Douglas Adams’ Mostly Harmless

May 9, 1994 @ 12:00 pm

This book review was originally published in The Baltimore Evening Sun on May 9, 1994.

Douglas Adams’ fifteen minutes of fame as the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series came to a close years ago. Why, then, should he suddenly add another installment to the humor/sci-fi story when he’s moved on to more ambitious projects?

After reading Mostly Harmless, the series’ fifth book, it seems plausible that Adams simply needs the money. Although the book definitely has its moments, Adams has apparently grown bored and cynical about the entire concept. The result is a moderately funny but extremely unnecessary book with Elvis jokes you can see coming four gazillion light-years away.

For those not familiar with the Hitchhiker series, the premise is this: an extremely dry Englishman named Arthur Dent escapes from the Earth seconds before it is blown up to make way for a new Intergalactic Hyperspace Bypass. He ends up cavorting through time and space with a group of droll aliens, having adventures that brazenly defy any logical connection. The first three Hitchhiker books gathered a large cult following through their intense mockery of science fiction, philosophy, and British snobbery.

Mostly Harmless picks up the story from several different angles. Dent and his Hitchhiker pals Ford Prefect and Trillian have somehow found themselves in different parallel universes. In addition to this, they find that the ground rules of their lives have radically changed. Dent returns to Earth to find it inhabited by distinctly unhuman creatures who communicate by biting each other on the thigh. Prefect discovers that his employers are concocting a plot to sell their pan-galactic traveler’s handbook to everyone in several dimensions at once. And there are two Trillians wandering around, one of whom has had a daughter with Arthur Dent — without his knowledge, of course.

Adams works best when he tries to lightly poke holes in the concept of rationality. (The author did, after all, once work with the comedy troupe Monty Python.) One of the book’s cleverest bits comes in its opening scene, when a spaceship computer frantically tries to recall its mission after a passing meteor blows out its stored memories. The ship’s crew, without any recollection of what it was supposed to do, ends up latching on to the first passing mission it can find — astrology — and sticking to it with the utmost tenacity.

If this all seems very confusing, it must have been doubly so to the author. Adams’ response to the jumble he has created is the most curious of all. He wraps up all of the book’s sub-plots in one final scene that sourly places the Hitchhiker series into what seems to be a permanent retirement. It’s an unexpected shift of gears from Adams’ normal light comedy into utter misanthropy. Nothing seems to have come of all the chaos, and the impression the reader gets is that the puppetmaster has tossed his puppets out the window in annoyance.

Somewhere buried in the mess is a moral about learning how to feel at home in a chaotic universe. Unfortunately, Adams’ skills at conveying serious messages are nowhere near on a level with his skill at conjuring up non sequiturs, and the idea gets buried.

When an author is cynical about his own work, that should be a clear enough signal. Fans of the Hitchhiker’s series may still find things to chuckle at in Mostly Harmless, but few would want to invest in more than the paperback version. Others who are curious would be better suited borrowing the book from a friend.