Mini review: Salmon of Doubt (Douglas Adams)
I just finished reading Douglas Adam's Salmon of Doubt on today's flight. Although I really enjoyed the Hitchiker's trilogy (of five) and the Dirk Gently series, this book was a piece of cr@p... Stay away unless you are a true TRUE hardcore Adams-fan - I obviously wasn't anywhere near being "fan enough" for this.
The book's first 200 pages basically consists of various clippings from interviews, speeches and articles written by Adams but never previously published in a book. Recurring themes are "I use Mac", "I am an atheist", "I like gorillas and rhinos", "My Mac's an atheist too", "I'm working on a Hitchiker's movie (for the last 20 years)" presented over and over again in various wrappings. A few tidits, but far in between.
Having finally reached the much coveted last third of the book where the final Dirk Gently novel would be, my disappointment just grew... It really is far from being finished work, with a storyline jumping around - not playfully, like in Adams' other books - but really unsystematically and in a way that clearly shows that the editor was more obsessed by selling a last book by Adams and not sparing his reputation after his unfortunate death: I used to hold him highly as an author, now I'm more reluctant to the whole thing. Sorry. Stay away...
Oh.. .btw... Not a lot of non-Irish people would catch the title's reference to the Irish folk tale "The Salmon of Knowledge"... (more from Google)
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