When you write about other worlds and strange discoveries, you need a quick wit. And an ear for clever dialogue, that keeps the story buzzing along. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that many of science fiction and fantasy's greatest creators started out in comedy, including sitcoms.

If you haven't checked it out already, you should definitely pop over to Google, where the latest doodle pays tribute to Douglas Adams' 61st birthday — with some pretty neat animations. You can definitely kill a lot of time pushing all the buttons on the Google version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and seeing …

Dating is hard. And instigating first-contact with a fellow humanoid can be the hardest part. Luckily, we geeks have our own special language, made up of quotes and in-jokes. Some of which makes for some excellent pick-up lines, that you can always resort to in an emergency situation.

Even starship captains get the blues sometimes. And when you get depressed, or when you're stuck in bed with a nasty case of black plague, you need something to cheer you the frak up. Luckily, there are tons of science fiction and fantasy books with proven restorative properties.

What happens when you get the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the creator of the Muppets in the same room? In the 1980s, Jim Henson met author Douglas Adams and together they tried to develop a television special starring the Muppets about the wonders of computers.

Because all the Americans I know tend to think that we're in a progressive, modern country, it sometimes surprises us to learn that other nations consider us big ol' prudes. And it's not just France! Our delicate sensibilities have been catered to by the English in a maneuver that gave us one of the better dirty words…

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams wrote three Doctor Who scripts — but only two of them made it to the screen. The third, "Shada," was killed halfway through filming by one of the strikes that the British used to be famous for. And since then, we've had a terrible VHS release, a script book, an…

Science fiction and fantasy are all about reaching beyond the horizon — so it's not surprising that many of the greatest speculative fiction authors have broadened their own horizons. And you can see it in their writing, because the experience of negotiating a very different culture and learning another language…

The folks at Google are no strangers to science, science fiction, fantasy, or geek culture in general. Evidence of their fandom is plentiful, most commonly in the form of easter eggs and April Fools' jokes, for which the company is famous. But you do have to know where to look. Consider this your guide to the ten…

In the early 1990s, the Voyager Company looked into creating "Expanded Books," digital books that would offer an enhanced onscreen reading experience. Appropriately, one of the titles they converted into an expanded books was a series that revolves around a digital book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and…