BLESSING BY REVEREND ANTONY HURST
Organ Music by J. S. Bach:
Fantasia in G
Prelude and Fugue in C
Italian Concerto
Editor’s Acknowledgments
To Douglas, without whom all of us would not be sharing the bounteous pleasures of these pages; I miss you;
To Jane Belson, Douglas’s beloved wife; her belief in and support for this book provide the foundation on which it rests;
To Ed Victor, Douglas’s long-time agent and trusted friend, whose commitment to this undertaking cleared away every obstacle;
To Sophie Astin, Douglas’s invaluable assistant, whose intelligence, devotion, and first-hand contribution to these pages proved essential;
To Chris Ogle, Douglas’s close friend, whose computer skills and knowledge of Douglas’s thought processes, passwords, and what could very kindly be called Douglas’s filing system, enabled Chris to assemble a master disk of all Douglas’s work, without which this book would not exist;
To Robbie Stamp, Douglas’s good friend and business colleague, who reminded me that Douglas had already created the structure for this book;
To Shaye Areheart and Linda Loewenthal of Harmony Books, who first brought me into this project, and to Bruce Harris, Chip Gibson, Andrew Martin, Hilary Bass, and Tina Constable, who published and loved Douglas; to Peter Strauss and Nicky Hursell in the UK, for their valuable editorial suggestions;
To Mike J. Simpson, former president of ZZ9, Douglas Adams’s official fan club, whose generosity and encyclopedic knowledge of Douglas’s life and work was an invaluable resource;
To Patrick Hunnicutt, who assisted my efforts in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and to Lizzy Kremer, Maggie Philips, and Linda Van in Ed Victor’s office;
To the various publications, writers, and friends of Douglas who so generously gave access and permission to use their work as it related to his;
To Isabel, my partner in life;
To my sons, Sam and William, who, as new generations tend to do, devoured Douglas’s books;
To all of Douglas’s readers: as you know, the love went (and still goes) both ways.
For more information on Douglas Adams and his creations, please visit www.douglasadams.com, the official website.
You may wish to join ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, the official Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Appreciation Society, founded in 1980. For details of this fan-run club, visit www.zz9.org.
Douglas Adams was a patron of the following two charities: Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund (www.gorillas.org), and Save the Rhino International (www.savetherhino.org).
Praise for
THE SALMON OF DOUBT
“Fortunately . . . we get one last look at Adams’s wonderfully mad universe.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“A bittersweet reminder of what the master could have contributed if only the ride had lasted a few light years longer.”
—Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
“For devoted fans, this is more than a taste of lost pleasures: it’s a rich, diverse feast, albeit a sadly final one.”
—Scifi.com
“You are on the verge of entering the wise, provoking, benevolent, hilarious, and addictive world of Douglas Adams. Don’t bolt it all whole—as with Douglas’s beloved Japanese food, what seems light and easy to assimilate is subtler and more nutritious by far than it might at first appear.”
—STEPHEN FRY, author of The Liar and Making History: A Novel
“The pieces here bounce with charm. . . . Fans will dig the paranormal but incomplete The Salmon of Doubt itself. . . . A beautiful sendoff, Douglas, wherever you are.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Contains items of rare originality . . . At times, reading Douglas Adams is like watching Isaac Asimov meet P. G. Wodehouse, a twentieth-century humorist Adams venerated. For me, his essay on ‘Sunset at Blandings’ is one of the special pleasures of this volume.”
—London Observer
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*1 The Meaning of Liff and its successor, The Deeper Meaning of Liff, are books coauthored by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd.
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*2 This is socially incorrect. The socially correct way of pouring tea is to put the milk in after the tea. Social correctness has traditionally had nothing whatever to do with reason, logic, or physics. In fact, in England it is generally considered socially incorrect to know stuff or think about things. It’s worth bearing this in mind when visiting.
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BOOKS BY DOUGLAS ADAMS
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Life, the Universe and Everything
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Mostly Harmless
The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts
The Meaning of Liff (with John Lloyd)
Last Chance to See
(with Mark Carwardine)
The Deeper Meaning of Liff
(with John Lloyd)
The Salmon of Doubt
The Salmon of Doubt is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2002 by Completely Unexpected Productions, Ltd.
Introduction © 2003 by Terry Jones
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
This edition published by arrangement with Harmony Books, a member of The Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material: American Atheist Press: “Interview with Douglas Adams” American Atheist, vol. 40, no. 1(Winter 2001-2002). Reprinted by permission of the American Atheist Press. Byron Press Visual Publications: “Introduction” from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Collected Edition) DC Comics, volume 1 (May 1997). Reprinted by permission of Byron Press Visual Publications. Daily Nexus: “Interview with Daily Nexus” by Brendan Buhler, of the University of California Santa Barbara Daily Nexus, Artsweek, (April 5, 2001). Reprinted by permission of Daily Nexus. Richard Dawkins: “A Lament for Douglas Adams” by Richard Dawkins, The Guardian (May 14, 2001). Reprinted by permission of the author. The Graham Chapman Estate: “The Private Life of Genghis Khan” Based in part on an original sketch by Graham Chapman and written by Graham Chapman and Douglas Adams for the Graham Chapman Television Show, “Out of the Trees,” 1975. Reprinted by permission of the Graham Chapman Estate. Matt Newsome: “Douglas Adams Interview” by Matt Newsome. Copyright © 1998, 2002 by Matt Newsome. Reprinted by permission of the author. The Onion A.V. Club: “Douglas Adams Interview” by Keith Phipps, from The Onion A.V. Club (January 1998). Reprinted by permission of The Onion A.V. Club. Random House, Inc.: Excerpts from the Original Hitchiker Radio Scripts by Douglas Adams. Copyright © 1995 by Serious Productions Ltd. Reprinted by permission of Harmony Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Robson Books: “Maggie and Trudie” from Animal Passions edited by Alan Coven. Reprinted by permission of Robson Books. Virgin Net Limited: “Interview with Virgin.net, Ltd.” conducted by Claire Smith (September 22, 1999). Reprinted by permission of Virgin Net Limited. Nicholas Wroe: “The Biography of Douglas Adams” by Nicholas Wroe, The Guardian (June 3, 2000). Reprinted by permission of the author.
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