When I first started reading Starship Titanic, I thought it was a decent book but I decided to set it down for more than a few days and now I realize that I wasn't really enjoying it and have decided to add it to my "Did Not Finish" pile.

I was actually looking forward to reading the book since I picked up the game that the book is based on and I wound up enjoying that (Even though it's quite frustrating, to say the least). The book, on the other hand, was a little disappointing and lacked the same charm.

I didn't find the book nearly as funny as anything Douglas Adams has written, and normally I'm a pretty huge fan of Monty Python stuff. This book though, fell pretty much flat on its face and I didn't laugh once up to the point where I decided to stop reading it.

Ultimately, I've decided to give the book 2 out of 5 stars, not the most interesting read that I've ever experienced sadly.

Too many annoyingly silly parts and not enough amusingly silly ones. Also very much a product of its time regarding gender-based BS.

Sigh… I should really stop scraping the bottom of the Douglas Adams barrel and just re-read Dirk Gently instead.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Terry Jones' attempt to mimic Douglas Adams reminds us that it can also be the gravest form of insult.

When I was younger, the cover of the Starship Titanic video game - back when games were still published in nice big boxes that could show off their art - was the coolest and scariest thing I'd ever seen. It stuck in my head, and when I stumbled on this in a free bookshelf, I was thrilled to read it and finally enter that world. What a massive waste of my time.

You see, the *title* is Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic, but as Adams was busy the novelisation was written by Terry Jones, of Monty Python. You might think Adams' and Python's styles are pretty compatible - Adams even worked on the show - but Jones does a terrible Adams impression. (Jones was always the broadest Python, humour-wise. Maybe Adams would have been better served by the dryness of Chapman or the humanism of Palin.)

Yes, Python is zany and Hitchhiker's Guide (of which Starship Titanic was a spinoff) is zany, but Python is a sketch show which seldom had to worry about the world outside its two minute surreal masterpieces. H2G2 is a five novel series. Its zaniness works because it's built on a strong satirical core, memorable characters with unique voices and well crafted stories. Jones can occasionally pull off a funny line, but most of the time it's just meaningless absurdity - he tries many times to craft a simile to rival Adams' perfect "The ships hung in the air in much the same way that bricks don't" and falls inevitably short. Where he does make a good joke, he often kills it with an unnecessary exclamation mark!

The plot is clearly adapted directly from a text adventure video game, mostly concerning collecting vouchers to upgrade class to unlock a new area to search for another collectible to upgrade to another class. Stuff happens, and the characters bimble along with each event, their mood and personality completely arbitrary from one line to the next. They argue about something, and within half a page the topic has changed entirely and their tension is forgotten. And speaking of the characters...

This is one of the most misogynistic books I've ever read. Two of the main characters are women, but both are sensual beauties who alternate between brilliant and brainless. One immediately and impulsively has sex with an alien and spends the rest of the novel alternately rejecting him and screwing him, while the other is groped, ogled and doused with an aphrodisiac perfume. It's a teenage boy's fantasy - and a particular grimy, crusty-socked kind of fantasy at that - and indeed the writing style feels simplistic enough for 10 year olds, if it weren't for the occasional descriptions of handjobs.

A dire book that, like its namesake vessel, should have undergone a Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure.

Starship Titanic is a standalone book that is based on the video game by the same name, created by Douglas Adams.

It has been over a decade since I've read Starship Titanic and I decided to give it a re-read, taking a break from my beloved mysteries for a little while. It's the story of a most breath-taking ship, built by the Greatest Genius The Galaxy Had Ever Known, and it's the story of it's [almost downfall] involving a journalist, a few humans and a parrot! In short it's brilliant.

In the time between reading Starship Titanic for the first time and now, I've since read Douglas Adams' biography written by Neil Gaiman and this book hits a little differently now. Douglas Adams was deeply interested in video games, which is how this book came to be. He was writing the script for the video game, but his publisher wanted a book to be released too and he couldn't do both, so enter Terry Jones. The book completely has the Douglas Adams feel about it, or at least I think so. I might be biased. It's got the same Hitchhikers zany humor and it was such a treat to read again.

She couldn't bear self-satisfied aliens who couldn't see any of the good things about Earth.

I listened on audiobook and it's narrated by Bill Nighy!!!! He does the absolute best job of narrating Starship Titanic. Honestly I couldn't imagine anyone else narrating this book!

If you like comic science fiction, I 110% recommend Starship Titanic. It's zany and cute, with sweet-endearing moments that will make you re-think life, followed by crazy antics that will have you spitting out your tea!

About what I'd expect from a Monty Python player writing HHGttG fan-fiction. I was hoping for a bit more. There are individual segments that are quite entertaining, but, taken as a whole, I was supremely underwhelmed. I paid $1.99 for this, and I feel like that was one dollar too much. I had about 99 cents of fun with it.

I think my biggest issue with this book is that I never really cared what happened to any of the characters. All of them except Dan were so ludicrously over the top that I couldn't take them seriously. Dan was just boring (and probably intended to fill the Arthur Dent role). I cared enough to think the rearranged relationships by the end of the book were a good thing for all involved, but that's about it.

Side note: if this were aimed at, oh, 10-12 year-olds, it might work better. However, there's enough on-screen sex (however vaguely and supposedly humorously described) that it's clearly not aimed at that age group.

So, overall? If you liked HHGttG and can find this for cheap, you might find it mildly entertaining.

Oh, how I wanted to like this book more. But for me it was simply impossible not to go into it with sky-high expectations, even though I tried not to. I also have very high standards for comedy. (I'm picky, perhaps a comedy snob, and I find most mainstream "humor" to be unfunny.) So I might be more critical than the average reader. A few chuckles and maybe two good laughs was not enough for a book by a comedic dream team. If the rest of the book was up to the standards of the few very funny sections, this could have been a 5-star book.

Ein tolles Sci-Fi Abenteuer! Natürlich sollte man den Humor von Mr Jones bzw Mr Adams mögen um Gefallen an diesem Werk zu finden. Das Raumschiff Titanic hat einige Gemeinsamkeiten mit seinem Schwesternschiff von der Erde (es fehlen zum Beispiel die Rettungsboote), aber es gibt auch genügend Unterschiede (z.B. steht das Raumschiff kurz vor der Zerstörung, aber es kommt doch anders). Die außerirdischen und menschlichen Charaktere ziehen einen in ihr Abentuer hinein und es bleiben die Päarchen von Anfang nicht bestehen und es wird etwas gemischt. Nettie von der Erde ist dabei der interessanteste Charakter.
Sehr amüsiert haben mich die Roboter auf der Titanic, die einen sehr eigenwilligen Charakter haben, der Moment, als der Journalist versuchte, eine kleine Stehlampe zu erwürgen und die Gespräche mit der Bombe!

Delicious

This is the least inspired Sci-Fi story I've ever read. It's like a shit version of Hitchhiker's guide with truly mediocre humour and a painfully transparent plot. I've enjoyed other works by the co-authors of this book, but I'm baffled as to how this ever wound up published. It's significantly worse than anything either of the writers have done on their own. I genuinely regret the time I spent reading this book and hope I can spare you the same.

A fast, light read, clearly based around the game mechanics. (I really, really want to play the game now.) Nothing in the novel itself made me laugh quite as much as Douglas Adams's introduction, but few things in the universe would. God I miss him.

Not kindle Unlimited, actually have this in hardback from a while back, before I started doing reviews and before I had to have assistive tech to 'read' a book {kindle for pc WITH audio plug in, plus narrator with additional Speakonia}, it was either a 4 1/2 or a 5, remember the book, and liked it for what it was. Don't see the english language version for this.

At the center of the galaxy, a vast, unknown civilization is preparing for an event of epic proportions: the launching of the greatest, most gorgeous, most technologically advanced Starship ever built-the Starship Titanic. An earthling would see it as a mixture of the Chrysler Building, the tomb of Tutankhamen, and Venice. But less provincial onlookers would recognize it as the design of Leovinus, the galaxy's most renowned architect. He is an old man now, and the creation of the Starship Titanic is the pinnacle achievement of his twenty-year career. The night before the launch, Leovinus is prowling around the ship having a last little look. With mounting alarm he begins to find things are not right: unfinished workmanship, cybersystems not working correctly, robots colliding with doors. How could this have happened? And how could this have happened without his knowing?

Something somewhere is terribly wrong.On the following day, in an artificial event staged for the media, the Starship Titanic will leave its construction dock under autopilot and, a few days later, make its way to the terminal to pick up passengers for its maiden voyage. Although the ship will be deserted during its very first flight, it is nevertheless a major event, watched by all the galaxy's media.Hugely, magnificently, the fabulous ship eases its way forward from the construction dock, picks up speed, sways a bit, wobbles a bit, veers wildly, and just before it can do massive damage to everything around it, appears to undergo SMEF (Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure).In just ten seconds, the whole, stupendous enterprise is over. And our story has just begun.

Somehow three earthlings, one Blerontin journalist, a semideranged parrot, and a shipful of disoriented robots must overcome their differences. It's the only way to save the Starship Titanic ("The Ship That Cannot Possibly Go Wrong") from certain destruction and rescue the economy of an entire planet-not to mention to survive the latest threat, an attack by a swarm of hostile shipbuilders. . . .

I was very happy to discover this book on my aunt's shelf, as I thought I'd read everything influenced by Douglas Adams. It was written by Terry Jones based on a game developed by Douglas Adams. This was an entertaining read with a few laughs, and great for over Christmas. It sounds like a game I would have enjoyed playing.