Hitchhiking to heaven - Douglas Adams dies unexpectedly
01/06/2001 . Source: Jessica Martin 

What a blooming sad and early age to die.

Douglas ' Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy ' Adams shuffled off this mortal coil at the rather crap age of 49. After, all things, collapsing of a heart attack at his plush Californian health gym.

Even more sad is the fact he's left behind his young wife Jane Belson, and daughter, Polly Adams, Six.

The main cultural legacy Doug leaves behind, is of course The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series of novels, which pioneered the popular acceptance of science fiction and comedy … helped mainly by his many chums in the BBC who ran the concept first as a radio series in 1978, then a TV series in the 1980s.

On the back of the wildly popular radio series, Doug got an advance of £2 million for turning the radio scripts into books - an almost unheard of sum in those gentle days of publishing.

For those new to The Hitch Hiker's Guide, they feature a moaning Brit, Arthur Dent, caught up in the destruction of first his house, then the Earth, wandering through the galaxy with a motley assortment of characters. These included two-headed chancer Zaphod Beeblebrox, and Marvin, the Paranoid Android.

The combination of a rather drab and put upon British loser meandering his way through intergalactic battles and exotic planets made for powerful comedy, and paved the way for the likes of Terry Pratchett and other genre hands in the 'heavy on the humor' arena.

Before his SF fame, Doug was a struggling writer, who financed his hobby with jobs as a hotel detective and chicken factory cleaner. He later traded up to become an equally poor and struggling script writer for the BBC - mainly comedy - although he did write quite a few episodes of Doctor Who from the Tom Baker 'Doctor' era.

Already, his chums from the TV days have spoken of their sadness about his early demise … with comedians such as his best friends Stephen Fry and Griff Rhys Jones talking of a bright talent being cut down tragically early. Doug was a Cambridge graduate, and was chums with many members of the Footlights, the university's comedy theater group which acts like an unofficial union as far as admittance to the BBC TV comedy writers and stars club goes.

As a writer, Doug was famous for being a great procrastinator. He'd often set himself a target of writing a book in a couple of years, then piss about for most of the time, bashing out the novel in the last couple of months. His output was therefore somewhat … shall we say thin on the ground. This situation was fueled by his massive wealth, with the first Hitchhiker book selling 15 million copies alone. When you're that rich, the urge to muck about and indulge your hobbies must become very strong indeed.

Apart from the Hitchhikers series, Doug also penned a current day detective series, Dirk Gently, which featured the hero of the title working for such bizarre clients as the Norse Gods … so we can comfortably slide these titles onto the fantasy shelf too.

More recently, Doug got sidetracked by the internet and computers, sinking a lot of his money into various web and CD-ROM projects, including H2G2.com, which aims to be a kind-of real life 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' … or at least the Earth. You can surf along and leave your own reports on their database. There was also the Starship Titanic game, based on his ideas.

It was all a bit sad for us fans of course … we just wanted more fiction. But it was not to come. Left in limbo are a new novel he was reported to be working on, ‘The Salmon of Doubt’, as well as a long delayed movie version of Hitchhikers - with giant Disney holding the rights, and doing much stopping and starting as far as getting that gooney bird off the ground.

Hopefully one of these two projects might now progress, if only - as so often happens in such circumstances - to cash in on the author's sad demise.

And for us? Adam's legacy of satirical SF genius will remain with us for as long as there are SF lovers left to remember it.

Rest in peace, Doug.

His Books

• Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
• The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul.
  
• Last Chance to See
  
• The Deeper Meaning of Life
  
• Mostly Harmless
  
• The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy
  
• Life, the Universe and Everything
  
• The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
  
• The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy: A trilogy in Five Parts
  
• Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic : A Novel & Game (with Terry Jones)