Did you know that today (March 11th) is (was) Douglas Adams’ birthday? He would have been 62 today. I wonder what sort of books he’d be writing. Adams is (was) mostly known for the Hitchhiker’s trilogy (yeah, I know), but the Dirk Gently books (I’m assuming there would have been more had he lived longer) were an entertaining series themselves.
To attempt to describe the plot of this book would take more brain power than I currently have (stupid daylight savings whatever thing). So – Gordon Way is a very rich computer guy who employs Richard MacDuff who may be a brilliant programmer, but is also a terrible boyfriend to Gordon’s sister Susan. Richard went to school with Svlad Cjelli, who is now known as Dirk Gently for a number of reasons, none of which are all that savory. Richard spends some time with Professor Reg Chronotis as well. There’s also time travel, aliens from other dimensions, ghosts leaving answering machine messages (it’s an old book), and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Oh, and the fundamental interconnectedness of things.
The fate of the Earth hangs in the balance, and Dirk uses his holistic methods to solve various crimes, save the world, and fix the ending of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Because of course he does.
Ah, Douglas Adams. The world is a less funny and less interesting place without you.
It’s easy to forget how recent his death was and how young he died. I wish he’d been more like Stephen King, which is to say prolific, and less like me, which is to say not liable to complete anything (writing wise) in a timely fashion. It’s not fair how little fiction he was able to write before he died, what with how fantastic it all was, this book especially. For years, Douglas Adams was just the guy behind The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I was unaware he’d written anything else. Then, when I came across Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, I thought to myself, “This’ll probably be nowhere near as good as The Hitchhiker’s Guide series. Next to nothing can be.” Shockingly, it was just as good. And the sequel, though lacking in comparison to the first book, wasn’t far behind either. I’ve never been happier to be completely wrong.
Last Chance to See is worth a look as well. The Salmon of Doubt reads like what you’d expect an author’s rough, unfinished, and unpublished material to read like, but if you really are a Douglas Adams fanatic, I’d suggest that as well, if only for the introduction(s) that nearly brought my to tears, mostly because it felt like learning he was dead all over again. I haven’t read the book he wrote with Jonathan Lloyd where they write definitions for silly, made-up words because it just seems… well, silly, yet not particularly funny, which is weird given Adams was involved.
Love love love these two books! Feeling the need to reread now.
Thanks. I adore Douglas Adams – I remember reading him in high school and realizing I would never be that clever. Last Chance to See is one of my favorites – have you ever seen the Stephen Fry show where he goes around with Mark Carwardine to see some of the animals from the book? Brilliant and heartbreaking.