Knight-Ridder’s People in the News story reports that Adams agent said that the last “Hitchhiker’s” book will be published next year on the anniversay of Adams’ death.
It will be called "A Salmon of a Doubt,” and was edited from files found on Adams’ computer after he died unexpectedly in May at age 49.
hmmmmm…
I’ve always been concerned when authors died and left behind parts of books. Who completes them? How do you know that’s what the author wanted as a final draft even if the story seems to be finished? Who says he wanted it published at all?
I guess I’ll read it. But I don’t know if I fully want to consider it DA’s book when what ultimately gets published might make him start spinning in his grave.
From what I read on BBC there were several different versions on his computer. And the book itself is not finished and will be published unfinished. Which kinda sucked, but then so did leaving the Earth being demolished. Too bad he didn’t will the story to a certain author he trusted to finish it. I think what they said they would do was to publish a compendium of his unpublished works, one of them being what will become the final tale in the Hitchhiker trilogy.
Here’s the nwes story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/arts/newsid_1663000/1663306.stm
I’ll read it, even if just to see what he got stuck on for the last ten years.
RIP Douglas…
Who expects to die at 49? Dare say he never considered the possibility that he wouldn’t live to finish it.
Sure, you have a will “just in case”, detailing who you want as guardian for your kids and how your stuff is to be divided up, but you don’t really think about willing your unfinished book to someone else.
If, as the BBC article says, this compendium includes the screenplay to the movie… does that mean the movie will now never be made? Not that it was ever anything close to a certainty to begin with… 
This was over in the closed thread so I’ll reply here
Somewhat better, yes. Here’s my logic. Obviously, Adams didn’t consider what he had written to be “publishable” since he hadn’t sent it to his editor. By implication, he wasn’t happy with it. Now, it’s going to be published with his name on it. It just seems to me that this is the idea of someone who is just trying to make a few more bucks off of his name. There are enough Adams fans out there who will buy anything new with his name on it that they will probably succeed too.
I got the impression it was more of a collection of notes more than anything else, similar to Tolkien’s Lost Tales. As long as they make it clear that’s what it is, instead of trying to pass it off as a real novel, I have no problem.
I’m sure I saw on a talk show once…or maybe someone that had seen it told me about it…or something…that at the end of the last HGTTG book, Douglas Adams had said he wanted to have an, um, amply proportioned woman…singing.
I’d like to read it just to see if he got this gag in.
Oooohhh…Drool, gurgle, thptptptpt!
The Salmon of Doubt was supposed to have come out a few years ago, and never did, due to DNA not being happy about it. I’ll buy it for sure. I also hope the movie -does- come out.
Who knows? It could be to novels what Kubla Khan is to poems, a monumental, but unfinished, work of literature.