My Favorite Author: Douglas Noel Adams

Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001) is most well know for authoring The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy. While his novels may be his most famous works, he also wrote for television and radio, as well as creating several video games. His works have won many prestigious awards, including the Hugo, a science fiction award. However, it is his trademark humor that has most greatly endeared him to so many of his worldwide fans.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

HHGG as it is nicknamed, began in 1978 as a British radio series. The story went on to be adapted into a novel series, a television series, a video game, comic books, a stage play, and a motion picture.

It is the story of Arthur Dent whose home, and then planet is destroyed, launching him on voyage through space where he will search for the ultimate answer to the universe, and a really good cup of tea.

The novels were originally planned as a trilogy, but by the time the fifth book in the series was published, it included the line, "The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy" on the cover. The series includes:

The Hitchhiker'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

Mostly Harmless

The video game version of HHGG was a text-based game that has been resurrected and placed online for free at: http://www.heavygames.com/hitchhikersguidetothegalaxy/gameframe.asp

Other Novels

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, and its sequel The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul were Adam's other two novel length works of fiction. The story centers around a borderline con man, Dirk Gently who runs a detective agency based on the theory of the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. Thus, a trip to the tropics is a reasonable expense while searching for a client's missing cat.

Last Chance to See is much less well know than most of Adams other work, but it is one of my favorites. It is a non-fiction book that depicts his worldwide travels searching for several endangered species with zoologist Mark Carwardine. Adams was an environmentalist and helped raise money for wildlife. Just as with the Hitchhiker's series, Last Chance to See, was a radio program as well as a book.

Monty Python and Dr. Who

Adams also wrote three episodes of Dr. Who, The Pirate Planet, and City of Death. The third script was never completed into a televised episode. Adams was friends with several of the members of Monty Python, and he contributed to some of the television scripts as well as acting some small parts in the series.

Why I Love Douglas Adams

I discovered Douglas Adams work as a young teenager. I already enjoyed reading, but the Hitchhiker's series, and later Dirk Gently, sparked my interest in science fiction and fantasy. The humor in these books was unlike anything I'd encountered before. When school picks books apart to analysis every tiny drop of symbolism or deeper meaning, it was such fun to find books that didn't take themselves at all seriously. The discovery that books could be silly, and funny, and wild and imaginative was a wonderful insight for me to make at that age.

While Adams's novels often include ethical issues, they are handled with so much lightheartedness that they are much more approachable. There are defiantly moments in his book where his personal opinions come through. I believe this is true of all novels. Yet because the plot-lines ore exaggerated into silliness in Adams work, the reader never feels preached at. His books, even his serious non-fiction, are just plain fun.