Rating: 
Summary: Better than Hitchhiker's
Review: Douglas Adams is, of course, widely known for the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series, which is a wonderful pan-galactic romp. For my money, the Dirk Gently books (this volume and "The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul") surpass "Hitchhiker", which is no small feat.
Adams fans will recognize his unique style. No one is as smartly silly as he is. No one.
Dirk Gently, the slacker-slash-detective with the Zen-like attitude and unflappable nature, finds himself in the middle of a battle of gods...what else? From the campus of a prestigious university to the chambers of Valhalla, Dirk's cavalier attitude guarantees the reader a barrel of laughs from start to finish.
Get both volumes at once. Like all of Adam's work, the read is quick and easy, and you won't want to stop once you've finished the first book.
Rating:
Summary: P.G. Wodehouse meets Dr. Who: a complete pleasure
Review: If you got P.G. Wodehouse to write a Dr. Who script you might come up with something like this. Why not? Apparently as well as script editing for series 17 (featuring, for example, 'City of Death' where John Cleese is an art dealer), Adams wrote a couple of episodes ('The Pirate Planet', and the unfinished 'Shada' which featured none other than Prof. 'Reg' Chronitis and his TARDIS style study). Sorry, enough trainspotting (thanks G & J). The Dr. Who thing only hit me late in the book, but that's partly because 'Dirk Gently' only pops up about half way through, and he's most enjoyably reminiscent of Tom Baker in his distracted purposefulness. I suppose there's something of Ford Prefect there too, and other elements of Hitch Hikers - yet another confused alien species looking to earth as an Eden and changing the deep past and whole evolution of humanity. And I suppose Richard could be played by whoever was DentArthurDent in the TV show. But, hey, this isn't having a go at the book, which is sheer pleasure to read. It's not at all a cheap carbon of earlier Adams, there's just some lovely echoes. The guy just writes so wonderfully - like Wodehouse - and the dialogue is full of good (frightfully British) humour and character. Moreover the comic observations on the everyday are clever and flawlessly executed. The setting is surprisingly coherent when you get down to it (I *love* the way he casually resolves the sofa paradox that's been running through the whole book) - there's really nothing I can think of to complain about with it. I'm used to books lifting me up and then disappointing, but this manages to ebulliently float you along from start to finish. I'm so glad I decided to start rereading books. It must be over a decade since I'd read this and I only had the vaguest recollection of some of the key images. But the chief pleasure of Adams can't be reduced to, say, the plot line, which, while fine, is in one way incidental (i.e. the characters and dialogue are good enough to stand alone). I get the impression he was in a fairly positive state of mind when he wrote this (as opposed to Mostly Harmless), and in excellent form, so these character's are simply pleasant to be with - as well as being hilarious and - as with those of Pratchett on a good day - charming.
Rating: 
Summary: Gets points for trying to be different, but is average
Review: "Dirk Gently's Holistic Dectective Agency" is an OK book. It is a different kind of mystery, as Douglas Adams intended. However, I found this book quite inferior to the "Hitchhiker" series, as it did not have that same pizzaz. Basically, there has been a murder, and some try to solve it. Dirk, the detective in the title who doens't appear until about 1/2 way through, is not interested in solving the murder, no, he wants to know why Richard McDuff, an employee of the victim, climbed into his girlfriend's flat. That McDuff's girlfriend is the victim's sister is beside the point. Dirk feels that all things are interconnected, and also wants to figure out how an old professor managed to do an impossible trick. Soon, we discover, the prof has a time machine, and there is a ghost who wants to reverse a billion year old error, which would mean the end of all life. A few chuckles, but mostly headscratching.
Rating: 
Summary: Beep Bop Boop
Review: Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Douglas Adam's writing, is that there will not be any more. This book offers solace to those seeking Adam's wit beyond the hitch hiker series.
While the general plot is at times annoyingly insane, the character development is priceless.
A must read for any classic Adams fan, if only for just the revealing look into the digital world of the 1980s.
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