Last Chance to See (Paperback)

by Douglas Adams (Author), Mark Carwardine (Author) "THIS ISN'T AT ALL WHAT I expected..." (more)
Key Phrases: captive breeding centre, northern white rhinos, bowl system, New Zealand, Labuan Bajo, Land Rover (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal
YA-- The BBC asked this team to film some of the most endangered animal species throughout the world. Adams has recorded their adventures seeking the komodo dragon, northern white rhinoceros, mountain gorilla, kakapo, baiji dolphin, and the rodrigues fruit bat. There is biological information here, but it is inaccessible for report writers due to the lack of an index and the wordy descriptions. However, these same accurate portrayals and Adams's entertaining style will expose students to the worlds of these animals. He moves rapidly from informal, laugh-out-loud descriptions of his travels to serious pleas for awareness and conservation of all animals. The full-color photographs are in two separate sections and help readers to visualize the unusual animals (including the authors).
- Claudia Moore, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
'Stephen Fry is a treasure of the British Empire.' Guardian --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (October 13, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345371984
• ISBN-13: 978-0345371980
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (179 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #31,435 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #4 in	Books > Outdoors & Nature > Conservation > Endangered Species
  #20 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Ecology
  #50 in	Books > Science > Biological Sciences > Ecology

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A hitchhiker's guide to the animal kingdom, February 17, 2001

By	Mike Stone (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Douglas Adams' sense of humour is so strong, it could inject a bucketful of laughs into an obituary. Needless to say I wasn't surprised when this book, his elegy for endangered species, turned out to have a welcome balance between laughter and melancholy.

Adams is joined by zoologist Mark Carwardine, as they use their last chance to see a variety of animals on the brink of extinction, such as the Komodo Dragon, the White Rhinos of Zaire, New Zealand kakapos, and Yangtze river dolphins. Adams, amateur wildlife lover, is wise enough to know the purpose of his journey: to shine some of the glare from his celebrity as a "science-fiction comedy novelist" on the issue of global extinction. He does wisely not to downplay the plight of these animals in the favour of commerciality, but manages to produce an entertaining work nonetheless. Carwardine, and the other people we encounter, sometimes come off as little more than characters in a Douglas Adams novel. I am hesitant to believe that everyone he encounters has the same dry, deadpanned British sense of humour. Nonetheless, the characters' eccentricities further shed light on the kinds of people who are willing to undertake the monumental task of saving these beautiful beasts. It is not work for the dispassionate.

"The great thing about being the only species that makes a distinction between right and wrong," he notes at one point, "is that we can make up the rules for ourselves as we go along." Which brings up the second theme he hopes to illustrate here. Humans are dumb. No, that's too simple. Humans are egotistical, selfish, wasteful, materialistic, impudent, and dumb. The single, overwhelming reason why most of these animals must fight for their survival is the sheer audacity humans have in moving into their natural habitat, and upsetting the balance of nature. Adams has no time for individual moments of human idiocy, best exemplified by his wonderful line skewering young Yemeni men who insist on wearing rhino tusk costume jewelry: "How do you persuade [them] that a rhino horn dagger is not a symbol of your manhood but a signal of the fact that you need such a symbol?" His exasperation is evident in this and other such pearls of prose.

I admit that I read this book more for Adams himself than for the subject matter. It is a credit to the author that by the end, I felt some sense of emotional investment in the animals, without the bitter feelings that usually emanate whenever I am subject to an overt tug at my heartstrings. Adams walks that fine line quite well.

40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ford Prefect should read this book, February 3, 2000

By	John Cassetta (Near Carmen SanDiego) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Douglas Adams could have worked comfortably within his sci-fi niche for the rest of his career knowing that he had left his mark on the literary world. He chose to take a chance and write a non-fiction account of some of the most unique and fascinating animals on our planet (the same one that Ford Prefect, from the increasingly inappropriately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy, considered "Mostly Harmless").

His addictive writing style made this book impossible to put down. His accounts of the Komodo Dragon and the Kakapo bird are two of the most humorous, yet informative pieces that I have had the pleasure of reading.

I was fortunate enough to hear Adams speak at a local university a few years ago. The crowd was decidedly Hitchhiker fanatics but by the end of the evening, he had us all running to the bookstore to find Last Chance to See.

Read this book. You'll laugh. And you might even learn something, too.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Douglas Adams' Finest, January 16, 1999

By A Customer

Douglas Adams is one of the funniest authors alive. And were it not for this book, that would be all he'd ever be. This book, however, transcends humor. Whereas the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the funniest books ever, no question, this book has a far more serious bent. In this book, Douglas Adams goes searching for endangered animals, and in the process winds up taking a hilarious and yet very insightful look into human nature and society. The book essentially looks at various aspects of the question "What makes humans different from animals?" And although it is riotously funny, it has some brilliant observations on this note. This book is quite simply amazing, and is one of my favorite books ever, no questions asked. It is, I think without a doubt, the finest book Douglas Adams has ever written.