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Title: tedious and unrewarding
Review: I rather doubt Douglas Adams "was thinking of Stapledon when he invented, in the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy [actually, in "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe"]...the Total Perspective Vortex", just as I doubt former Late Show host Johnny Carson was thinking of Stapledon when he parodied Carl Sagan with his "billions and billions" speech. Douglas Adams and Johnny Carson were quite capable of finding out for themselves, without help from Stapledon, that the universe is big and that time is vast.For that matter, it is a different thing for comics to harp on this simple-minded theme and for a science fiction writer who seems to take himself very seriously to do so. Rather than read "Star Maker" or "The First and Last Man", I suggest you read instead H. G. Wells's short story "Under the Knife", written several decades earlier. "Under the Knife" deftly and SUCCINCTLY puts the "Total Perspective Vortex" itself into perspective.
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