Mostly Harmless

The fifth and last Hitchhiker novel Adams wrote, and by a wide margin the bleakest. Arthur becomes a professional sandwich-maker on a backwater planet, Ford breaks into a Guide publisher that has quietly been taken over, and a second edition of the Guide turns out to be less a book than a device with intentions of its own. The comedy is still there and the ending is genuinely grim; Adams said afterwards that he had written it in a bad year and wanted to give the series a happier close.

Context: The last title in the a16z list’s Hitchhiker entry. An infrastructure reader will notice that the plot’s engine is a product rewrite — the Guide Mark II — that optimises for its owner rather than its users.

Connections

• a16z Infra Reading List — where this is listed, in the top tier.
• Douglas Adams — the author.
• Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — volume one, already read.
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish — volume four.
• Science Fiction — the genre.