In the forward to one of the book collections he straight up said that every time The Guide gets put into a new medium, it has to be changed a bit.

Oh man, he's a personal hero of mine, early adopter of the internet, huge tech nerd, hilarious writer, genuinely good dude who didn't take life seriously.

I have a banner in my office with my favorite quote of his, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." Cannot say my PMs love that one.

Would absolutely recommend reading his works.

I heard that essentially the only reason why they managed to make the film at all because he died.

It's quite funny because I have pretty much every version as my place is something of a dumping ground for old books when my extended family goes through their stuff & gets rid of stuff. Apparently everytime they did a reprint Douglas went "Hold up! I have notes" and they would change a bit of the book everytime.

Mostly pretty minor, just changing how some jokes hit or adding some jokes into certain situations. I quite enjoyed the little quirks from him.

They say that whenever they planned to release a book the publisher had to lock him into a hotel room as he's easily distracted, especially when he has a task set out before him.

He was the first person to buy an Apple Macintosh in Europe, the second being Stephen Fry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams#Technology_and_innovation

He's just this guy, ya know?

He's really damn interesting to get to know more about though.

His talks about his nature documentary work and general philosophical talks are just as entertaining as his books.

The man was an absolute treasure.

There is a book called The Salmon of Doubt that is a collection of Adams' essays and interviews posthumously published. My daughter and I listened to it on audiobook and were entranced. The man was a comic genius and taken away from us too soon. I would have loved for him to have been show runner for Doctor Who in the new series for a few years. That would have been epic.

Well yeah. What else would it be? =P

Definitely my favourite. After years and years of waiting, I finally got to share it with my daughter last year. 🥹

That is kinda hilarious

Then it was the BBC series, and third it was the book series!

I think that's why the books were so good, he had written 2 full fledged versions and had time to really craft it and flesh it out for the books.

EDIT: As pointed out, then fact checked... The first two novels came out before the series. The third came out after the BBC series.

Wherein Peter Jones was the book...

How old is the radio play?

Thank you for doing my job; I feel compelled to mention this whenever the Hitchhiker's Guide crops up because it feels like a lot of people assume the book was the original.

It's also better, in my opinion.

So we have Douglas Adams to blame for all this lazy multiverse nonsense!

Check out the audio books narrated by Douglas Adams! Those are by far my favorite. You get the fun and perfected plot of the novels, AND Douglas Adams' radio personality/style voice acting.

Let me tell you! He had not even missed a step between the original radio play and audio books as far as charisma and voice acting.

Honestly, I haven't reread the books after I found out about those audio books. It's perfection.

Terms for times and places are often interchangeable - end is a good one, but we also talk about the length of time and how far away a location in space is in terms of the time it takes to get there (4.5 light years, 20 minutes by car, etc.). It's possible that's what Marvin meant - not that kind of end, the end of time kind of end - but no one cares what I say anyway.

Unless they were heading for the Big Bang Burger Bar and Grill.

It's an old text based adventure game. You can find it converted to Java for play online. It's really intuitive and natural compared to other text adventure games back then. Douglas Adams himself worked and directed the designers, so every aspect has his fingerprint.

Additionally, the ever forward thinking Mer.Adams made a second game after graphics started picking up and adventure games caught up. It's Starship Titanic, and is first person 3d like Mist, with Bioshock art deco and Monkey Island style puzzles.

There's also a novelization of Starship Titanic which is part of the "continuity". Terry Jones wrote it, so he got the Adams humor style. I remember being pretty middle of the road when I read it, don't remember anything about it anymore. So might be worth a read, but don't expect a masterpiece.

I never played it but I think it’s the real old school text based adventure game.

Original version (@Internet Archive)

30th anniversary edition (@BBC)

Yes, there is. You can play it here.

Yes, it has original Vogon poetry written for the game.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1g84m0sXpnNCv84GpN2PLZG/the-game-30th-anniversary-edition

Talking about canon, he wrote Hitchhiker's just after working on a TV show with canon issues - Doctor Who.

Not only that, but both Life, The Universe, And Everything and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency started out as Dr. Who scripts.

Joke's on him, cause other than ooooold old school fans and literature buffs wanting more of the same... They're really fucking good.

Half of my favorite bits of the whole series are from 4 and 5. Random, flying, sector zz plural z alpha natives and hyperdrivs hyperdrive, sandwiches, immortality, pluto, and can't say anything while still keeping it vague and nonspoilery.

Apparently I'm a contrarian, cause I always thought Mostly Harmless was the perfect ending. Warts and all. It just fit the dark absurd British humor.

Douglas had a lot of input into the movie before he passed away. It just took ages before they actually produced it. His death delayed it even further.

Can't remember where I read it, but his wife mentioned that his movie script was written before he died, and what was eventually released was pretty much what he'd planned it to be. So it was still his movie.

From the movie's Wikipedia page, "Adams wrote a new script, and Roach sought talent like Spike Jonze to direct, Hugh Laurie to play Arthur, and Jim Carrey as Zaphod, but then Adams died on 11 May 2001." I wish we could have seen that version!

I feel blessed to have heard Douglas Adams tell stories twice at book tours and he was just as amazing in person as his books. Very humble but very aware of things nobody else in society tends to notice, which tends to be the theme of many of his books.

He chatted about how excited he was to have signed Disney to produce the movie, then said to himself, "Disney? They make animated movies for kids! This seems odd," but Disney provided funding through Touchstone Pictures division which was one of their adult oriented studios. They released Armageddon, Good Morning, Vietnam, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Dead Poets Society, Pretty Woman, some seriously big movies.

Touchstone Pictures

Yeah that happened but CD releases were slightly edited. I have the full editions available and it happens about 17 minutes into Fit the Third.

I think there were 6 or 12 radio episodes originally. To set the record firmly crooked.

6 books, technically, but it's understandable if you don't count the last book.

When I reread now I like to stop after 4. I think it ends perfectly there. Mostly Harmless came out years later and I think Adams was in a more cynical frame of mind when he wrote that one.

No no no. The answer is 42.

Yep, the romance really muddled it up. I remember in the book they built up Trisha McMillan as Arthur's missed one true love... Then she straight goes "you're boring, this guy had a space ship".

And that was it... Arthur dropped it, and just went on. I thought that was hilarious and actually showed a lot about Arthur's personality.

i can totally agree with this. i took it as douglas did in each different medium the tv show was different than the books the books were different from the radio show and the movie was different from all of it but the movie became the visuals for the books after i saw it. i just felt they nailed the cast at least for myself. god i wish it had continued man

I'm ambivalent on the movie, but the Vogons were by far the best part.

That romance subplot messed it up for me and tarnished the whole movie. I didn't forgive it when I first watched it, but I'm thinking I should give it another chance, there was some good stuff in there.

Mos Def is just a flat out phenomenal actor!

I highly recommend the HBO movie Something the Lord Made. It is based on true events and Mos Def nailed the role and Allan Rickman gave him a lot to work with. A heartbreaking yet massively inspirational story about the birth of cardiac surgery.

Mos Def was a welcome surprise as Ford Prefect. I thought he played the character so well that it changed how I visualized him in the books. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but he’s perfect.

It made Arthur into a complete idiot for ever thinking that Ford was from Guildford. Mos Def is a fine actor, but he's no hoopy frood and I suspect that he had no idea where his towel is.

You get all the upvotes I can give (1). I am convinced the reason HHGG didn’t get made into a movie during Adams’ lifetime was because he had to constantly stop people from trying to make the piece of shit they immediately started making the moment he died.

As I was watching the movie, in which the experience of waiting in a queue was brilliantly satirised by showing the characters waiting in a queue, I realised my life would be different: from now on when talking about how great HHGG is, I would need to qualify it with “… apart from the movie, obviously.” Right to the final seconds it does every possible kind of sickening cannibal-holocaust assault on the material.

My last memory before my stomach leapt up and throttled my brain was Marvin saying “No, the other end of the universe”, as if to advertise the fact that every single person involved in the production had no idea what “end” meant in that sentence and thus hadn’t even listened to the first radio series or read the second novel.

And I honestly have no idea how someone who loves those books could not like that movie. It’s really great tbh.

Hmm... Not that I've noticed. I don't actually live in a house. I live Outside.

You see, one day after a middling-to-delightful meal I picked up a wet nap that had been provided and I looked at the back of the package. It was then, after reading that wet nap, that I realised the world was sick.

Knowing that you all needed someplace nice to rest for a bit I built you the Asylum. Unfortunately, there wasn't really much room left after building an asylum large enough to contain the world and as such I decided to just stay Outside the Asylum. I made the Asylum for the world to rest and recover from it's insanity; finding myself to already be quite sane I'm afraid I just can't bring myself to step foot in it anymore, not with the rest of you gibbering about out there.

The angels sometimes talk about the place being inside-out too, but it seems the right way about to me.

Btw, the wet nap that I saw, it said this:

Tear open and use.

I figured any world that not only required directions to use a wet nap, but also provided directions that couldn't possibly be of use to anyone, really just needed a few minutes to itself to sort things out.

I hear a box of toothpicks has been known to have a similar effect.

Lol it's not in reference to it being a "film trilogy". It's the fact that after he finished it as a trilogy, years later he added a 4th book to do a new ending. Then he did it again, but he's dumb and hilarious and still called the 5 book series a trilogy.

And that set even had the short prologue novelette about Zaphod, so it was like 5 1/2 books. Which is even even better.