# Books: When good series go bad

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-when-good-series-go-bad/187043>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [July 8, 2003, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-when-good-series-go-bad/187043 "2003-07-08T17:30:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-when-good-series-go-bad/187043/41 "2003-07-10T14:23:31Z")

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_M_A_S_H\* by Richard Hooker was very good. In an unusual case of the transfer of a book to a movie Altman used it virtually as his script. _M_A_S_H Goes To Maine,\* as a continuation that cashed in on the success of the movie, wasn’t all that bad. The subsequent books (they were legion) all sucked really, really bad. I have no idea why I read at least five of them.

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**Author:** ![Avalonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@Avalonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avalonian)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-when-good-series-go-bad/187043/42 "2003-07-10T14:40:05Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Tanaqui \*  
> \*\*I do think Mostly Harmless was Mostly Suck, though. \*\*

So did Douglas Adams. Somewhere in _The Salmon of Doubt_, he talks about _Mostly Harmless_ in an interview, and he says that he wrote it at a terrible time in his life and felt that as a result it came across as very dark and bitter rather than funny. He even says that he felt he owed his fans a sixth Hitchhiker’s book, to finish the series better.

Unfortunately, he died before he could do it.

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