Douglas Adams: Two Complete Novels [Hardcover]

Douglas Adams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 14, 1994

Following themes of zany space exploration, time travel, and mystery, two novels that examine the dimensions of the universe and the human soul feature Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

There is a long tradition of Great Detectives, and Dirk Gently does not belong to it. But his search for a missing cat uncovers a ghost, a time traveler, AND the devastating secret of humankind! Detective Gently's bill for saving the human race from extinction: NO CHARGE. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

About the Author

Douglas Adams Douglas Adams was born in Cambridge, England in 1952. He has written for radio, television and theater and has worked as a hospital reporter, barn builder, radio producer, and script editor. His bestsellers include 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, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 436 pages
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (December 14, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517119129
• ISBN-13: 978-0517119129
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (135 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #543,125 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) was the much-loved author of the Hitchhiker's Guides, all of which have sold more than 15 million copies worldwide.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There is no such word as "impossible" in my dictionary!, March 9, 2005

By 

James M. Fitzwilliam "Pianist/Composer" (Staatsburg, NY, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Mass Market Paperback)

"In fact," says Dirk Gently, "everything between 'herring' and 'marmalade' seems to be missing."

Dirk Gently is an example of a breakthrough work: An attempt at something quite artistically new, which is all the more amazing because it actually succeeds. In short, this novel is: a Science Fiction Mystery Comedy.

* DG is a quite good Science Fiction book, with elements such as strange alien technology ("The Electric Monk"), time travel, and an immortal -- if VERY absentminded -- being
* DG is a quite good (and, to borrow another reviewer's term, "self-consistent") mystery/detective novel, even if the detective in question IS rather unorthodox!
* DG is a very funny comedy novel, which parodies not only the detective genre, but also makes not-so-subtle jabs at ivory-tower academics, business executives, British Telecom, and computers (and the geeks that use and program them)

Dirk Gently as a character in particular is a truly original creation. It is both very fortunate that we have him in two novels, and cruel and tragic that Douglas Adams did not live to develop him any further. For one example, many of Dirk's college friends think he is psychic, and are always trying to get him to dream-speak upcoming exam questions. Dirk sets out to prove them wrong by creating a complete copy of an upcoming exam, purely by researching past exams in the same course, studying the syllabus, etc., figuring that he will be only about half right on average, and everyone will see that he is just an ordinary guy and leave him alone. Except that the exam he so produces turns out to be identical to the real one. Oops. (Later, in the present day, he tells a client, who is wanted for murder: "Remember that you are talking to someone who has spent time in prison for something he didn't do.") Dirk's detective methods rely on studying "the vectors of interconnectedness of all things", which, plus the fact that he is perpetually broke, makes him look to casual observers rather more than less like a cheap con artist.

"Meet me at the pizza parlor in half an hour. And bring money."
"What -- Dirk, are you trying to blackmail me?"
"No, you fool, for the pizzas!"

I am reminded of a character named Gallagher who appeared in several short stories by the science fiction author Lewis Padgett. Gallagher is a brilliant inventor, but can only do inspired work when blind drunk. He wakes up to find that he has created astonishing gadgets, but has no idea how they work or even what they do. This is a similar to Dirk Gently, who also has a gift bordering on the supernatural, but is more its victim than anything else because his talent is not at ALL within his control.

One theme not mentioned so much in other reviews is computers and related humor. One of the main characters, Richard MacDuff, is a Macintosh programmer. (Douglas Adams himself was a fanatical Mac user in real life.) Among Richard's "creations" are a program that turns numerical, i.e. company financial, data into music; and a decision-making program that allows you to justify practically any outcome by back-tracing from the desired result (and which is promptly confiscated by the US Government!) Unfortunately, Richard has a problem: A sofa stuck halfway up his apartment stairs that can NOT be moved -- up OR down. So most of his computing cycles these days are spent on 3D modeling of the sofa, trying to extricate it, much to the annoyance of the boss of his software company. "People who want their company accounts to sing to them are not interested in buying a revolving sofa!"

And I haven't even mentioned the missing cat, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Johann Sebastian Bach, or the end of life on Earth yet! It is really hopeless to try to capture this complex, brilliant, wacky book in any kind of short review. My suggestion is: Just try it. Warning: Like the good mystery novel it is, it starts out nearly incomprehensible, and makes more and more sense as you go on, so be patient with it.

But, this book IS strange enough that it is probably not for everyone. How to tell? I would say that if you enjoy one or more of: Monty Python, Dr. Who, Woody Allen's "Zelig", computer geekdom in general, and/or the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (but be warned: Dirk Gently's characters are much deeper and more complex persons than Hitchhiker's are) then Dirk Gently is definitely something you should consider reading.

I will leave you with another favorite quotation, which comes very early on. In the dedication, in fact: "To my mother, who liked the bit about the horse."

54 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Whatever you do, don't read this book!, September 23, 2002

By 

philiciono (Mountain View, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Mass Market Paperback)

... unless, of course, you're the kind of person who does precisely the opposite of whatever they are told to... oh! Hang on... that's all of us! Folks, not only is this book brimfull of the usual brilliantly quirky insights and satires of the inimitable mr Adams, but it is also an extremely well thought out, self-consistent detective story, with only a few completely fantastic creatures. (Don't be scared now!) And perhaps the odd (almost) impossible occurence. (Surprised?) The characters are an utter delight, and arguably more sympathetic than the cartoon figures from the hitchikers series. Guaranteed: you'll laugh out loud in places, and at least spend a good deal of the rest of the time with a most idiotically pleasant smile on your face. (Try not to drool in public.) Upon finishing, you will find yourself obsessively compelled to schedule an immediate re-reading, seeing as you will most certainly have missed a number of small delights and teasingly hidden clues. This story Rocks! And Haunts! Unmissable!

I also FORBID you to read Dirk Gently's further adventures in "The long dark teatime of the soul"!

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book on the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, March 28, 2004

By 

Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Hardcover)

Having finished with the Hitchhiker's series with So Long And Thanks For The Fish, Douglas Adams created a diptych utilizing the character of Dirk Gently, an eccentric character who in this first novel creates the self-titled Holistic Detective Agency. His method does not involve using fingerprint powder, but rather seeing the fundamental interconnectedness of things. As he elaborates to a client, "I see the solution to each problem as being detectable in the pattern and web of the whole. The connections between causes and effects are often much more subtle and complex than we with our rough and ready understanding of the physical world might naturally suppose." Missing cats is a specialty, using Schrodinger's quantum mechanics equation. It also serves to exploit old woman seeking their missing cats of their money, that is if he ever gets paid.

Gently cross paths with his old classmate from St. Cedd's College, Cambridge, Richard MacDuff, who is having a trying and interesting time. MacDuff, a computer programmer working for Way Forward Technologies, becomes involved with his old college tutor, Professor Urban Chronotis, the aged Regius Professor of Chronology, and hence bearing the nickname "Reg" whose vice is conjuring tricks, and in the middle of a dinner honouring Samuel Taylor Coleridge, performs a totally inexplicable one involving a salt shaker and a Grecian pot that perplexes MacDuff. Equally perplexing is how a horse entered the bathroom of his professor.

MacDuff has many other things to worry about. He's overdue on a software programme for his boss Gordon Way, he isn't spending enough time with his girlfriend Susan, who's his boss's sister, and he's got a sofa lodged halfway up the stairs to his flat. To make matters worse, he then sees the ghost of his boss, who was mysteriously killed at the same time he was at the Coleridge dinner, and is wanted by the police for questioning.

Adams' usual humorous observations on human foibles are at play here. He describes Reg's memory as being comparable to a Queen Alexandra Birdwing Butterfly, "in that it was colorful, flitted prettily hither and thither, and was now, alas, almost completely extinct." Reg and the eccentric Dirk, who seems able to explain things MacDuff can't, are the best characters here.

As for MacDuff, there is some of Adams in this character. Like MacDuff, Adams attended Cambridge and went for an English Literature degree, only it was at St. John's College and not St. Cedd's per the novel. Adams also managed to turn in only three essays (!!), which was three more than MacDuff completed.

Some may know that Adams was the script-editor for Dr. Who from 1978-1979. Elements from two stories he personally wrote, City Of Death and Shada pop up here. In the latter story, there is a character called Professor Chronotis as there is here.

The humour is more tempered than in Hitchhiker, and relies more on wit and funny situations rather than the laugh-out-loud comedy of the HH series. And this is more a sci-fi/mystery rather than a meta-scifi comedy in space. Adams never loses his imaginative streak, in terms of story and writing style. I read this immediately after the last HH book and found it an amusing and entertaining read.