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From: rl@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Robert Langridge%CGL)
Newsgroups: net.books,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Douglas Adams, A new book?
Message-ID: <414@ucsfcgl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Dec-84 13:13:29 EST
Article-I.D.: ucsfcgl.414
Posted: Fri Dec 28 13:13:29 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Dec-84 23:02:55 EST
References: <2084@uw-june>
Reply-To: rl@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Bob Langridge)
Organization: UCSF Computer Graphics Lab
Lines: 31
Summary: 

<---
There is indeed a new Douglas Adams book, the "*Fourth* Book in the 
Hitchhikers Trilogy", entitled "So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish". 
(Harmony Books, a division of Crown Publishers, NY, 1985.  Price?  
I don't know, mine was a present and the price was deleted).  

In summary, I was disappointed.  Perhaps it is difficult to keep up 
the frenetic zaniness of the earlier books, and although I
would never accuse Adams of writing clear and unambiguous
prose, this volume is particularly unfocussed.  Even the celebrated
non sequitors and incongruities are in short supply.  

Ford Prefect is present (though in a diminished role), and there is a 
major new character, an attractive lady named Fenchurch, and a major 
new minor character, Wonko the Sane, who lives in a house whose roof

	"...folded back on itself like something that M.C.Escher, had
	he been given to hard nights on the town, which it is no part
	of this narrative's purpose to suggest was the case, though it
	is sometimes hard, looking at his pictures, particularly the
	one with all the awkward steps, not to wonder, might have
	dreamed up after having been on one,..."

Advice?  Wait for the paperback, then buy it to occupy a short plane trip.

Bob Langridge				(UUCP: [...]!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!rl)
Computer Graphics Laboratory		(ARPA: rl@ucbvax  
926 Medical Sciences			          or
University of California		       langridge@sumex-aim)
San Francisco
CA  94143