth in the first place, (though it does come up in a conversation, it is not talked about with Dent which was a funny point in the TV series). Sam Rockwell was sheer delight as the zany and oftimes "stupid" Zaphod Beeblebrox. Giving him shots of lemon from a "thinking hat" was a great idea, and Rockwell was very funny indeed. Lastly, on the topic of the cast, I would like to mention Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast. He was another excellent choice, and carried the friendly planet designer very well. Nighy was endearing and suited well to that role.

The plot of the movie had all the major elements of the book and the series, with only some ommissions from the original plot and some cosmetic changes in the details, (such as Deep Thought's calculation period being extended to 7,500,000 years). Despite these somewhat paltry changes, the movie conveys the story well and with flair. The added narations, (Steven Fry), were excellent and also covered most of the points from the book. The whale scene was as excellent as always, as well as the Guide's discussion on Creation and how everyone seemed to be a little put out by it.

From anyone who has grown up loving the book and the television series to those who are being introduced to Douglas Adams' classic for the first time, this movie is a treat and will not disappoint. I have read the books through and seen the television series completely about 3 times, and I found the movie to be a totally excellent experience. This is a great movie to introduce a whole new generation of Hitchhikers to what is a comic classic in science-fiction. I loved it and hope that they make a sequel to this.
1765355
I have been looking forward to seeing this completed movie since I saw the unedited raw footage at the IMAX theater at the Ontario place during ISDC1994. It does not disappoint. One of the design problems of the IMAX camera is that it can only hold an 8minute film magazine, so the amateur cinematographers with NASA have to be judicious in what they film. As always, they exceed expectations.
The movie is also a sort of history lesson. We have become so used to the enormous size of the ISS, that we now take its expanse for granted It is hard to remember that there was a time when the Spacelab was our Space Station. Today, we use similar sized modules as cargo containers to the Station.
This film is an excellent introduction to spaceflight
3250259
Alec Baldwin takes us on a journey through space. We see Neil Armstrong's footprints on the moon. Then it is on to Venus, Mercury and the sun. To Mars and the search for extraterrestrial life. The gas giants and Pluto. Interstellar space. Alpha Centauri 25 trillion miles away. Gliese 581. Algol. The Pleiades. Betelgeuse. Orion Nebula. Star birth. White dwarf. Crab Nebula. Supernova. Pulsar spinning 30 times a second. Black hole. Hypernova. We are outside the Milky Way in intergalactic space. Dark matter. Andromeda Galaxy. We see patterns, order in the chaos. Quasar. Countless galaxies. Light. The Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. Baldwin ties mythology and science together with a sense of awe.
3024527
Don't know what I expected, but this was not it! Traveling through space on a common run, they get the surprise of their lives, and the lives of every other human in their little part of the universe! How to handle this became harder when they were given a precious cargo.
1975266
This DVD provided me with a great insight as to what it would be like to ride the trains and travel throughout the countryside.  Beautifully put together.
3466253
Unlike so many movies, which have screenplays based on chopping up a book into some barely recognizable story to fit in an hour and a half, Dark Star, the book, is a novel based on the movie of the same name.

And while the movie, John Carpenter's first attempt at science fiction movie making, is a pretty amateur effort, the book shines by comparison.

In this story, a crew find themselves on a mission to find solar systems with habitable planets, suitable for human colonization, and destroy any wobbly, unstable planets in those systems.  The ship they fly on is slowly falling apart around them, and the interpersonal relationships are pretty much doing the same.

This book is much like Catch-22 in space, only less optimistic.  Dark and unescapable, the stories of the crew members of this ship slowly draw you in, until you really do get the feeling you're on the ship with them, sharing their lives and their fates.

Also, this book has one of the THE most memorable closing lines in the history of science fiction, and to this day, I can remember the chills that ran down my spine as I read it and closed the book.  At 14, the age when I first read it, this book affected me deeply, leaving impressions in my mind that would later make me agree with Kevin Smith that "The Empire Strikes Back" was the best fo the Star Wars movies, and I would find myself thinking back on this story when reading many other pieces of literature.

While Alan Dean Foster is often known for writing fluffy, simple juvies, this book is much more complex than most of his stuff.  As usual, his florid prose either works for you, like it does for me, or it doesn't.  If you're a fan of ADF, you must read this book.  If you're not, this book might change your mind.