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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I was playing the (pirated) Infocom game reprised here back in the 1980s.
My first taste of it was on a friend's C64 in about 87 - 14 years later and I'm still no good at it!
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(six books in the trilogy)
Six? I only have five. Or are you considering something else to be part of the trilogy that I don't have/didn't think of?
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Wait up, there's....
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
Mostly Harmless
... what else?
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Just to add my own name to the sorrow list. Hitch Hiker's Guide was one of the few radio programs of that era to hold me, and it is one of the few writings that can still make me laugh out loud. The writing worked at different levels, concept, narrative and characterisation, and the local asides and word play. An appropriate (for this board) wordplay from memory is where Arthur Dent is told by Ford Prefect that the effects of the Vogon hyper-space drive is like being drunk. "What's so bad about that?" "Try asking a glass of water". I enjoy his other books as well.
I read of Douglas Adam's death in the newspaper while I was halfway through my 5 minute warm up on the bike in the gym. Scary!
Rod
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Wait up, there's....
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
Mostly Harmless
... what else?Those are the ones I have. Also there are the two Dirk Gently books (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Teatime of the Sould), the Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff, and Last Chance to See...My mother also gave me "Don't Panic" for my birthday one year. I agree with other favourite quotes posted above and I also like the reference to "a liquid that tasted almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea." How many times did we all have to work that one out in our heads to get if it did or didn't taste like tea? 
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Sad news, indeed, for one so creative to go so young. It's been years since I've read the series, and all of the brilliant excerpts here make it clear I need to do so again.
My favorite concept from the series is the spaceship that is rendered invisible as it lands on the cricket pitch (IIRC) by a SEP field. This is the Somebody Else's Problem field, which causes anyone who happens to look at the impossibly technically advanced craft that has just appeared out of the sky and landed on Earth is Somebody Else's Problem - and thus, they ignore it.
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I think the sixth HHGG "book" people are thinking of is the short story "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe", included in a lovely leatherbound omnibus edition of the first four books.
I'd just like to add a wonderful bit of description from "So Long and Thanks For All the Fish" (which I rather liked, to be honest). Describing the Californian mystic/seer/prophet/whatever Wonko the Sane: "He looked like someone had taken David Bowie and attached additional David Bowies to the arms and legs of the first David Bowie and then wrapped the lot in a dirty beach robe. He was tall and he gangled." (That's from memory, so forgive the inaccuracy)
Adams had the wonderful twin gifts of a thoroughly twisted imagination and a knack for clearly and eloquently describing the products of that imagination. We've lost a master of the language, friends. Let's all raise a glass for him when we get to Milliway's.
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That was rather terrible news to wake up to on Saturday morning, I must say.
I have one of those strange stuffed animals which you win at an Exhibition, and it's named Wonko the Sane. It dates from the era (my high school years) when I first read those books.
The edition I have is the one where the first four books each have four pieces of four photos on them. Depending on how you arrange them on the table, you a towel, a running shoe, a fish, or a face (presumably Arthur's). The spines, when lined up in the right order, spell "42" in the bubbles used for colour-blindness tests. I'm quite fond of them as a set, and I am now glad I have that edition.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Farewell dear Douglas. I wafted through my early days at University on the cloud of air that emanated from my weekly radio dose of the Hitch Hikers Guide. I still think that the words on the page can never live up to the excitement of waiting for the next week's radio programme, better by far than squeeky clean, infinitive splitting,non interfering "Star Trek" or lavishly produced "Star Wars". It was the off-the-wall humour and whiff of anarchy that made "The Guide" so special for those of us at the end of our spiral arm of the Galaxy, close to a second rate sun. I will always know where my towel is. Thanks for all the fish.
Sincere condolences to Max.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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It's small comfort, I realize: but maybe Max's elevation to Pooh-Bahhood upon the transmogrification of D. Adams carries with it some sort of cosmic significance.
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