Reviews

Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams

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ponch22's review against another edition

2.0

Time to check off another part of my 2017 Reading for Growth Challenge: three books by the same author. You can read my [b:Life, the Universe and Everything|8694|Life, the Universe and Everything (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #3)|Douglas Adams|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1333577589s/8694.jpg|74123] review if you want to know more about why I chose these books for that checkbox... Long story short, I wanted to finish [b:The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide|16094002|The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #1-5)|Douglas Adams|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1405123103s/16094002.jpg|135328] which has been on my "Currently Reading" shelf for 4.5 years...

This book felt the least familiar of all five books of the "trilogy." I read it over a decade ago in college when I first bought the Ultimate Guide but I barely remember the introduction of Random (Arthur's biological daughter through the miracle of sperm banks), the new multidimensional Guide Ford stumbles upon, or the pair of Trillians/Tricias who appear. However, I do remember the ending—or at least I did once I read it. As I was reaching the final few pages I wondered if we were ever going to get that Stavromula Beta thing introduced back in LTUAE straightened out. Then

Spoiler

on the second-to-last page, after it was revealed

I remembered it!

So, while it was nice reading this for what felt like the first time, it was still just as disappointing as I remember [b:The Restaurant at the End of the Universe|8695|The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #2)|Douglas Adams|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1390234660s/8695.jpg|1877624] being. While this book has a few LOL lines, it seems to lack the true [a:Douglas Adams|4|Douglas Adams|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1189120061p2/4.jpg] zaniness. The chapters all felt much longer and slower—when Arthur was first introduced, I had to flip back through the first six chapters to double check that we hadn't been re-introduced to him yet in this book. It felt so strange having the "main" character pushed back to Chapter 7, but the whole book felt disjointed and difficult to read over the course of <2 weeks.

The book is probably short enough to read over a weekend, and perhaps it's best enjoyed that way. With the long chapters and four separate storylines, it was harder getting back into the story day after day. I didn't have that problem with the past two books and I don't remember having that problem with the original [b:H2G2|11|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)|Douglas Adams|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327656754s/11.jpg|3078186]. [b:Mostly Harmless|569429|Mostly Harmless (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #5)|Douglas Adams|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1397933521s/569429.jpg|2842984] almost feels like it was written by a double who had mastered some of Adams's writing style, but changed gear and wrote everything with an entirely different flow...

I rewatched the 2005 film, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy midway through reading this book—partially because I remember loving it and I wanted to bring some joy back into my reading (which was becoming less and less joyful) and partially because my wife had never seen it before. It was a bad decision—my wife thought it was "strange" & my old 4.5* rating of the film dropped to a measly 2.5*. I just didn't find very much funny about the whole thing...

Which kind of sums up my feelings about the "trilogy"—it used to be near perfect in my memory of my first reading, but now that I've finally finished a second read-thru (that took almost five years), it's really just kind of mediocre...

closteroven's review against another edition

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2.0

(3/10)- No thank you. This story was pointlessly long at the beginning, the end was rushed and horribly executed, it was overly technical in general and extremely confusing... just no. There were very few elements in this book that I liked. It didn’t deal with multiple dimensions well, and this was basically just done so that it could fulfil a single plot point from the third book. I think this series could have finished there and been done. I would have been satisfied. But it had to go on, and now I’m disappointed. Really, why. Why why why. What was the point. Go read the Dark Tower if you want dimensions instead of just space and time travel.
Also what happened to Zaphod? Do we just not get to know.