Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryLime
I loved the TV Series even more than I like the Radio Series and loved the books. All part of my early years. Then I moved to London to work in a tech company in Islington and was surprised to see signs for the local estate agents ("realtors"? in the US)...
http://www.hotblackdesiato.co.uk/ "Hotblack Desiato".
If you haven't read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe that may not mean much but if you have he plays in Disaster Area.
Douglas lived in Islington. Strangely I now live near Liff (see The Meaning of Liff) |
There are a few comments in this post that refer to specific sections of the book(s), I don't believe they are spoilers, but am not really sure (anyway, you have been warned
)
This is one of my favourite things about the whole series. The whole "apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate" quote applies almost as much to the book as it does to "The Book" (or Wikipedia for that matter). In the introduction to a hardback compilation of the first four books (which I have sadly now lost), Douglas Adams addressed some of the issues over which version was correct (TV, radio or book) - I think he essentially said they were all correct
He also mentioned a couple of little things he included in the book. He asked Hotblack Desiato if he could use their name as he liked it so much, then after the book was published, fans complained to the estate agent that they had stolen the name from the book, and wouldn't believe it was the other way round. The other little bit, I believe is that the number he gave for Trillian's flat (and the probability of being rescued after being pushed out of an airlock) was actually the phone number of a flat he lived in in London.
I think there were a few more bits and pieces, but they are the ones that really stick out in my mind. I love the books, have probably read them all three or four times, and I think my favourite character is Marvin. Fits in perfectly with the BBC Radio 4 sense of humour (and the British one for that matter). My favourite aspect of the book is probably the random, one-off moments (that sometimes receive a reprise later on - stand-up comedian style) that will usually progress the story a little, but not always (for example the fjords, the girl in the cafe who I wish had remained a one-off, being dead for a year for tax purposes, and of course, the terrible pain in all the diodes down my left-hand side).
All in all, the combination of humour and a silly, and sometimes little adhered to, plot make the first book in the series (and indeed the whole series) one of my favourite ever, and one that I periodically re-read and pick up something new. I would recommend it to anyone.