So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
by Douglas Adams
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Book Summary Information
Author: Douglas AdamsEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1999-03-29
ISBN: 0345391837
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Del Rey
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780345391834
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Book Review: Thank God this Wasn't the Final Entry
Summary: 3 Stars
I lavished praise on the first two hitchhiker's book to an almost shameless degree and gave a big thumbs up to the third book. Unfortunately, this is where the series took a huge unwelcomed swerve. When it gets right down to it Arthur is probably the least interesting character in the series and Earth is the dullest location. `So Long and Thanks For All the Fish' is all about Arthur and all but a brief segment takes place on Earth. Yes, the Earth that was supposedly destroyed by the Vogan's at the beginning of the first book and no this is not a prequel. Ford Prefect is also meandering around but his presence is pretty inconsequential. So Arthur is back on the Earth seven years after the big explosion and everything is back to normal except everyone on Earth believes they suffered from a mass delusion about the Earth blowing up. Oh, and all the dolphins disappeared.
Despite being an official entry into the five part trilogy this is a completely differ animal from the first three books. The story centers around the relationship between Arthur and his love interest, a woman named Fenchurch. She is the lady from the first book who suddenly figured out how to make all mankind happy right before the Earth blew up (or apparently didn't). Unfortunately the not-explosion of the Earth knocked the cosmic epiphany, the secret of worldwide happiness right out of her head and so she and Arthur go on a quest to figure out what happened and where all the dolphins went.
It's not so much that SLaTFAtF features almost no space travel or time travel or robots or Beeblebrox. It just felt like I was reading the work of an entirely different writer, and not a better one. Douglas Adams is famous for his incredible wit and perfect comedic timing but in this book many of the jokes just fell flat. In the first two books the jokes ranged from hilarious to `oh my God I just pee'd in my pants' funny. This book gets more smiles than laughs. The killer for me was that fact that none of the major plot threads were even resolved by the end of the book. It was as if Douglas Adams couldn't figure out what to do so he just ended the book. In fact the last chapter has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the book and whatever joke Adams was trying to set up flew right over my head. I don't think it's a matter of me not getting Douglas Adams wonderful humor because I recognize him as one of the funniest writers ever when he's on his game. It's just that he is most definitely not on his game in this book. It was nice to revisit the universe of the Hitchhikers Guide and most of the problems might stem from the fact that Douglas Adams set the bar so high in the first three books but this one definitely failed for me. Even Douglas Adams wasn't pleased with the results but it's far from a total disaster. For me it's like a weak entry in the James Bond series of movies. They definitely range in quality but they're all watchable. Some are just more watchable than others.
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