The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time [Hardcover]

Douglas Adams (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 7, 2002

On Friday, May 11, 2001, the world mourned the untimely passing of Douglas Adams, beloved creator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, dead of a heart attack at age forty-nine. Thankfully, in addition to a magnificent literary legacy—which includes seven novels and three co-authored works of nonfiction—Douglas left us something more. The book you are about to enjoy was rescued from his four computers, culled from an archive of chapters from his long-awaited novel-in-progress, as well as his short stories, speeches, articles, interviews, and letters.

In a way that none of his previous books could, The Salmon of Doubt provides the full, dazzling, laugh-out-loud experience of a journey through the galaxy as perceived by Douglas Adams. From a boy’s first love letter (to his favorite science fiction magazine) to the distinction of possessing a nose of heroic proportions; from climbing Kilimanjaro in a rhino costume to explaining why Americans can’t make a decent cup of tea; from lyrical tributes to the sublime pleasures found in music by Procol Harum, the Beatles, and Bach to the follies of his hopeless infatuation with technology; from fantastic, fictional forays into the private life of Genghis Khan to extended visits with Dirk Gently and Zaphod Beeblebrox: this is the vista from the elevated perch of one of the tallest, funniest, most brilliant, and most penetrating social critics and thinkers of our time.

Welcome to the wonderful mind of Douglas Adams.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Edited by Peter Guzzardi and with an introduction by Christopher Cerf, this bittersweet collection comprises letters, fragments of ideas for books, films and TV, ruminations on a diverse array of subjects and a good bit of a final unfinished novel by the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, who died in May of last year. Included are a letter to the editor of a U.K. boy's magazine (written in 1965, when Adams was 12); a reminiscence about his lifelong love for the Beatles, written when he was in his 40s; a 1991 piece from Esquire entitled "My Nose"; and an undated article for the Independent espousing his preference for whiskey. Also on hand are a q&a in which he identifies the most interesting natural structure as being a "2,000-mile-long fish in orbit around Jupiter, according to a reliable report in the Weekly World News"; a spiritual encounter with a giant manta ray while testing a mechanical diving device at Australia's Great Barrier Reef; an affecting introduction to P.G. Wodehouse's unfinished novel, Sunset at Blandings; an account of a Save the Rhino pilgrimage across Africa; ruminations on computerization; and a philosophical address about the authorship of the universe entitled "Is There an Artificial God?" Two sketches "The Private Life of Genghis Khan" and "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe" from the Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book, 1986, are also here, as are 10 chapters from various versions of the title novel-in-progress. National advertising.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

It's hard to classify this cornucopia, selected by Christopher Cerf from Adams's papers after his untimely death, but Hitchhiker fans will want it.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1 edition (May 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400045088
• ISBN-13: 978-1400045082
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1.1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (152 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,828 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.

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#27 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction

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#79 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure

#80 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Action & Adventure

#27 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction

#38 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Science Fiction

#64 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy

#79 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure

#80 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Action & Adventure

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

145 of 145 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Bittersweet ending to an amazing career February 14, 2003

By Emerick Rogul

Format:Hardcover

The first two-thirds of "The Salmon of Doubt", as assembled by Douglas Adams' editor, consists of essays, lectures, magazine articles, and other short pieces written by Adams. It is an interesting glimpse into his mind, his work habits, his love of computers and gadgets, and his views on religion, atheism, and evolution. As an added bonus, the last third of the book contains the first eleven chapters of what was meant to be Adams' new Dirk Gently novel (although he tantalizingly hinted in interviews that he might turn it into a sixth "Hitchhiker's" book), also named "The Salmon of Doubt."

The essay/article portion of the book, while interesting, does have an unavoidably hodgepodge feel to it. Most of this material will be familiar to diehard Douglas Adams fans (in fact, much of it has already been printed elsewhere - little here is new material), but it is nice to have it all gathered together in one place. Unfortunately, no index or table of contents is provided, so finding a particular piece is rather challenging.

The portion of the book actually devoted to "The Salmon of Doubt" is very intriguing. As the editor notes, the eleven chapters are stitched together from three separate "versions" of the novel that Adams was working on at the time of his death. As a result, some of the chapter transitions are very choppy (and of course the story sputters out without a proper ending, although this does seem vaguely appropriate for a Dirk Gently novel). However, I found chapters two through seven of the book to be very engaging; a bit rough, certainly, but this was shaping up to be a great Dirk Gently novel. It was with sadness that I reached the end of this story and realized that there would be no ending, and further, no other novels from Douglas Adams.

I don't fault the editor for assembling the story the way he's chosen to, as an amalgam of three different manuscripts - I'm sure this would have been his suggestion even if Adams were still alive. Still, I would love to see a completely "unedited" version of the novel, i.e., one that includes all three working versions; I think that would be fascinating to read. It's certainly a tease to know that certain parts of the different versions were skipped over in assembling this edition.

Having said that, I still do think this book is a must-own if you're a fan of Douglas Adams and his work, due to the inclusion of the unfinished novel. However, when reading "The Salmon of Doubt", you must be prepared to read an unpolished, unfinished story; if you're able to read it in this frame of mind, it's actually very rewarding.

73 of 77 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreakingly interrupted. October 16, 2002

By Matthew Weaver

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

He made hitchhiking a universal thing.

Literally.

Douglas Adams, author of the five books in the vastly popular comic-space saga "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" trilogy (you did indeed read that correctly), plus an assortment of other novels, died in May 2001.

Now comes a posthumous collection of his writings, called "The Salmon of Doubt," which allows his fans one last, gentle look at a revolutionary voice in literature and science-fiction.

"Salmon" is very much a toast to Adams, a eulogy to him.

The assembled writings are fabulous, culled from a massive selection of writings, letters, essays, various introductions and other things from Adams' computer.

The title refers to an included unfinished Dirk Gently book which, had he lived, might have turned into the sixth "Hitchhiker" book.

Other points of interest:

The first published work of twelve-year-old Douglas Adams, a letter to the editor to "The Eagle," a popular boys' magazine.

"Y," in which Adams helpfully points out that the question "Why?" is the only one important enough to have had a letter named after it.

"Riding the Rays," in which Adams gets the idea to compare riding a new technological submarine, the "Sub Bug," to riding manta rays off the coast of Manta Ray Bay near Australia, the rejection of his proposal when it comes to riding the rays and, upon discovering a manta in said bay, his ease with giving up the pursuit of a ride. Quite possibly the best entry in the whole book.

"Is There an Artificial God?" is an interesting speech from Adams on his aetheism, as he breaks downb his non-belief into steps and explores the contrasts between science and religion.

"Cookies," in which Adams finds himself plagued by the most horrid of human entities: The cookie thief. Or does he?

A letter to Disney's unresponsive David Vogel leaving a chart of numbers at which Adams can possibly be reached.

"The Private Life of Genghis Khan": A woman whose village has just been pillaged and burnt to the ground by the Mongol now finds herself right next to him, with one of his warriors forcing her to ask the mighty Khan how his day was...

It is almost spooky how, in a review/essay of P.G. Wodehouse's unfinished novel "Sunset at Blandings," Adams laments the fact that Wodehouse's final work is "unfinished not just in the sense that it suddenly, heartbreakingly for those of us who love this man and his work, stops in midflow, but in the more important sense that the text up to that point is also unfinished."

Heartbreakingly stopped in midflow, unfinished? The same can be said of Adams himself.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Farewell, Douglas December 21, 2004

By Alan Caylow

Format:Paperback

The world was robbed of one it's greatest and funniest writers on May 11, 2001, when Douglas Adams, author of the hugely popular "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" and "Dirk Gently" books, died from a heart attack at the age of 49. As a writer, Adams was a true original. His style of humor was gloriously funny, and he certainly had a most unique way with words. His final book, the posthumous release "The Salmon Of Doubt," is a collection of assorted writings, including essays, e-mails, interviews, lectures and letters that Adams had given or written over the years, as well as an unfinished third "Dirk Gently" novel that Adams had been sporadically working on for many years. Much of the material was culled from the disk drives of Adams' collection of Macintosh computers, and we, Adams' faithful readers, can certainly be grateful for these golden DNA nuggets. The book contains such gems as Adams discussing his childhood, his nose, his friendship with dogs Maggie and Trudie, his great introduction to Procol Harum (a favorite band of Adams AND myself) just before they take the stage, his advice about how to make a cup of really good tea, his attempts to get "Hitchhiker's" made as a feature film (which *finally* happened in 2005), and his lecture about the existence of an artificial God. There's also a hilarious sketch about Genghis Khan, a short "Hitchhiker's" story involving Zaphod Beeblebrox, and, finally, 11 chapters of the unfinished Dirk Gently novel, entitled "The Salmon Of Doubt," which, although it is quite obviously an unpolished work-in-progress, is still very funny (though I'm saddened that we'll never know what happens to Dirk after Chapter 11, which is a terrible shame). Douglas Adams had so much more left to give to this world, he had so much more left to write. But we can take comfort in the great, hysterically funny gifts he did leave us---"Hitchhiker's" (not only the books but also the radio & TV series, and the feature film), "Dirk Gently," the travelogue book "Last Chance To See" (which succeeds as a serious piece sprinkled with great humor throughout), and his writing for the "Doctor Who" TV series. Douglas, as a longtime fan of yours, I just want to thank you for all the good cheer you've given me over the years. I will treasure your work & your memory 'til the end of my days, and perhaps even after that. "The Salmon Of Doubt" is a very fond farewell to the late, great Douglas Noel Adams.