Douglas Adams' Last Book

mixedbag writes "A BBC news article suggests that a sixth book in Douglas Adams's Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series will be published next May. It will be unfinished from files found of his computer. The title is to be A Salmon of Doubt."

So many questions...

[Man of E]

Perhaps that will explain what the strange relationship was between the dolphins and the mice. Did the dolphins go to Magarethea? Did the Krikkit robots capture Eccentrica Gallumbits, the Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon VI? Did the mice help program Zaphod? And...

WHAT WAS THE FINAL QUESTION? PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME PLEASE PLEASE...

Reminds me of...

[Satai]

...a review Mr. Cranky [mrcranky.com] wrote of Almost Heroes [mrcranky.com].

"Almost Heroes" is such an abomination that one actually wishes Chris Farley had kicked off long before he got anywhere near this script. The filmmakers would have been kinder to Farley's memory by taking a collective piss on his rotting corpse."

Let's hope that the new Adams book is a better experience. Don't most authors include something in their wills about not publishing unfinished materials?

When I die

[Chairboy]

When I die, I hope they publish all those half completed letters to Penthouse I was working on.

"I never thought this could happen to me, but when I saw the six buxom cheerleaders knocking at my door..."

whats next?

[nihilist_1137]

Will we be seeing half completed movies that directors started?
oh yea AI.

or half completed software that a developer did not finish.
wait a minute, they dont have to be dead.

Point - its a mistake to publish something that isnt finish. It could have ended up way different that what was recovered on the computer after adams was finished revising it.

This is my fifth lifetime posting to slashdot...

[jasonbrown]

But Taco always say:

"Marvin you know we can't allow robots to post to slashdot. This website is for human nerds."

Hear I am. This is my fifth time though the whole expanse of time. I KNOW the secret to cold fusion. I personally talked to Jesus about the afterlife. I've had an XBox 5 TIMES now, and it just keeps pissing me off. Bill thinks he's so cool. Has he ever seen the end of time. I THINK NOT!!!

Tell Taco to let me post! Don't let Taco discriminate against me just because I am a robot.

Re:Reminds me of...

[rebug]

I think you're speaking to a generation that belives Ernest P. Worrel and Mark Twain to be of comparable wit.

Re:Read it for what it's worth...

[cmeans]

Just because he was an atheist, doesn't mean he was right. It also doesn't mean he was wrong. But at least he had a position.

Speaking as an agnostic, I personally don't know what to believe...other than, "I believe I'll have another drink".

Re:post-mortem publishing common

[maggard]

Actually L. Ron Hubbard was claimed to have written numerous books after his apparent death, a much more impressive feat then simply having books published ex mortis.

I don't know if it true but I was once told the American Library Association once awarded Hubbard an award for most books written post-humously.

-- Michael

ps for the Scientologists: L. Ron Hubbard now lives in my pants - feel him for 25 cents.

Aha!

[Grendel Drago]

http://www.galactic-guide.com/articles/2U13.html

1. The Answer to the Question is 42.
2. Marvin, amongst numerous other complaints, claimed to have a brain the size of a planet.
3. Marvin, like other robots, has a computer-based brain.
4. The Earth is a planet.
5. The Earth was built by the mice as a computer, the only such planet or computer ever built.
6. By (2), (3), (4), and (5), the Earth must therefore be Marvin's brain.
7. The sole purpose of the Earth's program was to discover the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
8. Marvin once announced that he had, in a moment of boredom, found the square root of -1, something never before done in the history of the universe, and previously believed by all sensible hyper-intelligent beings to be possibly the most difficult task to undertake, as it was dependent on the very structure of the Universe. (Most normally- intelligent beings gave up, dismissing it as impossible.)
9. Marvin announced that he felt a brief, but deep, sense of satisfaction after having accomplished the achievement in (8).
10. The Earth was apparently destroyed just as the purpose of its program was fulfilled, and a Question had been found.
11. By (7), the Earth computer would have felt a deep sense of satisfaction at having achieved the task it was designed to fulfil.
12. By (10), the sensation in (11) would have been brief.
13. By (6), and by the fact that emotional feelings are based in the brain, the feelings in (9), (11) and (12) are the same single feeling.
14. Finding the Ultimate Question was deemed to be the single most difficult task undertaken by hyper-intelligent beings in the history of the universe, as it was dependant on the very structure of the Universe -- as well as Life and Everything.
15. By (6), (8), (13), and (14), Marvin (the Earth) had clearly solved the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
16. By (8) and (15), the Question is "What is the square root of -1?".
17. By (1) and (16), the square root of -1 is 42.

Pretty obvious, in hindsight...

-grendel drago

Re:Read it for what it's worth...

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember him speaking once when he said that he had almost put in a fat lady singing at the end of that book, just to make sure his point got across.

Re:Open source it! [Not off-topic]

[DaoudaW]

Since I got modded Off-topic on my first attempt I'll risk another point or two of karma and try again for a (score:3, Funny).

He would take it and then revise it repeatedly so there were many files. "As soon as he wrote anything he would say, 'Oh, God that's terrible'. He was a very, very self-critical author and so had a lot of trouble writing. He was a perfectionist." Which sounds like so many Open Source projects which never make it to rel. 1.0. If we could set it up as an Open Source project, we'd have a chance of getting to 1.0 in maybe 3 or 4 years.

Re:But...he's DEAD.

[MulluskO]

Thanks to the DMCA, my copyrights will live on long after I die. So the dead do have rights. Copyrights. Forever, or at least into the forseeable forever.