Dirk Gently: Not A Review of The Hitchhikers Guide

Sometimes it's more obvious than others, but I love "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy."

As evidenced by the fact that I own this t-shirt.

I've read each volume twice, except the new one, but that's only because it very recently even became available. I have yet to watch the television show, but it's in my Netflix queue. And even though it was a flop, I loved the recent movie. I mean, how could you not? There was space travel, old school puppet creatures used to depict alien races, and a wonderfully droll robot, not to mention the casting choices! Martin Freeman, Zoe Deschanel, Mos Def, Sam Rockwell, Bill Nighy, Alan Rickman, Helen Mirren, Stephen Fry...that's just an all-star cast right there. Watch this clip and try to tell me it's not some of the best film you've ever seen. See? You can't do it.

But I digress since this, as I mentioned, is not a review of The Hitchhikers Guide. But now it makes my recent foray into other Douglas Adams related matters make sense. I had heard wonderful things about his other books, and when I picked up the first in the Dirk Gently series at the library, well, lets just say it was love at first read.

::Swoon::

This book was much more Dickensian than any of the Hitchhikers volumes, and it took awhile for the book to really hit its stride in terms of me feeling like I knew what was going on. But I'm a Dickens fan, which means I always stick with a book. This has both worked to my advantage and been to my detriment (I'm looking at you, "War of the Worlds"). In this case, it was my love of Dickens and Douglas, and the skill of character development, slow as it may have been, that kept me pressing forward. It was worth it.

It was delightful, snarky, Britishly witty, and people, it involves time travel. You cannot go wrong here.

Now excuse my while I go listen to some "Journey of the Sorcerer" by The Eagles. I had forgotten how good the Hitchhiker's soundtrack really is...