March 11, 1952 - May 11, 2001
Most well known for his Hitchhiker series, Douglas Adams is recognized as one of the world’s leading humor-fantasy writers.
Larissa and Bridget spent three years trying to get me to read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but I never got around to it until I moved to Maryland in the summer of 2000. As is almost always the case with these things, I fell madly in love with it and actually went farther into the fandom than my tutors. By the end of the first marking period, I had read the entire “trilogy” in addition to both of the Dirk Gently novels. Of course, I can’t get my hands on anything else, as I live in a backward little town and the nearest bookstore is more than an hour away.
In any case, Mr. Adam’s stuff is marvelous. Absolutely dripping with hilarity and total nonsense, it isn’t possible to read it with a straight face. Particularly after making such associations as Zaphod’s personality resembling Darkwing’s and Ford’s to Gizmoduck’s, not to mention Larissa’s conviction that Clopin is a diehard fan. But there’s more to a Douglas Adams book than humor. There are actually some very good theories and such that are either pure genius or total lunacy. Either way, they make sense to me (embarrassing as though that may be) and I find myself quoting Ford Prefect’s theory that “If humans don’t keep exercising their lips, their brains start working,” quite often. And Dirk’s ideas about the fundamental interconnectedness of all things are fascinating.
In addition to writing these magnificent books, however, Mr. Adams also wrote for and appeared in a couple of fourth season episodes of none other than Monty Python’s Flying Circus (which actually wasn’t called that by the time the fourth season rolled around). So that’s definitely a cool thing.
And of course, who could forget his single greatest achievement – Making “zark” a part of That One Superhero Team’s everyday vocabulary.
