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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

douglas adams

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Douglas Adams changed the face of science fiction with his cosmically comic novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and its classic sequels. Sadly for his countless admirers, he hitched his own ride to the great beyond much too soon. Culled posthumously from Adams’s fleet of beloved Macintosh computers, this selection of essays, articles, anecdotes, and stories offers a fascinating and intimate portrait of the multifaceted artist and absurdist wordsmith.

Join Adams on an excursion to climb Kilimanjaro…dressed in a rhino costume; peek into the private life of Genghis Khan—warrior and world-class neurotic; root for the harried author’s efforts to get a Hitchhiker movie off the ground in Hollywood; thrill to the further exploits of private eye Dirk Gently and two-headed alien Zaphod Beeblebrox. Though Douglas Adams is gone, he’s left us something very special to remember him by. Without a doubt.

null pages, Audio Cassette

First published May 28,2002
Series
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

This edition

Format
null pages, Audio Cassette
Published
May 28, 2002 by Dove Entertainment Inc
ISBN
9780787104016
ASIN
0787104019
Language
English
Characters More characters
  • Dirk Gently

    Dirk Gently

    Dirk Gently bills himself as a "holistic detective" who makes use of "the fundamental interconnectedness of all things" to solve the whole crime, and find the whole person. This involves running up large expense accounts and then claiming that every item ...

  • Thor

    Thor

    ...

  • Kate Schechter

    Kate Schechter

    ...

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About the author

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douglas adams

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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Douglas Noel Adams was an English author, humourist, and screenwriter, best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (HHGTTG). Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy developed into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime. It was further developed into a television series, several stage plays, comics, a video game, and a 2005 feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.
Adams also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), and co-wrote The Meaning of Liff (1983), The Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990) and Last Chance to See (1990). He wrote two stories for the television series Doctor Who, co-wrote City of Death (1979), and served as script editor for its seventeenth season. He co-wrote the sketch "Patient Abuse" for the final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. A posthumous collection of his selected works, including the first publication of his final (unfinished) novel, was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002.
Adams was a self-proclaimed "radical atheist", an advocate for environmentalism and conservation, and a lover of fast cars, technological innovation, and the Apple Macintosh.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
31(31%)
4 stars
34(34%)
3 stars
35(35%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
felipefelix
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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It's basically a collection of Adams' writings and articles of interviews, some half-finished Dirk Gently story that goes to Albuqurque (New Mexico) and no further...

It's basically the literary equivalent of ADHD (I should know -- I have ADD).

Nevertheless, one might understand that a great writer and person was lost when he died much too soon at barely 49 years old.
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animefreak247
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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Passata l'iniziale diffidenza verso questo genere di operazioni, che mi sembrano sempre molto commerciali e prive di amore verso gli autori scomparsi, mi sono trovato davanti qualcosa di gradevole e gustoso.
La prima metà, saggistica, è buona, con articoli ed aneddoti su vari aspetti dell'ingegno umano e dell'umana condizione, che fanno riflettere, sorridere, interrogarsi. Certo, alcuni sono un pò sottotono, ma tutti hanno il pregio di farci conoscere meglio questo autore, le sue idee ed il suo modo di pensare.
La seconda parte contiene un breve racconto dell'universo della Guida Galattica ("Sicuro, sicurissimo, perfettamente sicuro") ed i primi capitoli de "Il salmone del dubbio", nuova avventura del detective olistico Dirk Gently, incompiuta.
Questa parte è tanto meravigliosa, nella misura in cui amate questo autore: se la Guida Galattica vi ha lasciati indifferenti, non troverete nulla di interessante. Se Dirk Gently non vi è piaciuto, odierete lo spreco di pagine dedicato alla sua nuova avventura, anche se incompiuta.
Ma se viceversa li avete apprezzati, troverete "pane per i vostri denti": storie e personaggi assurdi, stravaganti, a tratti follemente divertenti.
Personalmente ho gradito molto la parte saggistica, perchè mostra l'uomo, prima dello scrittore. Un uomo arguto e sagace, raffinato nell'intelletto, dannatamente "british", capace di tratteggiare situazioni ed idiosincrasie del nostro tempo.
Viceversa il racconto incompleto di Gently, proprio perchè incompleto lascia l'amaro in bocca.
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fluffypoulet
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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Published upon his death The Salmon of Doubt is Douglas Adams' final work. It is composed of various interviews, speeches, observations, short stories and the beginning of a new Dirk Gently novel. It is a combination of technology, science, fiction and humor. (It is also the title I assumed would be my fiftieth.)

I liked the book, but think I would have liked it more had I heeded the advice on the back cover and not read it straight through. There's not enough continuity to make it that kind of book. (Apparently the fact that it's a compilation of items rather than a story was not a big enough clue for me.)


Favorite Quotes:

"I only knew that the Beatles were the most exciting thing in the universe. It wasn't always an easy view to live with. First you had to fight the Stones fans, which was tricky because they fought dirty and had their knuckles nearer to the ground."

"Obviously the Sub Bug wins some points for being portable up to a point. You can take it on a plane, which you wouldn't do with a manta ray, or at least not with a manta ray you liked, and I think that we probably like all manta rays on principle really, don't we?"

"He moved his horse slowly forward and surveyed the small group of peasant huts that stood huddled together in the centre of the clearing, trying very hard at short notice to look deserted."

"There is a particular disdain with which Siamese cats regard you. Anyone who has accidentally walked in on the Queen cleaning her teeth will be familiar with this feeling."


Overall Opinion:

Unless you're an Adams' fanatic and looking to read everything he ever wrote on any subject then take it slowly. Read something else at the same time and you'll enjoy The Salmon of Doubt more than I did.



Rating:

6

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berry_mars
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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I liked the Dirk Gently story and some of the correspondence was as charming as your would expect from Adams. The pop-science and pop-atheism stuff in the middle was a bit boring and unsophisticated to me though.
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blkcatXIII
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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This partially posthumous volume consists of a collection of magazine articles, newspaper columns, interviews and such like, along with one short story (about a young Zaphod)originally published in the Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book...a copy of which I own...and the (very) incomplete conflated text of three versions of the third Dirk Gently's novel. This novel was abandoned whilst Adams was still alive, in favour of a 6th Hitchhikers' novel. Adams had decided that the material/theme was better suited to the latter. Personally, I think a 3rd Gently's would have been much more fun than a 6th 'Hikers'. The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul is my favourite Adams novel and The Salmon of Doubt looked to be very much in a similar vein, structurally and stylistically. It's a great shame that we will never see an end to this fragment.

THIS REVIEW HAS BEEN CURTAILED IN PROTEST AT GOODREADS' CENSORSHIP POLICY

See the complete review here:

http://arbieroo.booklikes.com/post/33...
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hellyeboi6
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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A compilation of assorted pieces from throughout the career of Douglas Adams that ultimately comes across as a mixed bag. Stretching back from his youth through to the end of his sadly shortened life, some pieces feel introspective and biographical while others are forgettable rants.
The problem with gathering together a selection of these writings and interviews is that inevitably the book ends up covering the same few topics ad nauseum. Atheism, Apple computers, evolution and the environment are subjects that pop up in most pieces.
The saving grace of this book is undoubtedly the incomplete third Dirk Gently novel which feels as though it would have sat comfortably next to the rest of his work and as such is so unfortunate that it will never be finished.
For the Dirk Gently parts and a short story about Zaphod from Hitchhiker's I'm giving this 2 stars. The rest can be skimmed and/or skipped.

As a side note at the end of the book there's an extract from the memorial for Douglas which seems odd as 1) it was held in a church and 2) it featured prayers and religious songs. That really seems unusual for someone who was such a vehement atheist. Or maybe that's just the paradox that was Douglas Adams..!
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Bellyyyyyyy
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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I am glad that I finally listened to this audiobook which I purchased several years ago. I knew that this book was unfinished but hadn't realized that the majority of it wasn't Adams' unfinished manuscript at all but instead a collection of interviews, articles, speeches and other short works of his. I found these very pleasant listening but due to the nature of the collection, there was a fair amount of repetition of some of Adams' favorite analogies/stories/anecdotes.

I was pleased though not surprised to learn that Adams was a fan of P.G. Wodehouse (as am I)!
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28150199
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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Douglas Adams is so great and I'm so sad he never got to finish this book.
This collection has some really great stuff by him but it also has some that's rather boring. I thought the essays went kinda back and forth, because while I love his writing style, I think its much more appropriate for stories than essay structure. The way he jumps from a topic to an anecdote to a rant makes for an entertaining read but it also loses the focus of an essay sometimes. I thought some of the editing/arrangement of work was questionable but overall it didn't effect the actual content, just the flow/themes in a collection of various kinds of writing.
When it comes down to it Adams is consistently such a special and unique author and his sense of humor is always so spot on.
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