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Mostly Harmless
: Mostly Harmless is not Douglas Adams' best Hitchhiker's Guide novel. Having said that, we can read the book not expecting the highest quality humor from it. It still contains Adams' comic genius, but I think that he should have included Zaphod Beeblebrox, the funniest character in the series. Arthur's new love Fenchurch is sadly killed off after an accident in space, and it seems that this was done as an afterthought by the author. We meet Arthur's daughter, who, strangely enough, is also Trillian's daughter. Sorry, but no romance there. She merely selected human sperm from an intergalactic sperm bank. The best scenes take place when Arthur crash lands on a planet and becomes "Bob's sandwich maker" to the natives. Ford is still up to his hoopy antics, towel and all. Oh, and they also finally find out where Stavromula Beta is. I don't think that he should have ended the series like this, but fans can still hope for solo Zaphod stories, right, right? It's a good read though, really
 is one of my favorite authors and he has done it again in this book. the "hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" saga is truly his epic. if you have read the books in the "trilogy" you can pick up at any point in any book. even people i know who can't re-read books, can read his books over and over. they are exceedingly funny and very easy reading. you do need to be able to laugh at british humor, though.
People who read the book "Mostly Harmless" with a focus on the events of the book will probably end up disappointed. Adams continues his shift toward writing character centered novels (as begun in "So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish", and continued in the Dirk Gently novels).
The story focuses on three characters: Arthur Dent, the perenially confused Briton; Ford Prefect, the manic Betelgeusian; and Tricia McMillan, a BBC television reporter who, had she decided not to go back to get her purse when she met "Phil" at a party, would have become Trillian.
Adams presents Dent as a wonderfully tragic picture, and mirrors the beginning of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" quite well. Dent is presented as a lost soul, desperately in search of a home and a place to belong. Of course, when he actually finds a place where he belongs and becomes comfortable, outside events tear his world apart. This is a theme that was present in three of the four previous HHGTTG books, but the presentation is probably the best in "Mostly Harmless" (and particularly intriguing is that Arthur's world is torn asunder by a person searching for the exact same thing as Arthur had: a place to belong).
The story of Tricia McMillan offers an interesting counterpoint to Arthur's troubles. Although she is a successful television personality, she is obsessed with the consequences of one of her past choices. Unlike Arthur, who is preoccupied with the process of finding a place to belong, Tricia is preoccupied with thoughts of what might have been.
Unlike his previous books, Adams allows the tragedy to come to a fitting end. The tone is certainly darker than the previous HHGTTG books, and the humor is perhaps less prevalent. Even so, it is a fitting end to a fine series.
Three words: welcome to existentialism. :-) As with the rest of the series, in fact.... A clever and surprising book, but it has more in common with Adams' "Dirk Gently" books than with the rest of the "Hitchiker's" series. Read the one with your brain on, and don't think for a second that you'll be able to guess what happens next.
The best and only way for the series to end
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