Now that I know it’s one of your favorites I’ll pass it to the top of my readings c:
(submitted by: @Anonymous)
I hope the books hold up for you. I worry that Adams’ work was so influential that it’s gonna be a little like watching Animal House after you’ve been raised on a diet of Porky’s, Revenge of the Nerds, and Fraternity Vacation… you can see that the original is objectively of higher quality, but all the delight has been drained from it by its derivatives.
It doesn’t help that Douglas’ best writing was in the Dirk Gently books —for title alone, it’s hard to beat The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul— but none of it was particularly funny.
And in the case of Adams, it’s even more complicated, because some of the stuff that followed him —Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman— was actually better, so it’s like going from Ridley Scott’s Alien to Jim Cameron’s Aliens… the source material is still good, but has been completely overshadowed by later accomplishments.