Just reread this and wanted to register my reaction. Douglas Adams was very funny in a way that was intelligent and insightful. I'm so sorry he's gone. This book is sort of a tribute to him, and is fitting, as such, but the part of a novel that is contained therein is about as disappointing as you'd expect from an unfinished draft version. His books are really all about the wonderful hilarious ideas he has, I think. The plot, characters, pacing, and settings, if any, are quite haphazard and scattered all over the place. He has a delightful sort of philosophy of life that comes through it all, and I think that's what it is I love about him. He brings the wonder of everything back, the bizarreness, and the beauty.

We live, he says, at the bottom of a gravity well on a gas-covered planet orbiting a nuclear explosion 93 million miles away, and the fact that we think this is normal shows how skewed our perspective really is.

I think I'll try reading P. G. Wodehouse because of one essay in here in which DNA lauds him in a way that makes him sound really good. I might try Ruth Rendell, as well, on his recommendation, though I really don't enjoy mystery books very much as a rule. It sounds like she's one of those excellent writers for whom the mystery is a pretext to tell us all the other cool stuff she thinks about, and her perceptions of the world.

I think the deadlines whooshing by were mentioned 5 times at least, in different introductions, forewords, essays, etc. and I thought it needed a rest. The computer and gaming things were quite out of date now, a decade after DNA's death, but still were interesting just to see the sort of vision he had. All in all this book is recommended for DNA fans but not for those who aren't already. Try H2G2 or Dirk Gently instead, if you're new to him.

Kipp die Schublade eines Schriftstellers aus, leere seinen Papierkorb, krame in seinen Hosentaschen und mische alles mit den Post-its von seinem Kühlschrank und voila, du hast etwas wie "Lachs im Zweifel".
Auf diese Mischung aus Schwanengesang und Leichenfledderei war ich nicht gefasst und sie gefiel mir auch nicht.
Wie kann ein Verleger annehmen, 30 Seiten "Dirk Gently" rechtfertigen einen kompletten neuen Band. Indem er das lediglich impliziert? Mich hat dieses Buch doch recht frustriert. Ich kann mir nicht vorstellen, dass Douglas Adams diesem Schnipselwerk zugestimmt hätte (siehe seine Anmerkungen zwecks Regie).
Traurig
Traurig

This was a weird one for me. I started listening to this book about a year ago and hated it. Today, I unexpectedly finished another audiobook at the beginning of my drive to work. I searched my phone and found that I hadn't deleted The Salmon of Doubt yet. Begrudgingly, I started it over.

I had a completely different reaction today. I thought it was hilarious. I thought the essays/Articles were great. There was one about the inevitable random cords that people end up collecting that was especially poignant for me, as I purged my cord collection last month.

I don't always agree with the Essays, but even the ones that I didn't were still entertaining and well thought out.

The main event, so to speak, of the book was the first nine chapters of what would have been the third Dirk Gently book. I wasn't a fan of the first two. At all. This one was shaping up to be really good. His death robbed us of what would have been a great book.

I don't know why I didn't get into the book on my first attempt, but it may force me to reconsider a few other books that I didn't like.

Eulogies, interviews, and some unfinished pieces from Adams. It does make you sad about the loss of a brilliant mind.

A wonderful insight into Douglas Adams' brilliant mind. The tragedy of his untimely death looms over the entire book--when you read his excitement over new Macintosh computers, oh my god how excited and/or hilariously horrified would he be to see where technology is today? I long for more of his words and I am so disraught that every word he will ever write has been written. Life is cruel and unfair, but at least we can access this well-crafted collection of the last bits and bobs and know many Douglas Adams' fans grieve with us.

This work is unpolished, unfinished, and it's totally obvious. It cuts off as abruptly as the final piece of Bach (BWV 1080), leaving a vague disappointment and a void that won't ever be filled. I never met Douglas Adams, and I'll never have a chance to, but perhaps one day I'll visit his grave.

Douglas Adams was unique in his ability for existential satire. From his portrayal of transgalactic airports to the way Norse gods would act in modern London, all his work shows a delightful talent for combining the surreal and the mundane. He mixes them, like a fancy drink, garnishes it, and offers you one of the most pleasingly different word cocktails that you'll ever taste.

The Salmon of Doubt didn't contain this in the same density as his other novels, and perhaps if I were reading it without the necessary context of his writings I would be left confused and underwhelmed. But knowing Adams' oeuvre makes it almost-make-sense, in the way the first cut-off half of an absurdly complicated mystery novel might. I'm rating this five stars regardless of the unpolished writing because of the emotions it instills in me- the guaranteed sadness, the sense that I lost someone important to me before I'd ever even met him.

While many of the pieces included in this collection were, a) entertaining, b) somewhat informative, c) diverse, and d) well written peeks into the beliefs and personality of the author, the overall effect was also, e) incomplete. Of course that's to be understood, as it IS a posthumous gathering of magazine articles, interviews, and an unfinished 'Dirk Gently' story. One does wonder, however, if it was really necessary to publish "The Salmon of Doubt". Being as unfinished and maybe haphazardly thrown together as it sort of appears, do you think Mr. Adams himself would really have wanted to attach his name to this?
For all the good intentions involved, and the glorious little bits of wisdom and humor contained therein, "Salmon" still feels more like a tease than a satisfying conclusion.
It is understandable that fans of Douglas Adams may hunger for any scrap they haven't yet read by the man before his unexpected departure (Mr. Adams died suddenly, of a heart attack, in 2001), but overall, in my opinion, the assembly of the contents here feels rushed, desperately collected and lashed together, just so readers could feel as if it were that proper last goodbye. Is it? In my opinion, no. It is perhaps a sincere tribute put together by friends and admirers, but no, not a fitting conclusion.

So sad that this unique writer is lost of us. Douglas Adams was the author of the hilarious Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe series, are there is no one like him. Include interviews and essays, very rich. Listened to the audiobook. It's purely a pleasure.

Douglas Adams er den absolut sjoveste forfatter, jeg nogensinde har læst noget af. Jeg er endnu ikke kommet i gennem en eneste af hans bøger uden at sidde helt alene og grine højlydt. Man er aldrig ensom, når man læser Adams.
Det skyldes hans enorme empati og forståelse for den menneskelige situation. Det kommer blandt andet til udtryk i et interview om hans ateisme. Hvor fremtrædende ateister ofte kan virke nedladende eller decideret ondskabsfulde overfor troende, er Adams mere tilgivende. Han siger: "De troende tager fejl." Kort og koncist. Hårdt og afvisende. Men så tilføjer han: "Det er menneskeligt at fejle." Adams ser på sig selv og menneskeheden med et let undskyldende smil. Vi er en tosset art, der bumler lidt rundt på en planet og ødelægger det hele for os selv. Mennesket er tåbeligt og tragisk, men alligevel elskværdigt. Det er det smukke ved Douglas Adams' tekster.

The Salmon of Doubt er en essaysamling med en særlig stemning, da den er udgivet relativ kort tid efter forfatterens pludselige død. Det er en udgivelse, der er præget af det chok, der er gået gennem hans familie og venner. Bogen er fyldt med introduktioner og mindeskrifter, samt programmet for hans mindehøjtidelighed. Det er personlige tekster formet af et dybt savn. Det skaber en bog, der både af præget af Adams' egen varme i teksterne, men også den varme og kærlighed hans nærmeste har næret til ham.
Det er en bog, der føles som at kramme for sidste gang.

A collection of essays and a well put-together but incomplete last Dirk Gently novel, I can see how this will always garner mixed reviews. Overall, I enjoyed this book as there’s something poignant about reading Adams’ words one last time that makes this a fond farewell, but the lack of an end to the Dirk Gently book left me disappointed and wistful, but the story was shaping up so well I’m glad to know as little as I now do. Maybe one for true aficionados but a touching book to add to a collection.

Part memoir, part random thoughts, part story ideas, and part salmon of doubt. This was quite interesting even if it didn't have a full story in it.

What a delight to revisit the mind of Douglas Adams. I like that this is a collection of emails, speeches, one-liners, and rants. Yes, there's the start of a novel in there, that he may or may not have intended to call the Salmon of Doubt.
The result is so much better than it sounds like it's going to be: Douglas Adams died, but his buddy knew his password and emptied his Mac onto a CD, the various unfinished writings were lightly edited and printed as this.
But gosh, am I ever glad that they did, because there's some exceptional writing in here, hilARious, as he always was, and glitteringly insightful. His projections on the future of technology, from the 90's, are pretty brilliant, and the piece de resistance is the speech to Cambridge on the purpose of God.