My first exposure to The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy was the BBC TV series. I liked it. I laughed. I watched it on VHS quite a few times. I was never a rabid fan, but it was clearly good. It was years later when I finally read the books and didn't find them as good as the TV series. So, I wasn't sure about a biography of Douglas Adams, could it really be that interesting?
Well, thanks to some very entertaining writing by one Neil Gaiman: yes. I should clarify, this book, like Hitchhiker's itself, has been revised a few times. The first edition was by Neil Gaiman published in 1998, it was revised by David K. Dickinson in 1993, by MJ Simpson in 2003, and the latest edition 2009 by Guy Adams. This latest edition is to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the publication of the first Hitchhiker's novel.
The early life of Douglas is fascinating, including the whole journey to getting Hitchhiker's onto radio. (I never even realised that it was on radio first.) Following that is the story of the many versions of Hitchhiker's and Douglas's seemingly erratic and surprising path to success. It's really interesting. I was particularly surprised by how Douglas reinvented and rewrote the story along the way, adding, removing, tweaking, adapting. He didn't seem precious of his initial idea.
The book becomes less interesting with the end of Neil Gaiman's section, due to a combination of the writing lacking something and the fact that the journey to success is more interesting than the success itself. The latter quarter of the book feels more like a tick list, counting off the achievements. I'm not sure who it's aimed at, die-hard fans will know it, other people may not care.
The appendices too seem one for fans rather than the casual reader: the original synopsis, a comparison of the variants in the texts, a who's who of H2G2, the definitive "how to leave the planet" and an excerpt from Doctor Who And The Krikkitmen.
Overall though I enjoyed the book and now feel even more appreciative of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy in its many forms. Makes me want to watch the TV series again.
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