Title: Mostly Harmless
Author: Douglas Adams
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 259
Rating: 4/5
This book is billed as the fifth and final book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy “trilogy”, although I’m not sure how much I can say about that because I don’t really know the circumstances in which it came about.
I also saw that it has pretty bad reviews on Goodreads, but I didn’t bother to read them to find out why. Personally, I found it to be highly readable and a cracking and much-needed reminder for me of how brilliant Douglas Adams was.
One of the fun things about this one is that it covers some ideas around parallel universes and the butterfly effect, with the new edition of the Hitchhiker’s Guide able to manipulate the universe around it to its owner’s benefit. For example, when Ford Prefect jumps out of a window, it manipulates things so that a passing motorist accidentally hits the ejector seat button and Ford can take his place.
There’s a lot of cool stuff like that going on, as well as some awesome new characters including one who’s Arthur Dent’s daughter. And she has a fairly predictable mother, although the way that she was born in the first place is quite clever. It’s foreshadowed, but in a way that isn’t obvious.
All in all, it was a pretty good end to a cracking series, although it was also a shame for it to finish. I have the same feelings about the Discworld.