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Mostly Harmless

Mostly Harmless

List Price: $25.00
Your Price: $16.50
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The final book in the series
Review: "Mostly Harmless" is the fifth and final book in the "Hitchhiker" series. It's funny, but I was expecting just a little more with this one. It's not Douglas Adam's best, but still entertaining. If you liked the other books in the series, you'll enjoy this one, too.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Truly brilliant. you'll hate it.
Review: This has slowly become my favorite book of the series. But then, i also think "The Cable Guy" was one of Jim Carrey's better flicks. The whole madcap insane story generates enough superficiality and disconnectedness to really shock your system when something truly serious and sad happens, with real repurcussions -- as in, Random.

and another thing -- what with all the "axes of probability" and whatnot, who's to say Adams couldn't continue the series with Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, and hell even Marvin, just incarnations of them along a very slightly modified probability axis? (or whatever)

of course, only if he wanted to. i, for one, would welcome another tale with open arms. why not?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not Harmless At All
Review: Alright, so the HHGTTG saga was over two books ago; heck, I have to admit I didn't think all too much of SLATFATF, except for poor Marvin (my all-time favorite of the characters, of course). Mostly Harmless struck me almost like it was written by someone other than Adams... you could almost say it wasn't quite funny enough. But people shouldn't complain about the ending; I thought it was fitting in an odd sort of way. The entire series was one long string of insane humor and nonsensical happenings, and this fit in pretty well, even if the rest of the book was actually starting to make some sense (which, of course, was it's main problem). In the forward to The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide (a HUGE book which is a collection of all five Guides plus a short story), Adams noted how a lot of his stories ended with the destruction of Earth. The Guide series is really little different, and he couldn't have thought up a crazier and more interesting way of doing it. People like me who like ridiculous scientific gobbleteygook dove straight into that Guide Mark ][ with all it's talk about probability axes and whatnot. And that's part of the ending too. Overall, the book is worthwhile, if complicated for the first-time reader. (Don't ask me about Random; she just gives me the shudders...)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Mostly harmless is mostly useless
Review: It always has to happen eventually. An author gets tired of being pestered about the next sequel and finishes everyone off. Arther Conan Doyle did it to Holmes, and now Douglas Adams does it to the Hitchhikers bunch. While the impulse to pick up his marbles and go home might be easily understandable ("They're my characters and I shall do with them as I like") it does rather ruin the good effect of a solid conclusion, such as "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" was. This is an awful anticlimax to a wonderful series.

That said, there are a few glimmers of classic Douglas Adams fare. The bit about the sandwiches is arguably the funniest sketch in the series. Unfortunately it is itself sandwiched in among the worst story in the series. if you've read the first four novels in the trilogy, stop there.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Mostly disappointing
Review: I guess it had to end this way. The original radio version of "Hitchhiker" was the high-water mark. The television version wasn't as good. The books have gotten worse and worse. There really weren't many jokes here and the miserable ending was so totally lacking in imagination that I was really angry at myself for having read this book. It's as if Mr. Adams was tired of the story and characters but not the revenue stream.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Well, it was mostly harmless
Review: I agree that this was the most disappointing in the Hitchhiker series. Compared to the hillarious antics in the first volumes, I barely chuckled with this one. It really seems rather pointless, and when you finally figure out where Adams was going with the story, it was all over. I'm not even sure he knew where he was going to begin with.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Always philosophical, but rarely upbeat. Beware...
Review: People seem to have mixed opinions about the character "Random", Arthur and Trillian's (biological) daughter. Her presence in the story constitutes more of a Statement than a character as such, I think. She is Douglas Adams' way of saying "hey, we all feel lost, alone, helpless, overwhelmed, uncertain where we belong, etc etc etc" Even so, she probably could have been a little more fleshed out...

The "Guide Mark 2" is really pretty creepy. It makes you think about some of the big questions, unsurprisingly, if you have read any of Douglas Adams' other stuff... Also, although the plot just goes hogwild for 95% of the book, it really does all pull together at the end. The book is relatively self-contained, compared to some of the others in the series. In general this book is less wacky, and generally a bit darker, than the other books in the "trilogy". Reading this is a little like going to "The Cable Guy", when you are expecting a usual Jim Carey movie. It does make you laugh, but also makes you think, and not always in very comforting ways.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: He writes well for a tall guy¿
Review: I thoroughly recommend "Mostly Harmless"... Douglas Adams takes great delight in driving each carefully crafted nail in to the coffin of the hitch hiker series. My only complaint was that it was too short. Enjoy Arthur one last time, as I don't think your going to get another chance.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: To all of you who can't recognize genius...
Review: I'd read this book long before any of these reviews were around, but even if I had seen such negative reviews, I have to stick to my original opinion: Douglas Adams is still as much a genius as he ever was! My only regret is that, yes, the end of it all has come...But it's the best 5-book trilogy I've ever read and this one was just as amazing as the preceding four!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: An unworthy end for a grat series.
Review: I'm bitterly disappointed.Drearily dismal,dull,depressingly despairing doomed drivel!It do deserves damnatiomemoriae!


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