Having hitched a ride away from Earth yet again, Arthur Dent is once again trying to make his way as a citizen of the universe when news reaches him of a most unexpected development: he's a father, thanks to a sperm back and an alternate-universe variant of Trillian. When his daughter, Random, joins him, he's at a loss for how to cope, much less include her in his nomadic lifestyle. Ford Prefect, in the meantime, is researching something more deadly serious than usual - a new and particularly lethal version of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy which employs multi-universe-manipulating technology to make sure that its version of events comes to pass, no matter how unlikely.

I've long had a huge chip on my shoulder about this book. When dear old Douglas Adams graced us with the fifth - and yet again final - book in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy trilogy, I was eager to see where it picked up after So Long And Thanks For All The Fish - and boy, was I disappointed. Gone was the immensely appealing character of Fenchurch, who had elbowed Trillian out of the books' "lead female" character role with much more personality and a much more direct connection to the book's main character. Gone was the interesting notion of exploring Arthur as an alien on a newly-reconstituted Earth. And gone, for the most part, was the humor.

In short, on the first reading, I hated Mostly Harmless.

However, on the occasion of reading a couple of Adams' final interviews, I was inspired to go back and give Mostly Harmless another go, ten years after being so monumentally disappointed. And while I liked it better this time, I still have some issues with this book.

Adams said later that he was trying to tackle alternate universes, multiple universes and probability a little more directly as subject matter here than he had in the past, and I can see now where he was attempting to do this. However, with all due respect to Doug, it's an author's job to make this point a little more apparent in the book itself; you can't tell a somewhat murky story and count on being able to clear things up later in post-publication (or sadly, in this case, posthumously-published) interviews.

That said, there's something universally appealing and sympathetic about the character of Random, whose mother brought her into existence but now does her damnedest to keep her as far away as possible, and whose father didn't even know she existed. Most of the existing Hitchhiker's Guide characters are shoehorned into dramatic roles here, robbing the book of much of Adams' trademark humor, but as we haven't run into Random before, she works well as a vehicle for more pathos than we're used to from Doug.

I also find it ironic that Ford Prefect, a character originally conceived as Adams' reaction against the Doctor's save-the-universe-at-every-opportunity escapades in Doctor Who, spends most of Mostly Harmless filling precisely that role. Ford tracks down the new model of the Guide, whose new specs are a wee bit dangerous in a slightly universe-destroying kind of way, in a very Doctor Who-ish manner. Still, I can buy Ford doing this for some strange reason. Arthur Dent's lethargy for much of the book is harder to sympathize with, though he becomes a much more active player in the second half of the story (thank goodness).

There are moments of genuine genius here. The Perfectly Normal Beasts, the breaking of Arthur's watch, his destiny as a sandwich-maker, and the alternate universe version of Trillian - vastly more interesting than her original incarnation, incidentally - are fascinating concepts, and so too is a new adverb Adams creates when he has Arthur describe something as "badger-sputumly insignificant." If that doesn't say it all, nothing does. Might go nice on my own headstone one of these days, in fact.

But for every one of those moments of conceptual brilliance, there's a magnificent misstep. The way in which Fenchurch is disposed of so Adams can move on with this new story incensed many a reader who grew attached to that character in So Long And Thanks For All The Fish, especially when her exit involves a horrible fate and is relayed in a casually dismissive manner. And then there's the climax.

The ending - in which, as is generally well known by now (the book is ten years old, y'know), Adams kills off virtually all of his characters - is a bit baffling, and hinges upon a cheaply coincidental play on words hearkening back to a minor plot point from Life, The Universe And Everything (which, up until this book, had my vote as the least enjoyable Hitchhiker's Guide novel). Adams glibly says, in these later interviews, that he was a bit stunned by the fans' reaction, and that you can do anything you want in science fiction to bring a character back to life.

That may be the case, but even in a universe as zany as Douglas Adams', it doesn't necessarily mean the reader will buy into it.

In the end, Mostly Harmless is interesting conceptually, but stone cold emotionally. It wasn't so much the conclusion of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series as it was Douglas Adams' attempt to rid himself of the persistent demands of fans (and, in all likelihood, publishers) to add to that series. In 1992, I took that downbeat ending as the author's way of slapping his readers in the face. While I don't feel as strongly about that in 2002, I still feel it was an error in storytelling judgement - and it diminishes what little enthusiasm I might have otherwise had for the posthumously-compiled Salmon Of Doubt.

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com webmaster

• Year: 1992
• Author: Douglas Adams
• Genre: science fiction

• Length: 218 pages
• Publisher: Harmony Books