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Ciao don't do general opinions on an author as such, so I'm making my own stand for the sake of Douglas Adams' memory. It's the least I can do.
What a laugh. That's pretty much all you can say about the man, except to add that he was a clever, witty, caring and creative genius.
Born in March, 1952 in Cambridgeshire, he was educated in a high school in Brentwood, Essex before returning home and attending St. Johns College, in the dreaming spires town of Cambridge.
He had done a variety of things, including getting outrageously drunk in Austria and having no money for a bed, crashing out in a field and thinking how brilliant it would be to just hop around the galaxy. People could use a sub-etha net to communicate their experiences of different planets, and tap into it whenever they wanted to find stuff out, or report their opinions. It feels incredibly eerie to be sitting in front of something which hadn't been thought of when the novel of "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" was published in 1979, but is more or less what he'd been thinking of.
HHGTTG (as it shall be referred to from hereon in) is perhaps the most well known and deeply loved of his
books. It had sold to date, approximately 14 million copies, and been voted 24th out of 100 best books of the century in a Waterstones survery. There are 5 books in this series, starting with HHGTTG, then The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life the Universe and Everything, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish and finally Mostly Harmless.
The HHGTTG series followed the experiences of a core of central characters, namely Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillion, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Marvin and Slartibartfast, on their tour of the universe. En route they encounter some marvellously weird and wonderful creations from Douglas Adams' mind. Plus you'll get to find the great answer to the meaning of life itself. That's got to be worth the price of the books alone, hasn't it?
He then moved on to create Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, and it's follow up, the magically titled, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.
The Dirk Gently books were infinitely more 'sexy' to read, as although these books were brimming with the usual mind-blowing insights, it was rooted on earth (sort of) and there were more situations to identify with. That's not to say that they are better than HHGTTG, just that they are different enough to be excellent in their own way.
Douglas' style is captivating whenever you read him, and here's a quick excerpt from The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul, as a taster for those that haven't yet read him...
"The mail on the doormat consisted of the usual things: a rude letter threatening to take his American Express card away, and invitation to apply for an American Express card, and a few bills of the more hysterical and unrealistic type. He couldn't understand why they kept sending them. The cost of the postage seemed merely to be good money thrown after bad. He shook his head in wonderment at the malevolent incompetence of the world, threw the mail away, entered the kitchen and approached the fridge with caution.
It stood in the corner.
The kitchen was large and shrouded in deep gloom that was not relieved, only turned yellow, by the action of switching on the light. Dirk squatted down in front of the fridge and examined the edge of the door. He found what he was looking for. In fact he found more than he was looking for.
Near the bottom of the door, across the narrow gap which seprated the door from the main body of the fridge, which held the strip of gray insulating rubber, lay a single human hair. It was stuck there with dried saliva. That he had expected. He had stuck it there himself three days earlier and had checked on it on several occasions since then. What he had not expected to find was a second hair. "
Thus you are introduced to the battle between Dirk Gently and his cleaning lady, neither of whom wish to be the one to open the fridge because of the appallingly bad and unhygenic interior that only bachelor men seem capable of creating.
Dear God, what a talent the man was.
He also wrote a book with Mark Carwardine called "Last Chance to See.." in which he writes about tracking down species of animals. He was involved with Dian Fossey's Gorrila work as well as the campaign to help save the White Rhino, which is in keeping with the gentle side to him that often shows through in his writing of his characters.
With John
Lloyd he penned The Meaning of Liff books, again marvellously original and stomach-achingly funny work.
You should be able to pick up the Original Hitch Hiker Radio Scripts, which are just as funny as the actual novels themselves. Popular legend has it that the narrator of the Radio Series, Peter Jones, had no idea what it was all about, nor where it was going, which led to that wonderful naive and wistful sort of narration of the show. Perfect for the mood that Adam's was after.
Douglas, you are sorely missed by the readers who have known you, but none will grieve more for you than your wife Jane and 8 year old daughter Polly, may God give them strength.
Oh and if you find a way of letting us know whether the answer really IS 42.....
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