Product Description

Here is Douglas Adams's indispensable guide to life, the universe and everything. This sublime collection dips into the wit and wisdom of the man behind THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, uncovering his unique comic musings on everything from his school-trousers to malt whisky and from the letter Y through to his own nose, via atheism, hangovers and fried eggs. Including short stories and a lengthy unpublished Dirk Gently extract, THE SALMON OF DOUBT is for fans and new readers alike. These hilarious collected writings reveal the warmth, enthusiasm and ferocious intelligence behind this most English of comic writers; a man who was virtually an unofficial member of the Monty Python team.

Douglas Adams on his passion for P. G. Wodehouse, The Beatles and the perfect cup of tea alone make this a must-have collection and a remarkable sign-off from one of the best loved writers of all time.

'One of the world's sanest, smartest, kindest, funniest voices' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

'Sheer delight' THE TIMES.

'Magical . . . read this book' SUNDAY EXPRESS

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8975 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Salmon of Doubt is the late Douglas Adams' third comic novel about "holistic detective" Dirk Gently. Ten tantalising chapters of this unfinished project are padded to book size with about 50 short Adams pieces, mostly non-fiction.

Additional material includes introductions by Stephen Fry and editor Peter Guzzardi (who stitched together the Salmon fragment from disk drafts), The Guardian's Adams biography, Richard Dawkins' farewell piece, and the order of the memorial service.

The non-fiction by the man himself ranges from perhaps a dozen meaty articles and speeches to brief squibs, interview/questionnaire answers and tiny asides like:

We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works. How do you recognise something that is still technology? A good clue is if it comes with a manual.

There are enjoyable pieces on computers (especially), atheism, dogs, manta rays on the Great Barrier Reef, the Save the Rhino stunt climb, and PG Wodehouse. Much of the rest is ephemeral; you can't help reflecting that Adams himself never chose to collect all this lightweight newspaper work.

Lovers of his fiction will welcome the Hitch-Hiker-related short stories "The Private Life of Genghis Khan" and "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe", despite the latter's dreadfully dated political punch line.

What of The Salmon of Doubt itself, a quarter of this book? There's a glimpse of a far-future estate agent's utopia, a woman asking Dirk Gently to investigate a cat that's literally only half there (his puzzling reluctance to take the case may echo Adams' own feelings about the novel), Gently's capricious trip to America in response to an unknown client's total lack of instructions, the tragic death of a rhino as perceived by the rhino... Many teasing questions; we'll never know the answers.

Overall it's a must-have for devoted Adams fans and completists, a likely disappointment (though with pleasant exceptions) for new readers. --David Langford

Review
'Douglas Adams created a new comic genre, and peopled a whole other world through his work' FINANCIAL TIMES 'His ability to connect cosmic ideas with the banal commonplaces of everyday life was unique' STEPHEN FRY

Sunday Times, 2002
‘Sheer delight . . . many plums of the authentic, irreplaceable genius of Douglas Adams’

Customer Reviews

Last Chance to See ...
Douglas Adams once noted that there was a class of reviewer who simply took the best jokes out of a book and put them in their review. It's going to be difficult to review The Salmon of Doubt without doing that, every page has quotable lines, memorable phrases and oh-so elegant metaphors that are just sitting there waiting for a reviewer to pluck them out. I'll do my best not to.

Latterly, Douglas Adams had become as famous for not writing Hitchhikers books as for writing them in the first place. The Salmon of Doubt, a collection of essays, articles, interviews and, finally, ten chapters of his last novel, demonstrates that he'd developed his displacement activities to avoid writing into a fine art, progressing from 'taking another bath' and 'going for a walk' to coming up with some of the most elegant essays on atheism ever written and climbing Kilimanjaro to save rhinos. This is what he'd been getting up to all that time, and it was a far more interesting and productive way of occupying himself than coming up with new things for Marvin to do.

And if I haven't done so already, here's where I lapse into cliche - Douglas Adams delighted millions; created characters and phrases that have passed into everyday use; he died tragically young; he made the most complex philosophical and scientific ideas seem so simple; I never met him but he made me feel that I knew him; I laughed aloud while reading this book.

Stephen Fry's introduction is perceptive, but more importantly it's moving. Fry makes the crucial point - Adams convinced a generation of readers that he was writing just for us. The sense of loss in this, and an equally moving tribute by Richard Dawkins at the end of the book, is keen. The subtitle of the book 'Hitchhiking the galaxy for one last time' captures the excitement of the prospect of being allowed into Douglas Adams' universe once more ... but also the sadness that it genuinely will only be once more...

Not quite what was promised, but excellent nonetheless.
If you are a fan of Douglas Adams' fiction, then this book is well worth getting. Although it contains mostly non-fiction essays, articles and interviews, they are very entertaining, and have the same sharp, witty and informative voice as his fiction works.

Adams was clearly an extremely intelligent and perceptive man, and his ability to make wry but penetrating observations in a clear, concise and entertaining way is displayed here again and again. These essays run the gamut from the hilarious to the deeply moving - sometimes within the same article.

The unfinished novel, The Salmon of Doubt, is interesting, but somewhat frustrating to read, as none of the disparate elements quite come together. As a work in progress, it sadly needed a lot more work done to it to bring it up to Adams' usual standard.

I deduct one star because the collection is not *quite* what was promised. Initially, we were told in press releases that this book would contain much of the unpublished material found on Adams' laptop after his death. However, apart from the novel excerpt, nearly all the material has been published before, either in magazines, newspapers or online. It's great to have it all in one place, but a lot of it we've seen before.

Nevertheless, as a tribute to Adams' life as a novelist and journalist, this book is as close to perfect as it can be. After reading The Salmon of Doubt, I both marvelled at Adams' genius, and mourned his untimely passing.

Ah Douglas, you left us far too soon.

Sorely missed genius...
When this book turned up on my desk at work, I tore open the wrapping and started reading it there and then. Much chortling (and no small amount of guffawing) later, I had to return to work. But the book left its mark on me, in the form of a huge wave of melancholy...

You see, Mr. Adams is gone. The genius and extremely tall gentleman who breathed life into Dentarthurdent and changed the name of Svlad Cjelli into something altogether more pronounceable has gone to amuse the inhabitants of an altogether nicer place, and the world is a duller place for it.

What we have left to remember him by is this, a half-finished novel, a collection of contemplations, some book introductions, interviews, and short things that can only be described as sentences. Tell you what, it's bloody genius. Maybe it's because he's writing for himself a lot of the time, I don't know, but it really is genius.

Buy it, and remember him as I think he would have liked to be remembered. As someone who really knew how to make you laugh.