Douglas Adams' Mostly Harmless (Book Review)
Depression, it’s been claimed, sometimes triggers spurts of creativity, particularly in writers and musical artists. Either that or it inspires creative people later on to give the world memorable songs or poems – such as Jerome Kerns’ “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” or Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “In Memoriam.” Unfortunately for fans of the late Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy five-volume “trilogy,” the author’s bout with the blues didn’t help much in the writing of Mostly Harmless, the bleak, somewhat underwhelming final book in the series. As in the previous four novels, Adams pokes fun at various science fiction themes, mainly the concept of parallel universes and the notion that aliens have been monitoring the Earth’s various television and radio broadcasts since the mid-20th Century. And of course, as in the other volumes, Adams also makes various brilliantly funny observations about life in the Universe…or in New York City: On...