Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams Search Amazon for other books by or about Douglas Adams. Rating: Reviewed by: Henri Hein

Despite the fact that I didn't laugh as much reading Mostly Harmless as I did reading the first book, I almost liked the former the best. It just seems a bit more developed, as if more thought had gone into the plot. If nothing else, the ending gives the story a much more serious flair than the previous books. In fact, I don't think I have ever experienced an ending more final than the one in Mostly Harmless.

Series Comments
This series is probably the most humorous Science Fiction tale in existence. During a math class I attended in college, we were learning about the definition of the natural numbers. The teacher said, "What is 3? What is a chair?" and held up his chair. Someone in the audience said aloud "The answer is 42!" Half the class laughed, the other half didn't, including the math teacher. The half that laughed were the people that had read TheHitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series. This anecdote suggests that The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series has a certain cult status. It also suggests that it is fairly popular. I think that both are well deserved.

It is hard to describe the crazy humor that Douglas Adams is capable of. The series is about a handful of people going through one weird episode to the next, most of which are totally hilarious. At first, it is so crazy that it seems messy; that there is no overall plot. As each book finishes up, though, loose ends are tied up. The extent to which some incidents refer back to earlier accounts in the book or the series was impressive to me. The grand plot and subplots intermingle nicely, leading to a continuous sequence of bizarre events and encounters. The books are first and foremost funny science fiction, and as such, should not be taken too seriously. Personally, I enjoyed the conceptual questions raised a few times, such as: Does it make sense at all to try to find an answer to Life, the Universe and Everything? If a leader of the entire universe existed, what would he be like? Is man really more intelligent than dolphins? Other concepts are used for kicks, such as the paradoxes of time travel, or the emergence of the "infinite improbability drive" through creative use of the "finite improbability drive". Or, what happens if you give a guy an overdose of a powerful truth serum drug, and then ask him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Thinking about these things is definitely not a prerequisite to enjoying the books. I highly recommend reading at least the first book. If you like it, you'll want to read the rest, although the level of the intense humor drops a bit in the later books. Each of the books is a quick read, and if you have any sense of humor at all, you will laugh at least a couple of times. Even if you are a math teacher.