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Don't Panic! - The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion
Coming from a somewhat unexpected source, this book can't seem to decide if
it's a biography of Douglas Adams, or the definitive history of The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy story as told in multitudes of media. But in any case, it
would be virtually impossible to write the former without at least temporarily
lapsing into the latter, so it's okay. Neil's just zis guy, ya know?
Though there are wonderfully large amounts of previously unknown information
about the behind-the-scenes machinations of Hitchhiker's Guide on TV, on
radio, in print, and - gasp! - on stage, I really have to single out the section
on Adams' fan mail as the most hilarious portion of the book. The fan mail
itself isn't that funny; in fact, some of it comes across as positively
disturbing. But Adams' answers never fail to give me a good belly laugh -
especially at the thought that the original letter writers probably turned
around and tried to read something into them!
There are also sections dealing with Adams' involvement with Doctor Who, and
a Doctor Who script outline which the show's producer passed up as being "too
silly," later revived at the basic plot of Life, The Universe and Everything.
Dirk Gently and Adams' fascination with computer games are also covered, as well
as a chapter or two answering the question "What happened to the Hitchhiker's
Guide movie, anyway?" Numerous bits of the books, radio and TV scripts which
never made it to the printer or the studio make this a necessity for any
die-hard Adams followers, along with Adams' steadfast denials - keep in mind,
this was long before Terry Jones wrote the novel version of Starship Titanic -
that he was involved in Monty Python's Flying Circus.
If there's any one thing I find even slightly off-putting about Don't Panic,
it's Gaiman's tendency to try to ape Adams' own style of writing. It's not
entirely necessary, and is a bit distracting in some places. Other than that,
it's a hoopy addition to the library.
Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com webmaster
- Year: 1988
- Author: Neil Gaiman
- Genre: Non-fiction / biography
- Length: 182 pages
- Publisher: Pocket Books
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