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So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish
Arthur Dent's travels have taken him to many a
distant world, but none have surprised him as much as his
latest port of call - a blue planet with an industrialized
society, a global communications network, and plenty of
tea. In the midst of it all, he meets a woman named
Fenchurch, the only person he's ever met who not only
believes but understands his tales of what happened to him
- and what happened to the Earth...despite the fact that
she, and now Arthur, are once again living on a planet
which was destroyed many years ago.
Douglas Adams was paid a huge advance for
the "fourth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy,"
and then proceeded to miss damn near every deadline he
possibly could for the project.
But for the first time since the first book in the
series, he made it worth it.
So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish jars with
the remainder of the series by dispensing abruptly with
the bizarre multitude of alien worlds depicted in the first
three books, and focusing our attention on a world which,
by all appearances, must be Earth in the mid-1980s. And
it's a clever ploy - we've gotten so used to Adams' wild
flights of fancy that the more subtle setting and much
more subtle humor of So Long is a bit jarring. But
it was never more welcome, because it delivers a very
human love story, one which would've been underserved by
a more distractingly futuristic setting.
This is the one Hitchhiker's Guide novel I'd really
like to see committed to film.
Adams is, however, mindful of the obligations of penning
another book in that series and - quite reluctantly - adds
Hitchhiker stalwarts Ford Prefect and Marvin to the
mix, with token mentions of Trillian and Zaphod. Adams'
reluctance to even so much as mention these other characters
is made clear in one rather brief, introspective chapter in
which he berates any readers who might be missing more
typically Hitchhiker-ish fare, and promises that
some of their favorite characters will be appearing later
in the book.
Truth be told, only Ford's presence was really necessary,
though the climax of the book could just as easily have
taken a more earthbound turn. I didn't miss those other
characters at all - especially not after the mess that was
Life, The Universe, And Everything - which was, after
all, a book retrofitted from a rejected storyline Adams
created during his tenure as story editor of Doctor Who.
It's hard to write about this book now without slamming
Adams for besmirching this fine and more-than-adequate
conclusion to the Hitchhiker saga with a fifth
book, Mostly Harmless, which turned out to be an
egregiosly disappointing waste of paper. Everything that
So Long got right, Mostly Harmless got wrong
- and visibly slapped its readers (and Adams' fans) in the
face along the way. He should have let it be with this
fourth book - and many a fan has taken a revisionist view
with that in mind, ignoring Mostly Harmless entirely.
Fenchurch would've made a fine addition to the Hitchhiker
pantheon of characters, and I'm sure Adams would've kept
food on the table even in the absence of a fifth book.
But enough about the fifth book. I'm here today to
give the fourth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide
To The Galaxy cycle my heartiest recommendations.
Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com webmaster/editor-in-chief
Paperback
- Year: 1984
- Author: Douglas Adams
- Genre: Science fiction
- Length: 204 pages
- Publisher: Harmony
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