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There is no good way to review the complete Hitchhiker's Guide that does not feel slightly like reviewing weather. It is just out there, part of the literary atmosphere, and you have either spent a teenage summer breathing it in or you have not.
What strikes me on this reread is how much sharper Adams is than I remembered. The jokes still land, obviously. But it is the casual cosmological cruelty that holds up best. Earth being demolished for a hyperspace bypass in the opening pages is the kind of move a less confident writer would build a whole novel around. Adams uses it to set the table.
The later books in the omnibus are uneven, which everyone says and which is true. Mostly Harmless is genuinely bleak in ways that hit harder now than they did when I was 16. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish has a romance subplot that mostly works and a flying scene I think about more often than I should admit.
Buy this collected edition. Keep it on the shelf. Lend it out and accept that you will not get it back, because some books just travel that way. Five stars, and a towel.
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If you liked The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
by Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams writing comic SF detective fiction with time travel, an electric monk, and the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
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The Dirk Gently sequel, with Norse gods stranded in modern London. Funnier than its predecessor, slightly less ambitious.
Mostly Harmless
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The fifth Hitchhiker's book. Famously bleak. Adams said later he wrote it in a bad mood. You can tell.
Life, the Universe and Everything
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The third Hitchhiker's book. Cricket-themed apocalypse. Funnier than its reputation and a small structural marvel.
So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish
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The fourth Hitchhiker's book. Adams writing a love story disguised as an SF comedy. Calmer, sadder, surprising.
Starship Titanic
by Douglas Adams
A novelization of the Douglas Adams computer game, written by Terry Jones. Half Adams, half Monty Python, all 90s eccentricity.
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