So what novels have people read and then thought what was that all about? What was the point of that? Was there one?

The last novel I felt that way about had to be "Contest" by Matthew Reilly. It was tight, fast paced and easy to read - a real page turner, but it also read like a screenplay and seemed to be crying out all of the way through "This could be a movie!!!", in which case, the movie would be so much better because when it comes to action, you can't beat the silver screen - words simply hamper the action.

The result is that the story is delivered in the wrong medium; it isn't suited to a novel, but perfectly suited to film.

I'd argue the same about some of my favourite films: Aliens, Die Hard, Dawn of the Dead - that they would be poor in novel form. So by that same argument, when I read a novel that I can't imagine being as good as a film (Carry Me Down, Never Let Me Go, Child X, Skellig) I realise I've struck gold.

Someone mentioned Patricia Dunker recently, which brought her name back to me, and said they were a real fan. I read one of hers about a mother and a son and a predatory male - and there was a lot of snow in it - that I just didn't get. It might have been about Freud but it certainly wasn't about any kind of people i could either believe existed or care less whether they did or not. Hope I don't offend whoever it was that met her and had a real 'moment' but am afraid it did nothing for me at all.

The result is that the story is delivered in the wrong medium; it isn't suited to a novel, but perfectly suited to film.

I think that if any creative work is really good, its medium - clay, novel, ballet stage - is such an integral part of how it works that it doesn't work in any other medium. I know exactly what other posts have meant about novels that feel like wannabe film scripts - I've hear Michael Crichton described like that, though I've not read any. Novels that succeed on every level that fiction works at lose most of those levels when they're transferred. To work as - say - film, they have to be completely re-imagined, the novel used as a jumping-off point. And then the lovers of the novel, most understandably, complain it's not faithful to it.

Emma

I always feel cheated if a book reads like a wannabe film because there is so much more that a book could say to make the most of itself.

When I read books I do so for one of two reasons. First, I look for familiarity - either by reading thrillers/detective books, where I find reassurance in the themes or the fact that the structure and handling are recognisable. Or I read things like Jane Austen over and over again, where I find comfort from the way the book is crafted.

Other times I read with my picky head on because I just want beauty. When I'm in this mood, I have no patience for things that are written anything less than perfectly or for plots that do not grip straight away. I end up rejecting books for completely spurious reasons. I don't have much spare time for reading (after fitting writing around being a mum and having a full time job) so I just get brutal about it.

S

I think that if any creative work is really good, its medium - clay, novel, ballet stage - is such an integral part of how it works that it doesn't work in any other medium.

This seems so obviously true that for some reason I find myself perversely struggling to find a counter-example. Just about the only one I can think of is The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy which is hardly a masterpiece. (OK I loved it when I was a kid, but I don't think it's passed the test of time that well.) I'll be amazed if anyone is still talking about it in another 25 years, except possibly from a historical point of view, ie the last radio drama ever to achieve large-scale mainstream success.

And maybe HHGTTG only really survived the transition from radio to novel to TV because all three were written by Douglas Adams, whose unlike most people writing comic novels actually worked in Radio and TV and so knew how to preserve his vision across the change of media. This is maybe demonstrated by the awfulness of the recent Hollywood movie, in which he had a lot less involvement (I think he had some input to the scripts before he died but not much).

The film isn't brilliant, but Douglass Adams knew that the format of his story would have to change dramatically if it was to be made into a film, and the main change would be the love story between Arthur and Trillian, and he was all for that, and the for the full Hollywood treatment.

Unfortunately it fell on its arse. He didn't get the full Hollywood treatment. The script was all over the place and some of the most memorable scenes were missing in favour of having a ten minute CGI Magrathea. Ford mumbles his lines and is inaudible in many places, Martin Freeman is shite as Arthur (the original Arthur was more irate, stressed and confused, whereas Freeman is exactly as he is in the Office, the dazed, pissed off underdog, and even Alan Rikman is only average as Marvin).

I still watch it, because it is, after all, the long awaited film of HHGG, but it doesn't beat the radio version.

Hollywood? Don't talk to me about Hollywood.

I didn't think HHGTTG worked at all on TV, though I still love it on radio. I gave it to my teenaged son recently, and he does too: I'm interested to find it hasn't dated much at all, because the targets of the jokes are classic.

But apparently Douglas Adams only wrote it for radio because he couldn't sell a film script of it, so in theory it's just coming home again to be made in Hollywood. But maybe the trouble is it's still an adaptation of something born to a different medium.

But why are we surprised? Everyone knows the pictures are always better on the radio.

Emma

No, HHGTTG was definitely pitched as a radio series first, it wasn't a rewritten movie idea. The HHGTTG concept was devised jointly by Douglas Adams and radio producer Simon Brett. At the time HHGTTG was pitched, Adams was already working in radio comedy having submitted material for the likes of Burkiss Way, Week Ending, News Huddlines and Doctor In The House. It was his contacts with BBC radio, particularly Brett and John Lloyd (who also wrote some of the original HHGTTG) that led to the development and commissioning of the series.

I do seem to be alone in having enjoyed the TV series! I mean I do understand and largely agree with the whole "pictures are better on radio" thing, but I thought on this occasion the performances of the TV cast and the whole air of silliness (including the cheapo computer graphics) made for a great adaptation. But maybe that's because I first watched it in 1981 when we didn't expect much from special effects, and I was a mere stripling anyway who was generally satisfied by someone waving a balloon on a stick. Perhaps coming to it fresh in 2006 it wouldn't have the same appeal.

And I do think it's rather dated now (nothing dates like comedy). Although perhaps it might be fairer to say that Adams had such an impact on the comedy landscape that his style has been absorbed into everything else since, with the result that the original no longer seems quite so, well, original. HHGTTG is full of lines like "In those days men were real men, women were real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri" which is not so much funny as "wacky and zany" and we've heard that kind of thing so often in the subsequent 25 years that it no longer raises much of a smile. For me, anyway. But then I'm a jaded old curmudgeon. It's great that your son is enjoying it!

Well, my son enjoys The Goon Show, so maybe he's not typical - comedy is his Thing. He bullied me into getting a digital radio purely so he could have BBC Radio 7.

I do think you're right, that sometimes what we're now used to means we lose sight of just how original the originals were, in changing the landscape. I think there's also a broader point, which maybe goes back to the business of the medium being an integral part of a good creative work. The real innovators do change our landscape (as opposed to the failed experiments that fall by the wayside) but yet in a funny way seem to have been there all along. They may do it in an amazingly new way, but they're rooted in the human condition, and that's why they resonate so well with us.

Emma

I liked the HHGG tv show, it's the recent movie that was short of the mark. But I think his style of comedy was dated in the late eighties, probably because although zany, it was quite gently zany compared to what else was coming out at the time (Young Ones, Comic Strip Presents... etc). For me, it died with Dirk Gentley, in particular the scene with the electric monk seeing everything pink.

Emma, I guess you've highlighted very neatly where you and I will have to differ about HHGTTG. To me, Adams's work is great on wordplay and surreal sketch ideas, but seems to say very little about the human condition, apart from possibly the initial satire about the builders knocking Arthur Dent's house down. Which is why (for me) HHGTTG is just an interesting footnote in history, while something like Steptoe and Son, which has so much to say about the tragedy of everyay life, still has the power to captivate me 30 years on.

I watched an episode of Hancock's Half Hour last week, the one where Sid wants money for a Fish and Chip shop and Hancock has money hidden away. Both become convinced the other is trying to kill them. Brilliant stuff.

Griff, I'd agree that the appeal of Hitchhiker is more in the way it can nail some particular daftness (I've always been partial to the doors which thank you for making them happy) than any great profundity. Though the general ideas of things like the restaurant at the end of the universe are potentially incredibly fruitful. Maybe he pulled back from developing them and took refuge in sheer silliness. Mind you, there's a place for sheer silliness, or their should be: one of the most important of simple pleasures.

Emma

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tsk! 'there's a place for sheer silliness, or there should be:'

Emma, I couldn't agree more about the importance of silliness. I've just spent most of the weekend writing a second draft of a pantomime involving fish-slapping fights and various (male) characters being manoeuvred into performing the Strip Polka.

But I think that compared to something genuinely silly like I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue or Fawlty Towers, Adams's silliness always feels to me like the stilted humour of the wacky Chemical Engineering student who really wants to be funny but insists on doing jokes about covalent bonding and molecules with funny names and then getting cross when people don't laugh. (But maybe I'm unfairly confusing him with the rather vocal fan base he had when I was at University). I enjoyed HHGTTG at the time, but looking back at the material now, much of the humour falls flat on me. Great ideas (like the doors you mention) don't necessarily make great jokes. (Yes, Mighty Boosh, I'm looking at you).