Mostly Harmless

Rating:
Summary: Not much of a conclusion...
Review: I loved the Hitchhiker's Guide--great combination of irreverent sci-fi humor and Monty-Python-esque quirkiness. I found myself laughing aloud as I read. Restaurant was similarly rollicking humor. But as the series progressed (and the books got thinner page-wise), it feels like Mr. Adams ran out of material or energy. "Mostly Harmless" is amusing at times, and there are flashes of the previous humor, where seeming tangential or trivial events are woven together with great imagination. But overall, this piece is disjointed and meandering. Those "laugh out loud" moments came less and less often. Even the villains are neither menacing nor silly, and the conclusion is totally unsatisfying. Unless you're someone who has a compelling need need to finish a literary series (see Frank Herbert's Dune series), I would recommend sticking with the first few books. You'll be left with better memories of Mr. Adams's wit and perspicacity.

Rating:
Summary: Mostly Harmless is great
Review: THis book is great. It deals wiht the theory of the multi-dimensional universe and time-space distortion in the most comical way possible. Douglas Adams himself has no degrees in science, yet uses it in his writings surprisingly well. All your favorite characters from the other four books in the trilogy are in this one, but in an entirly different dimentional universe. And of cource, the characters from one universe meet the ones from the other and........ well, just read the book, k?

Rating:
Summary: acceptable ending...
Review: I agree, tone and ending of this book are a little dark, but so what? I like my comedy and humor a little black anyway.

This book is still funny despite being somewhat morose and depressing...it is a fine Coda to the series, no matter what other reviewers here have said.

I bought this book while vacationing in the UK, it went on sale in Great Britain before the release of the American edition (of course), so I was quite lucky to get it ahead of everyone back home in the USA.

Besides, though this is probably the final book of this series, there's always the "Dirk Gently" series to turn to, which has its own rewards.

Despite the finality apparent in this book, never say never when it comes to Douglas Adams...there are plenty of ways he could still "deus ex machina" the series anew...if he wanted to. I'm sure he doesn't, but you never know. The workings of the infinite improbability drive should well have taught us that!

Speaking of, looking back, so much of Adams's work, including this novel, seems to have later inspired so much of the British series "Red Dwarf". Maybe there actually is a more concrete connection that I don't know about, since I'm not a UK citizen...but anyway...I wonder if Adams ever did any writing or consulting for "Red Dwarf"? If not, he should have...does anyone know what Adams is up to these days at the Dawn of the 21st Century?

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully warped mind
Review: This book had me laughing out loud in several chapters. The way the characters matured from the earlier books makes you believe they really exist. The ending was a bit depressing but so is life. On a whole it was a wonderful adventure. Doug Adams mind is truly strange.

Rating:
Summary: It's the end... but the moment has been prepared for
Review: This book is unquestionably the definitive END of the Hitchhikers series. And because the end is so sudden, it's bound to upset many long-time Hitchhiker fans. The best part about this book is that even though it has such a down ending, it doesn't lack the humor or sardonic tone of the previous books. In fact, if anything else, it increases the sense of irony of its predescessors by driving home the underlying message of the previous books with its finality. If anything, it's too short, and the plot threads that were introduced could have been better developed, but given the ending, it's not surprising that they're not.

In many ways, Adams's writing skills have matured over the past 4 volumes of the series. In this book, we see very little of the minor flaws of the early installments, such as pointless dialogue and digressions. His characterization is better here, and the plot elements are interwoven more intricately. Throughout the book, several seemingly unrelated storylines wind along to converge at the end where Adams can put a big CLOSED stamp on the whole story. I thought there were quite a number of laugh-out-loud funny parts to it.

One of the best parts of this story is the sudden and pointless ending. Throughout the whole series, there has been the quest to discover the meaning of a meaningless universe. Each time the characters find a lead to the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything, it turns out to be a disappointment. So what better ending for a series about the fruitless search for meaning than the one Adams gave to this book?

If no one else did, at least Ford Prefect saw the humor of it.

Rating:
Summary: i love humor ,,,,,adams you complete me
Review: this book had me laughing all the way through, being 16 humor is good for the soul you know.

for some reason i read htis book before any other of the 5 in the hitchhikers series, but i still understood most of it....and it was funny. the best parts in this book include descriptions of ford perfects adventures to the hitchhiker's guide publishing building, and the introduction of random to her father....trust me when you read it you will understand....so douglas adams i salute you with the greatest respect...because your far better than this one author named joshua harris that writes books about being gay

Rating:
Summary: "Hitchhiker" fans can't afford to read this book
Review: If you're a fan of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series, this is a book you can't afford to read. It will ruin what would otherwise be fond memories of a wonderful series.

"Hitchhiker" is one of the most tightly-woven stories ever written. Sometimes you'll only get a joke when you read the next book. The thought and love Douglas Adams put into the series are quite evident.

With this travesty, however, one gets the feeling that his heart just wasn't in it. Like someone else said, you can almost hear him saying, "there, here's your damn book, now leave me alone".

The whole tone of the series, of British melancholy humour, is simply absent. It's just depressing.

Rating:
Summary: Mostly Disappointing
Review: The fifth book in the Hitchhiker's Trilogy was definitely not living up to the standards of the first three (or four). That is not to say that it wasn't funny. I don't know that I've read an Adams book that wasn't funny. Nor is it to say that Adams isn't a wonderful, brilliant writer. But I do think that well enough should have been let alone. Arthur has been looking for Earth or a reasonable facsimile, but no matter where he looks it goes from bad to worse, the "worse" being NowWhat, where the only indigenous species on the planet is a boghog that communicates by biting... hard. Arthur eventually finds himself on an out of the way planet that he landed on when his spacecraft wrecks on it. There he becomes the SandwichMaker sent to the people by Bob. Later, Trillian finds Arthur to leave something with him. Or someone. Random, their daughter. Which, needless to say, is quite a surprise to Arthur since he didn't know he had a daughter, nor had any opportunity to create one. Well, eventually all hell breaks loose and it goes downhill from there. Fenchurch just vanished without a trace and Zaphod... well, who knows what happened to Zaphod. Like I said, this wasn't a horrible book, but you may just want to leave it alone. If you liked the ending in So Long then skip Mostly Harmless.

Rating:
Summary: There are only four books in the Hitchiker saga.
Review: Reality, friends, is what you and I make of it. So I'm going to make a solemn declaration: This book does not exist. The Hitchiker series ended with "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish," a bright, funny, well-written book.

It did not end with "Mostly Harmless," which is the literary equivalent of an old man shouting "Here! Here's your darn book! Now leave me alone!" Adams is obviously tired of the series, and this book amounts to a middle finger to fans who begged for more. It's not funny, it's not smart, it's not that much fun to read. It doesn't take the series in any new directions; it exists only to finally shut up people who want another chapter in a finished series.

It's not, all in all, a horrible book, just a monstrously disappointing one. Believe it with me, and we can make it so: SLATFATF was the last. There are only four. There are only four.

Rating:
Summary: The Thrill is Gone
Review: Poor Arthur Dent, all he wanted was a seat upgrade and to find a world where people look something like him (what he really wanted was to go back to his home planet that had been destroyed to create a hyperspace highway and live out his life with the woman he loved who had disappeared in a space-time anomaly). Instead he discovers he has a teenage daughter that he had no prior knowledge of and receives an ominous package from Ford Prefect, so he has to leave his new-found home where his sandwich making skills are greatly appreciated. This is as close to a plot that one can get in Mostly Harmless, the 5th book in the Hitchikers Triology. (If you have trouble with that concept, then this book is definitely not for you!)

This book is rather slow in getting started, and some of the early chapters of the book are almost tedious. I don't know whether I've just gotten so used to Douglas Adams' tangential storytelling, that it just doesn't seem as fresh anymore, or whether they really are ho-hum. I miss the constant snippets from the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, that were liberally sprinkled throughout the previous 4 books of the trilogy. However since there seems to be a problem with the guide and it seems to have been taken over by some nasty characters, I suppose that could explain why there aren't excerpts throughout this book.

However, once Ford Prefect starts to figure out that something is going on with the guide, or perhaps once Douglas Adams figured out what to do with the story, things really perk up. The last 1/3 of the book is what actually allowed me to give the book as high a rating as I did. If I had rated it on the first 2/3, it would have received a 2 or 3. As it is, the book really deserves a 3.5 rating.

I actually bought this book in hard-back when it originally was released in 1992, but have only gotten around to reading it now. (The reason being is that I read Mr. Adams works infinitely faster than he can write them, so I try to wait so that I'll have more than one of his books to read.) I even went to a book-signing/reading by Douglas Adams at Cal State Long Beach Fall 1992. I believe that he read an excerpt from Mostly Harmless, one of the very amusing bits with Ford Prefect I believe. However, I do recall that he seemed to spend much more time reading from Last Chance to See, and this was supposed to be a book tour event for Mostly Harmless. I guess I should have figured out that even the author wasn't that happy about the book, at the time I just figured that he was taking the opportunity to drum up some business for an excellent but over-looked book.

Anyway, to sum up the book was good, but definitely not up to the other four books of the trilogy. If you can muddle your way through the first 2/3 of the book, you're home free. If you haven't read the other Hitchiker books, stay away from this one, it's not the place to start.

Finally, Mr. Adams I enjoy your work even if I do take awhile to getting around to reading them (see previous comment). I have to admit that while I thoroughly enjoy the Hitchiker books, I would love for you to write another Dirk Gently book. Having said that, I just want you to write books that you are proud to have written. Thanks