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Douglas Adams (and
a bit of Terry Jones, too)
Douglas Adams was the genius who brought the world The Hitchhiker's
Guide To The Galaxy, in all of its incarnations, flavors and editions.
He was also the author of a few other books, a couple of Dr. Who
multi-episode shows (he was the script editor for awhile during
the Tom Baker years) and now is the head of a company who have
released a fantastic interactive game called Starship Titanic.
Most unfortunately, and for a multitude of reasons, he passed
away in 2001. His genius will be missed by his fans; his presence
will be missed by his family and friends.
Douglas's final book "THE SALMON
OF DOUBT" (including the start of the third book in a Dirk
Gently trilogy), along with other of his writings, speeches and
random jottings was published in mid 2002. I have it, have read
it, and enjoyed about 95% of it. Pick it up if you are a DA fan.
Below are his Hitchhiker's books. I have another page with the
non-Hitchhiker's Guide books, found here.
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The Hitchhiker's Guide
To The Galaxy books
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A US paperback cover
This is the original...sort of.
First came the BBC radio series. Then, Adams wrote this
book, except somewhere in all of this there was a second
BBC radio series.
Although there are a lot of parallels between this book
and the radio and TV series (oh, did I forget to mention
that somewhere in between all this and the second book there
was a TV series that is sort of the same but sort of different?)
it is a good, standalone story.
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A US hardbound cover
The story continues...
Now that Arthur and Ford are teamed up with Trillian and
Zaphod, and have braved problems with reality (and being
thrown into the vacuum of space by a very bad poet) they
can get on with the really important things, like having
a bite to eat at Milliways.
And watching the universe explode for their dining pleasure.
And stealing a pure black spaceship about to dive into
a sun...
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A British paperback cover
And continues...
This is the final volume in the Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy.
Or it was suppose to be.
Now the plot almost entirely diverges from anything presented
on TV or the BBC.
Arthur continues to try to find out the answer to the ultimate
question of life, the universe, and everything. Of course,
we know that the answer is 42.
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A US hardbound cover
Arthur is finally back in the Earth (mark II) and
has fallen in love. He has also arrived back sitting
on an old sofa and landing in the middle of Lords
Cricket Pitch (for those of you who don't understand
the game of Cricket, the "pitch" is not
the throwing of the ball—that's the "bowl"—it
is the actual field the game is played upon) during
an important Test Match (you had to be there...)
This story involves Arthur, his new love, the game
of cricket, the Planet of Cr'kt, and a bunch of robots
who hate everybody.
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A US hardbound cover
After a hiatus of almost 7 years, Adams returned
to the Hitchhiker's saga to try to draw together some
of the final loose ends.
As you know, "mostly harmless"' refers
to entry about the Earth in the actual Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy, the wholly remarkable book from
the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor. Not the
first book in this series which is about...forget
it. You had to be there.
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Now, there are other books about T.H.H.G.T.T.G. that you might
like to read. They can be found here:
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All covesr are and remain
the copyright of the artist or artists who originally gave
them life. Unless, that is, some publisher paid them a few
pounds more to buy the rights away. I have not obtained
permission to replicate them, but hope that these fine individuals
and international conglomerates recognize that I am just
trying to help promote interest (and sales) in their books
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