Review - Mostly Harmless

About the book

Mostly Harmless is the fifth book in Douglas Adams' "trilogy." It follows the same main characters as before, only in ways we've never envisioned. Much of the first few chapters is spent by the reader trying to figure out exactly what's happening. When a story begins with a space ship that has literally lost its mind, and the main characters aren't where they're supposed to be, it leaves much to the reader to try figure it out. The answer is given in the form of the third axis in the continum of the universe. The first two are "space" and "time" while the third, and possibly most important depending on how you look at things, is "probability." For this reason, we find the Guide has changed, Arthur is lost in an infinite number of Earths that aren't Earth, Ford is super annoyed and Tricia is a reporter in two different places - one on Earth, the other travelling through space and time to deal with stories that may never happen.

Verdict

Overall, a hilarious and enjoyable read. Once I got over the initial problem of not quite knowing where anyone was, the book joined its predassessors as a great Sci-Fi Comedy. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a good laugh, although it's probably better to start with The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It's much less confusing, equally as funny, and once you've read the book, you can watch the movie.

Did Mostly Harmless meet up to the standards of the other book in the series?

When it comes to plot, it just about pulled itself together. It almost didn't make it there, but I decided when everything finally made sense that the plot worked. But it was a lot harder to follow.

It was as funny, if not funnier than, the other four books. We return to Arthur Dent being completely uselss at anything space related, and he's still rather confused by just about everything Ford Prefect can throw at him.

Most like?

The other four books, of course.