Posted on 11/19/2001 11:46:07 AM PST by JenB
THE unfinished final novel of Douglas Adams, the cult science-fiction author, has been recovered from his computer and will be published on the first anniversary of his death next May.
A Salmon of Doubt will be the sixth and final episode in the Hitch Hiker series and, though it will be edited, it will remain "unfinished".
The work was found by his widow, Jane Belson, and his personal assistant, Sophie Astin. Adams, who died suddenly of a heart attack at 49, suffered from writer's block and is believed to have been working on the book for 11 years.
Ed Victor, his agent, said: "We have pored over Douglas's hard drive. There were so many different versions of the novel. He would take it and then revise it repeatedly so there were many files.
He added: "As soon as he wrote anything he would say, 'Oh God, that's terrible'. He was a very, very self-critical author."
A Salmon of Doubt will be published in a volume of the author's final writing, much of it unseen. The compendium includes magazine and newspaper articles, lectures, writings from his website and his work with BBC Radio 4. It will also include the screenplay of The Hitch Hiker'sGuide to the Galaxy.
Mr Victor said: "We have transcripts of about five general lectures he gave. Douglas made his living as a lecturer for the past 10 years because he was so stuck on his novel. He also wrote sleeve notes for the Brandenburg Concertos. Penguin issued a series of classical CDs and Douglas was a Bach fanatic so he wrote the sleeve notes."
He added: "There is also a hilarious essay called My Nose, which he wrote for GQ magazine in 1991. There are pieces that he wrote for the website, for example one about two dogs called Maggie and Trudy who kept him company from Santa Fe into Mexico when he wrote a script for The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy film, and there is also a substantial amount of email correspondence he had with his family and friends."
His wife, a lawyer, and his daughter Polly, returned to London two weeks ago. The house where the family lived in Santa Barbara, California, has been put up for sale.
Ms Belson has been one of a number of editors working on her husband's work. The others include Peter Guzzardi, who was his American editor for many years, Mr Victor and Miss Astin.
Miss Astin said: "It is nice to be reading his work but it is tinged with great sadness. There is 20 years of work on the computer and I am pulling together all sorts of things. It will be a surprise but it will make people laugh, I hope."
Adams shot to fame after the book of his BBC radio series The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy was published in 1979. It went straight to Number One on the British bestseller's list and sold more than 14 million copies.
His subsequent novels included the best-selling titles The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), Life, The Universe and Everything (1982), So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (1984) and Mostly Harmless (1992).
Miss Astin, who worked for Adams for five years before his death, said the final book was intended to be both a recognition of his contribution to literature and a conclusion of his work. Mr Victor said: "It is a last will and testament of Adams in his writing."
But seriously folks, I found Mostly Harmless to be his weakest work as well. I think So Long, And Thanks for All the Fish ended the four-part trilogy effectively with God's Final Message to His Creation.
Not to criticize the man for his works, or to condemn a work before it's published, but sometimes a writer has to know when to let a series end.
Indeed! Oh, how I wish Herbert would have gotten that point and stopped with Dune!
The group is around a dinner table talking to the mice who want Dent's brain.
Paraphrased
"You can read my mind?"
Marvin "yes"
"AND?!?!"
Marvin "and I'm amazed you can live in anything so small"
Wait a sec...
"Sorry for all the inconvience"
:-)
Happens to many. Happened to Heinlein. Not even a series. Won't happen to Stephen King. His best writing years are still to come.
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