Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15918 in Books
• Published on: 1989-10-13
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Synopsis
Written by the author of "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series and "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency", this is another story about Dirk Gently, the self-styled holistic detective and master of all things alternative.

Customer Reviews

Not Douglas Adams best
This book has its moments, and the first half is very enjoyable. However, it starts to get lost about two thirds of the way through and never really recovers. The ending is not very satisfactory at all and overall this does not measure up to Douglas Adams usually very high standards.

The Hitchhikers Guide to Valhalla.
I first feel in love with Douglas Adams on watching the TV version of `The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy' and then discovering the then Hitch Hiker novels. When Adams published `Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' I was half expecting to be disappointed assuming that it could never hold a candle up to the brilliance of the Hitch Hiker books. I was proven gravely wrong and the first Dirk Gently novel was, and indeed still is, my favourite novel of all time and so I was anticipating greatness from `The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul' when I took the day off school to buy and read it on the day of publication.

And, as before, I was totally disappointed. Where before I was disappointed by the book being fantastic here I was only disappointed. It's still a great book putting most comic writing into a cocked hat however it fails to reach the heights of its predecessor or the Hitch Hiker books.

And so Dirk Gently investigates a possibly broken contract between the Nordic Gods of Valhalla and various media moguls in our own world and although this may sound like a typical Adams scenario it pans out like someone trying to write as Adams rather than Adams writing it himself. A great book just not a great Douglas Adams book.

Good book, disapointing ending
That says it all. Many mysteries were in fact random stuff which will never get explined, probably because Adams is an excellent writer but a very bad scenarist.