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lit_geek 's review for:
Venus on the Half-Shell
by Philip José Farmer, Kilgore Trout
As a work of science fiction in and of itself, it's a fun, forgettable little work. Understood in the context in which it was created, it simultaneously becomes more interesting, and significantly worse. Philip Jose Farmer wrote the book as Kilgore Trout, and built the whole thing around the excerpt of Trout's book that Kurt Vonnegut included in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. After Farmer published the book, Douglas Adams took the core premise of Venus on the Half-Shell and reworked it into The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Consequently, it's interesting to see both traces of Vonnegut's style and elements that anticipate Adams's style in what Farmer is doing here. But at the end of the day, Farmer isn't as good of a writer as either Vonnegut or Adams. He doesn't have Vonnegut's keen satirical sensibilities, nor Adams' delightful wit.