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Camaraderie, I am heartened to find out you actually consider Life, The Universe & Everything to be the best Douglas Adams, as I had taken yr previous declaration that the 4th book is the best to be referring to Mostly Harmless, which I really couldn't justify on any level.
My impression (mostly second-hand, since I've read so little of him) is that Adams wasn't really a writer, rather an inventor of whimsical notions. Alasdair Beckett-King is a current example. It must be an English thing. I don't feel strongly about any of this, just a kind of puzzled wonder at Adams's recurring appearance on these lists.
Well, I also include stuff like, say, Jackie Collins or Ian Fleming in these - Adams is a more constant presence than those two were purely because he always gets votes. While the area he influenced - comedy sci-fi- may be somewhat niche, I think his influence on it is enormous (and mostly bad, you could say); like there's a whole cottage industry of Adams rip-offs that you can purchase. Stephen King is an example of someone whose shtick is pretty easy to dismiss too and I make sure to include his stuff every year.
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 16 July 2021 09:17 (one year ago) link
So Long is the worst book is worst book of the 5-book trilogy, or at least the one that fans of the series like the least. It's mostly a romcom, with one sci-fi-y thing in the final chapter
could not give a flying stuff what fans of the series like, fans always seem to have it the wrong way round. the absence of sci-fi and replacement with subtle character and place studies and what I can only describe as a mystical yearning for meaning (which is very much at odds with his wisecracking logical friend-of-Dawkins stuff) this is all why it is a much better book than the rest of the series.
Mostly Harmless is the opposite of this, it is full of a nihilistic existential despair which blocks him from writing anything interesting
SLATFATF is a rom-com only in that it concerns a romantic relationship, and is sometimes funny. typical that a certain kind of fan would turn their noses up at that.