“I find that if I follow someone that looks like they know where they’re going, I don’t always end up where I wanted to go, but I do end up where I needed to be.”
I voted for the Hitchhiker series, it was a tough call, but if they hadn’t worked so well, we’d probably never have gotten the Dirk Gently novels. They are also more laugh out loud funny, while DG is more cerebral. I often wonder how much Long Dark Teatime …. influenced Neal Gaiman in both the Sandman and American Gods storylines.
I’ve re-read most of the HitchHikers books a couple of times. I’ve not re-read any of the Dirk Gently books. I probably should, though, I may appreciate them better now I’m old and grizzled.
Having said that, when I read the short Salmon of Doubt piece that was released (apparently the entirety written before he died) I found it compelling and I am disappointed it wasn’t completed.
The first Dirk Gently book is a mash-up of two Dr Who scripts he’d done, which gets reeeeeeeeally obvious as soon as you know what you’re looking for. (Still a terrific story, of course; it’s just a little jarring, in retrospect.)
I love Dirk Gently, but HHGTTG has more staying power for me. Perhaps if Douglas Adams had had an opportunity to write a third Dirk Gently book things would be different.
When the BBC finally released Shada (the untransmitted story) on video, I surprised my wife by quoting large sections of the upcoming dialogue, by virtue of having read Dirk Gently some time earlier.
What’s the second script that he pulled from? I think I’ve seen just about every Doctor Who episode available, but I’m not putting 2 and 2 together…
City of Death.
I voted for HItchhikers. I tired reading Long Dark Teatime but gave up for some reason.
There was one part, however, that I found brilliant. There was a paragraph describing a bride-to-be and how she spent her whole day at work writing her name out different ways. She would do first name and new last name, two last names hyphenated, and a whole bunch of other ways.
I’ve read them all. I voted for HHG because I can’t remember anything about the Dirk Gently books which must mean they weren’t as good.
A very tough choice for me. I flipped a mental coin and went with HHGTTG because they were how I discovered Douglas Adams. In particular the first three are still genius but I do think the Gently books are superior as novels. Honestly I’m just still angry Mr. Adams left so early. 
Well, some of us maintain the romatic notion that he’s just popped out for an early sandwich and will return to put in a solid afternoons work.
I voted HHG, but I mean specifically the original radio series. I have the lot on tape, know every line and it still makes me laugh. Anyone who has only read the books is missing a lot, for one, Peter Jones as The Book*. Also other stuff like the out-of-tune robots singing the Sirius Cybernetics Corp anthem or the Heart of Gold doors…
Bzzzz… Glad to be of service!
And Marvin’s tone of voice. “I’m a personality prototype. You can tell, can’t you”.
Coin toss for me. I got into HHG early in my high school career and it bent my mind in ways I didn’t know it could (and in ways I didn’t know I liked). But the Dirk Gently novels do have a little more depth to them and there were themes I liked in both novels.
Finally, why no love for The Meaning of Liff?
Agreed. DGHDA is Adams’s best-plotted book. But the majority of Douglas Adams fans are so because of HHGTTG, and Dirk Gently doesn’t have nearly as much of what draws people to Adams in Hitchhikers’.
I voted for Hitchhiker’s, because I read them first–but reading this thread brought back so many lovely memories of the Dirk Gently books…must reread…
I had to go with HHGTTG.
If for no other reason than it’s helped me realize my “Corporate Vice President’s Theory”
Everyone has worked for at leas one guy (Corporate Vice President) who gives nearly impossible assignments and then claims they are simple through insane logic.
True example happened to me when my predicted price was off by 15%: You should have been able to predict the price of natural gas in February of 2004. You had all of the previous years’ data up to October of 2002 and a computer.
From this comes "Corporate Vice President’s Theory which states: “You should be able to fly. You just throw yourself at the ground and miss”
I almost forgot: DGHDA is one of two books that has gotten me close to women a great deal more beautiful than a fellow of my limited appeal should be able to manage. Yet another reason why I went against the grain above.
Then again, the woman in question was herself a HHGTTG fan, so I guess it’s a wash.
I could never get into DG, tried a couple of times but always gave up.
HH however, truly excellent.(Though not so much the fourth one of the trilogy.)
Gaiman wrote an extremely amusing book about H2G2 (‘Don’t Panic’) so I’d say it’s safe to assume Douglas Adams was a huge influence on him in general.
A couple of years ago we filmed a music video at a place where the sofa had been donated by Douglas Adams. I’d like to think it was the sofa mentioned in HDA, but it wasn’t sawn to bits, so probably not.
Am I the only one who weeps that he never lived to finish ‘The Salmon of Doubt’?
Dirk Gently, but only by a thin margin. I loved the original radio series of ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide’, thoroughly enjoyed the 5 books of the trilogy, but for sub-plots like the friend of Dirk’s who writes the horoscope columns specifically to annoy him, and no one at the paper can figure out why circulation has dropped by a twelfth, among many, many others, I love Dirk Gently even more.
I may be in a minority here, but the only one of the novels I find myself going back too again and again is So Long… I find it humane and a bit more deep and subtle than the earlier novels. Arthur and Fenchurch were much better-realized and complex characters. And his description of the fishbowls, and of Dire Straits, is some of his most evocative and haunting writing. So Long… is the only one of the series that I found beautiful. It is a very sad book, though.
Long Dark Teatime was very good, but I think that Gaiman took Adams’ ideas and improved them - American Gods was a much more satisfying exploration of the irrelevance of the gods than was Long Dark Teatime.
YMMV, of course.