So Long & thanks for all the Laughs (Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams)

Member Name: brownp1

Product:	Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams
Date:	27/11/01 (159 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Its Douglas Adams

Disadvantages: But not at his best

I read in the paper that before his untimely death Douglas Adams had been struggling for 11 years on and off to write the 6th and as it proved final book in the Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy. On his PC were numerous unfinished drafts none of which he was happy with – and I believe that a version of these, still unfinished, will be published with other of his works in the near future.

Possibly the reasons for this massive example of writer’s block can be seen in Mostly Harmless the 5th book in the trilogy. Mostly Harmless as well as being the title of the book seems to be his attitude whilst writing the book. It has a feeling of being written at a publisher’s request whilst Adams looks as if he is using it as a way to end the series for good – probably why book 6 was proving so hard.

The plot ignores the previous book – So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (the best in the series) apart from a quick reference to remove Fenchurch and reduce the plot to its basic characters Ford, Arthur and Trillian. The basic idea is then to think of a way to kill everyone off once and for all – solved by the ingenious means of getting the Vogans to destroy the Earth and all of its inhabitants in every parallel universe.

The 4 main characters (there are 2 Trillians) have separate stories which interweave until they all neatly combine as the 4 meet up in a night club in New York.

Tricia McMcMillan’s story
Tricia is Trillian in a different dimension where she didn’t get on Zaphod’s spaceship. She now makes her living as a TV presenter and jumps at the opportunity to meet real aliens, the Grebulons who live on a planet beyond Pluto in a high tech world which they have unfortunately forgotten how to work. The Grebulons, whose favourite hobbies are astrology and watching daytime TV, want Tricia to program them a personnel horoscope based on their position from the sun – only the pre
sence of the Earth causes their horoscope to look very bad.

Trillian’s story
More of a cameo really, but she does introduce Arthur to his daughter Random. Not that he was anyway involved in the conception. He donated sperm to earn money for space flights. Trillian used it as they were the only humans left in their dimension.

Arthur’s Story
After years of space travelling Arthur crashes on a prehistoric planet. And despite all the space age technology he uses he doesn’t have any idea of how it works so he turns into the sandwich maker – but a very good sandwich maker. Eventually he bumps into Ford.

Ford’s Story
Ford ransacks the offices of the guide and sets himself up with an unlimited expense account. He also steals the prototype new guide which works in all dimensions, including time but which already has some hidden programming

This book is a shadow of the former glory of this series, the characters act as expected but you don't really empathise with them as in previous books and the humour although not absent appears to have lost its ability to bounce like a rubber ball in unexpected directions. There are moments of comic inspirational present such as Elvis’s burger bar and the perfectly normal beasts, but not enough to recommend the book as a stand alone read.

If you haven’t read any Hitchhiker books this isn’t the place to start, if you’re a fan of the series read it anyway for completeness sake and then go back and read your favourite book in the series so that you remember the best of Douglas Adams.

Summary: