Don't Panic by Neil Gaiman

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a special book. It’s also a special radio series, a special TV series and a movie with a great opening song and some fun acting. Don’t Panic by Neil Gaiman tells the stories of the story so to speak going through the process, problems and many missed deadlines of each. As a writer, I am interested in the process of other writers but assume that others are going to find it sad since it mostly involves sitting around and typing. Douglas avoided that primarily by his brilliant ability to avoid writing.

If you’re a fan of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in any of its many incarnations and haven’t heard the many stories about Douglas and the herculean efforts, he went to avoid writing then this book covers most of the stories missing only a few of the most recent. It covers his time with Monty Python, which isn’t as impressive as you might think, his time working on Dr. Who which is more substantial and how the idea for the guide came about. If you already know all of this, then consider whether you have experienced the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in enough different ways and perhaps grab the comic book or the illustrated Guide instead of this.

Neil Gaiman is as always a brilliant writer of both fiction and non-fiction. He also knew Douglas and so can speak about him more personally. Beyond that, he understands the tone that people expect in this book. It isn’t trying to be funny most of the time, but it understands when it should be. He also fits in several short writing clips that were cut from other things and while none of them are earth, shattering they are fun.

As for negatives, there are two. The first is that I knew many of the stories in this book. I knew just how much Douglas liked to avoid writing and the efforts it took for people to sit down and write a book, and some of his personal tragedies that led to a darker tone in several books. That wouldn’t be a problem for anyone who hadn’t read books similar to this in the past. The bigger problem is that this wasn’t written by Douglas Adams and isn’t Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That may seem unfair and it is, but as Neil Gaiman himself points out in this book, reading a book written about the hitchhiker’s guide is like trying to cook beans after going to a meal cooked by a five star chef. It hardly matters how good your beans are, you’re going to lose the comparison.

I love the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and all the other books in the series. Douglas Adams has made me laugh while reading more than any other author including those who have written far more books and while this isn’t what I want, which is one more book written by Douglas Adams it’s still great for anyone who isn’t ready to give up on the series but has already experienced everything else there is.

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Don't Panic by Neil Gaiman
Don't Panic by Neil Gaiman
Three great science fiction stories with religious themes
Examining the top 5 science fiction books
Some time ago I found I found a sight called Sci-fi Lists which has the top 100 science fiction books of all time. I decided to attempt to read everything on that list. I'm still working on it but the first 5 were easy as two of my favorite books were in that number. What strikes me the most about the list is the variety of books. I suspect that in most genres if you gave a list of the top 100 you would find authors on the list more and being becoming similar. For today I thought i would share the first five of these books and my opinions on them. 1. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card This book is sometimes by favorite and sometimes second favorite book but I'm still surprised that it is number 1. This is a book about a young boy being trained to be a general in a war against an alien race. There has been some controversy surrounding this book. The Essay Ender and Hitler and the essay "Creating the Innocent Killer" both try to explain this. I suspect most of this simply exists because of the popularity of the book. Don't let either of these scare you away from this book. It is a great deal of fun and one of the best science fiction books available. 2. Dune by Frank Herbert What is there to say about Dune. I have read dune twice, the second time to confirm what I found the first time. I don't like Frank Herbert's writing style. He creates a deeply detailed world and interesting story and I recommend this book to anyone who likes stories with a lot of detail. Dune is the story of Paul Atreides, a son of a noble forced to move to the planet Dune which is inhospitable but the only place to get spice. The name Dune is approprate because the story really is about this one world. 3. Foundation by Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov is science fiction master and this is considered his best work. In this book Asimov discusses the technology of psycho-history. The ability to predict the way events with large groups will turn out.  The creator of this science discovered the empire was going to collapse and so created two foundations that would shorten that collapse from 30,000 years to a thousand. Fantastic book, Asimov eventually tried to connect this with his robot series. I never really liked that idea all that much but it does not harm the book any. In addition some of the books after the original trilogy are not as good, but reading this is well worth your time. 4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams Typically I am not enamored with science fiction humor. I'm not sure why, but Hitchhiker's guide is the exception to that. Along with Ender's game this vies for my favorite book. What is odd is that the two couldn't be less alike, and neither could the authors. Beginning with the destruction of earth to make way for a bypass this is a satire about Arthur Dent who is the last human saved off earth, which is a computer designed to discover the ultimate question of life the universe and everything. (the answer has already been discovered and is 42). Because the earth was so close to discovering it, it is suspected he may know the question. As a radio play, a TV series, a movie and a book this is always fun and always a bit different from previous incantations but any of them are worth seeing. Just don't judge the others by any version. 5. 1984 by George Orwell It is fitting that a political work should appear in the top 5 of science fiction books as it is one of the things that science fiction does well is illuminate things that we are often too close to see. I read this in high school. My teacher had a list of genres and you had to read at least one book from each. I managed to fit science fiction and fantasy stories into 4 of the 5 categories. This was my classic and it is. This book is often used as a metaphor, most commonly used as big brother, but what strikes me is how similar spam is to the books in this book which were created by computers. In many ways these books couldn't be less like each other, and neither could the authors. From Mormons to athiests and trageties to comedies the science fiction genre is not one that lacks in tradition or personality. i would recommend any of these books to anyone whethere they think they like science ficiton or not.
Nonfiction ReviewsElton Gahrneil gaiman, Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the GalaxyComment