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.

You could just call it a radio series like it is

But also post-dates it as it was brought back for the tertiary phase onwards by Dirk Maggs in the mid-noughties!

To be honest the radio play is also my favorite version as well, although the books come awfully close.

I have the radio plays in book form, with all the notations added into the margins.

That's so British.

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.

There are many other things that irk me about the film.

But on the other hand, Zooey Deschanel in hot pants. So there's that.

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

Same in that I have it uploaded to my YouTube Music library.

Have you listened to the Hexagonal Phase that released in 2018?

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.

It’s an old timey text based adventure game.

Video game is a bit of an exaggeration. It's a text based adventure game, which likes to kill you.

You can play it online: https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio/games/h2g2/