Douglas Adams
Books: Science Fiction | Humor
The Hitchiker's Guide trilogy:The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe, and Everything; So Long, And Thanks for All the Fish; and Mostly Harmless
The Salmon of Doubt (2002)
The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the second genre book I read. This series follows Arthur Dent, trepid Englishman, on his journey through the galaxy with Ford Prefect, Trillian, Zaphod Breblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android. Remember, flying is simply throwing yourself and the ground and missing.
The Salmon of Doubt (2002)
The Salmon of Doubt is a collection of unpublished, previously published and some unfinished works. Some bits are quite funny, some bits are good, some bits aren't as good, and it some make you think that they were put in simply to flesh out the book and increase the page count. I've now read everything but the title story The Salmon of Doubt and I'm not sure whether I will read it or not. It's a Dirk Gently story; I never got around to reading the Dirk Gently novels, and the editor describes the story and makes it sound, well, unfinished. Which sounds unappealing to me.
As I said, some of the short stories and essays are very good. I particularly liked the letter that he sent to David Vogol, regarding the Hitchiker's Guide movie. The essay Frank the Vandal is not only amusing, and should be of particular interest to Mac people. Is There an Artifical God is a very interesting essay, and he makes some interesting points about feng shui and similar "spiritual" practices. But you can find many of those stories and essays on-line (even on the Douglas Adams website), so it might not be worth it to purchase this book just for those stories. But it's entirely up to you. If you are a huge Douglas Adams fan, then you probably already have this book. Otherwise, borrow it from the library first, to see if you like it or not before spending your money.