511 lines
19 KiB
Plaintext
511 lines
19 KiB
Plaintext
Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!hookup!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!wupost!waikato!comp.vuw.ac.nz!kauri.vuw.ac.nz!gnat
|
|
From: gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Nathan Torkington)
|
|
Newsgroups: alt.fan.douglas-adams,news.answers,alt.answers
|
|
Subject: alt.fan.douglas-adams FAQ
|
|
Supersedes: <douglas-adams-FAQ_766324802@kauri.vuw.ac.nz>
|
|
Followup-To: alt.fan.douglas-adams
|
|
Date: 30 Apr 1994 12:00:08 GMT
|
|
Organization: Dept. of Comp. Sci., Victoria Uni. of Wellington, New Zealand.
|
|
Lines: 493
|
|
Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
|
|
Distribution: world
|
|
Message-ID: <douglas-adams-FAQ_767707201@kauri.vuw.ac.nz>
|
|
Reply-To: douglas-adams-faq@vuw.ac.nz
|
|
NNTP-Posting-Host: kauri.vuw.ac.nz
|
|
Originator: gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz
|
|
Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu alt.fan.douglas-adams:10209 news.answers:18813 alt.answers:2634
|
|
|
|
Archive-name: douglas-adams-FAQ
|
|
Maintained-by: douglas-adams-faq@vuw.ac.nz <Nathan Torkington>
|
|
Last-Changed: 04Dec93
|
|
Changes: dont-panic
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
FOREWORD
|
|
|
|
Buy "Don't Panic" by Neil Gaiman. It is the best guide to 'The Guide'
|
|
that is around. Relevant details are :
|
|
|
|
TITLE: Don't Panic
|
|
SUBTITLE: The Official Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion
|
|
AUTHOR: Neil Gaiman
|
|
PUBLISHER: Titan Books Ltd,
|
|
58 St Giles High St
|
|
London WC2H 8LH.
|
|
PAGES: ?
|
|
ISBN: 1-85286-411-7
|
|
PRICE: UK price ?
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
This is the list of frequently asked questions (and their answers) for
|
|
the newsgroup alt.fan.douglas-adams. There is biographical
|
|
information about Douglas Adams, a list of his books and their ISBN
|
|
numbers, as well as information about his boks and other fun stuff.
|
|
|
|
Where possible, pointers to existing information (such as books,
|
|
magazine articles, and ftp sites) are included here, rather than
|
|
rehashing that information again. Information is provided without
|
|
guarantee -- if you get stung using any of the information provided
|
|
here, or send off your personal fortune and are stuck, then I accept
|
|
no blame or responsibility. It's your own damn fault.
|
|
|
|
If you haven't already done so, now is as good a time as any to read
|
|
the guide to Net etiquette which is posted to news.announce.newusers
|
|
regularly. You should be familiar with acronyms like FAQ, FTP and
|
|
IMHO, as well as know about smileys, followups and when to reply by
|
|
email to postings.
|
|
|
|
This FAQ is currently posted to news.answers and alt.fan.douglas-adams.
|
|
All posts to news.answers are archived, and it is possible to retrieve
|
|
the last posted copy via anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu as
|
|
/pub/usenet/alt.fan.douglas-adams/douglas-adams-FAQ. Those without
|
|
FTP access should send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with "send
|
|
usenet/news.answers/finding-sources" in the body to find out how to do
|
|
FTP by e-mail.
|
|
|
|
This FAQ was mostly written by Nathan Torkington, with numerous
|
|
contributions by readers of alt.fan.douglas-adams. Comments and
|
|
indications of doubt are enclosed in []s in the text. Each section
|
|
begins with forth dashes ("-") on a line of their own, then the
|
|
section number. This should make searching for a specific section
|
|
easy.
|
|
|
|
Contributions, comments and changes should be directed to
|
|
douglas-adams-faq@vuw.ac.nz
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
List of Answers
|
|
|
|
1 Biographical Information
|
|
1.1 Who the heck is Douglas Adams
|
|
1.2 What's this about the barrister?
|
|
2 Douglas Adams and Computers
|
|
2.1 Macintoshes
|
|
2.2 Computer Games
|
|
2.3 CD-ROM Edition of "Last Chance to See"
|
|
3 Merchandising
|
|
3.1 Audio Tapes
|
|
3.2 Albums
|
|
3.3 CDs
|
|
3.4 Videos
|
|
3.5 CD-ROM Edition of "Last Chance to See"
|
|
3.6 The Order of Everything
|
|
4 Explanations
|
|
4.1 The Ending to "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency"
|
|
4.2 Young Zaphod Plays It Safe
|
|
4.3 Paul Neil Milne Johnstone (aka Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings)
|
|
5 Miscellaneous
|
|
5.1 Stuff
|
|
5.2 Number Games
|
|
5.3 Other Authors
|
|
5.4 The Future
|
|
5.5 Related Electronic Information
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
1 Biographical Information
|
|
|
|
In this section you will find information on Douglas Adams. The
|
|
information isn't very detailed, because of (a) a desire to respect
|
|
his privacy, and (b) you might as well buy "Don't Panic" anyway (see
|
|
the very start of the file for information on Don't Panic).
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
1.1 Who the heck is Douglas Adams
|
|
|
|
Douglas Noel Adams (DNA) was born in 1952. [Anything else we need to
|
|
know?]
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
1.2 What's this about the barrister?
|
|
|
|
After nearly a decade of saying in his blurbs that he was nearly
|
|
married to a lady barrister, on November 25 1991 Douglas Adams and
|
|
Jane Belson tied the knot in a quiet ceremony at Finsbury town hall in
|
|
London. Bad luck, ladies. They live in Islington.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
2 Douglas Adams and Computers
|
|
|
|
DNA definitely has a close association with computers. Here you will
|
|
find about his love for Macintoshes, computer games he has (and
|
|
hasn't) written, and electronic versions of his books.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
2.1 Macintoshes
|
|
|
|
Douglas Adams likes Macintoshes, and at one stage lived with one in
|
|
Islington (see the dedication to The Complete Radio Scripts). He says
|
|
that computer have completely changed the way he writes (he has gone
|
|
from avoiding writing by finding food to eat, to avoiding writing by
|
|
reconfiguring his Macintosh's operating system).
|
|
|
|
He has even written a foreword to ``PowerBook, The Digital Nomad's
|
|
Guide'' (ISBN 0-679-74588-2), saying how he couldn't see how he ever
|
|
did without his PowerBook before.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
2.2 Computer Games
|
|
|
|
With Infocom's Steve Meretzky (who no longer works for Infocom after
|
|
their takeover by Mediagenic), he wrote "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
|
|
Galaxy" adventure game. "Bureaucracy" was credited to "Douglas Adams
|
|
and The Staff of Infocom" - there were lots of Infocom people involved
|
|
(Jeff O'Neill, Dave Lebling, Fred Morgan and others).
|
|
|
|
The end sequence to the game "Hitchhiker's Guide" mentions a second
|
|
game called "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", but this game
|
|
doesn't exist. Douglas Adams started to write it, as because
|
|
"Bureaucracy" had poor sales, Adams and Infocom dropped the project.
|
|
Infocom tried to revive the project later, but the virtual death of
|
|
Infocom in 1990 brought this idea to an end.
|
|
|
|
Douglas Adams also started work on another game, where the emphasis
|
|
was to be on creating a virtual reality in the adventure, but petered
|
|
out after his partner lost interest.
|
|
|
|
Meretzky is still writing computer adventure games for "Legend
|
|
Entertainment". Infocom only exists as a label for Activision, the
|
|
company having been closed in 1989. The games are available from
|
|
Virgin Mastertronic in "Infocom From Mastertonic" (a budget games
|
|
house in the UK). Their address is :
|
|
Customer Services
|
|
Virgin Mastertronic Ltd
|
|
16 Portland Road
|
|
London W11 2LA
|
|
Tel: 071 - 727 8070
|
|
|
|
It is also included in a package of 20 games called "The Lost
|
|
Treasures of Infocom", released by Activision. "Bureaucracy" is
|
|
available in "The Lost Treasures of Infocom II", also by Activision.
|
|
These packages should be orderable or purchasable from any decent
|
|
computer store :-)
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
2.3 CD-ROM Edition of "Last Chance to See"
|
|
|
|
See section 3.5
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
2.4 His e-mail Address(es)
|
|
|
|
Owing to his globe-trotting, and his relatively late involvement with
|
|
the Internet, DNA has several e-mail addresses. Try:
|
|
dna@dadams.demon.co.uk (while in the UK)
|
|
and
|
|
adamsd@nic.cerf.net (while in the US)
|
|
|
|
Note that DNA is out of the country until mid-to-late December, so it
|
|
probably isn't wise to send him e-mail until then.
|
|
|
|
Because of the volume of questions, one more polite method of getting
|
|
questions answered is to mail them to
|
|
ask-dna@vuw.ac.nz
|
|
where they will be batched, before being sent to him. Answers will be
|
|
included in the FAQ. The idea of this is to tie up as little of DNA's
|
|
time as possible, thus increasing the likelihood he will stay on ``the
|
|
Net''.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
3 Merchandising
|
|
|
|
There are lots of merchandised products around. Here you fill find
|
|
where to order the cassette tapes, albums, CDs and video from.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
3.1 Audio Tapes
|
|
|
|
The canonical address is:
|
|
BBC World Service Mail Order
|
|
P.O Box 76
|
|
Bush House
|
|
London WC2B 4PH
|
|
|
|
Tel: +44 71 379 4479
|
|
|
|
The price, for a box set of 6 audio tapes is #26.00 (British pounds),
|
|
but this may have changed --- ring to check. This price excludes VAT
|
|
and post and packaging.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
3.2 Albums
|
|
|
|
In the autumn of 1979, a double record album was released, which was a
|
|
slightly contracted version of the first four episodes of the radio
|
|
series. These were new recordings of essentially the same scripts.
|
|
|
|
In the autumn of 1980, a second album was made, consisting of a
|
|
rewritten and expanded version of radio episodes 5 and 6. This was
|
|
called _The Restaurant at the End of the Universe_.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
3.3 CDs
|
|
|
|
The canonical address is:
|
|
BBC World Service Mail Order
|
|
P.O Box 76
|
|
Bush House
|
|
London WC2B 4PH
|
|
|
|
Tel: +44 71 379 4479
|
|
|
|
The price, for a box set of 6 CDs is #41.00 (British pounds), but this
|
|
may have changed --- ring to check. This price excludes VAT and post
|
|
and packaging.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
3.4 Videos
|
|
|
|
In the UK, a two-cassette video was released in mid-1992, including
|
|
all 6 TV episodes. These are the full-length versions as originally
|
|
screend in the UK (for subsequent UK showings, most episodes were cut
|
|
down to fit them into neat 30-min time slots --- so, for example, the
|
|
scene in the Vogon airlock was lost.) In addition, some EXTRA pieces
|
|
are included, which were filmed, but never included in the original TV
|
|
screening. (For example, Ford and Arthur searching for
|
|
Slartibartfast's signature on a glacier.) The video cassette also
|
|
features Hi-Fi Stereo sound.
|
|
|
|
The order numbers are BBC47512 (Part 1, 96min) and BBC47522 (Part 2,
|
|
98min).
|
|
|
|
Originally scheduled to be released on 1st March 1993 is the video
|
|
``The Making of HHGG'', This has been put together by Kevin Davies,
|
|
lifelong HHGG fan, and a person who was very much involved with the TV
|
|
series (see Neil Gaimen's book). This includes outtakes from the
|
|
show, behind-the-scenes shots, clips from earlier productions which
|
|
the cast had appeared in, as well as newly-recorded interviews. The
|
|
whole thing is put together as a story of Arthur Dent going back to
|
|
his house, and finding many strange things going on ....
|
|
|
|
The order number is BBC 48952 (~60min).
|
|
|
|
In Australia, at least, the VHS videos of the TV series are
|
|
distributed by PolyGram with catalogue numbers
|
|
|
|
The canonical address is:
|
|
BBC World Service Mail Order
|
|
P.O Box 76
|
|
Bush House
|
|
London WC2B 4PH
|
|
|
|
Tel: +44 71 379 4479
|
|
|
|
The price, for one video tape is #11.00 (British pounds), but this may
|
|
have changed --- ring to check. This price excludes VAT and price and
|
|
packaging.
|
|
|
|
A videocassette of the BBC television adaptation of Hitch-Hiker's is
|
|
available in the US from Fox Video. The address on the box is:
|
|
FoxVideo Inc.
|
|
P.O. Box 900
|
|
Beverly Hills, CA 90213
|
|
and it is item number 5799.
|
|
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
3.5 CD-ROM Edition of "Last Chance to See"
|
|
|
|
Featuring Douglas Adams reading the voice, information on the animals
|
|
by Mark Carwardine, numerous photographs. Available for the Mac only
|
|
from Voyager.
|
|
|
|
Voyager Expanded Books are sold through the Voyager company:
|
|
The Voyager Company
|
|
1351 Pacific Coast Highway
|
|
Santa Monica, CA90401
|
|
301-451-1383
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
3.6 The Order of Everything
|
|
|
|
1978: Fits 1-6 of the radio series were aired.
|
|
: Fit 7 (The Christmas Episode) aired.
|
|
1979: Pan Books releases "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The
|
|
Galaxy" book in Britain (expanded Fits 1-4).
|
|
: Double album released (contracted Fits 1-4).
|
|
1980: Fits 8-12 of the radio series were aired.
|
|
: Pan Books releases "Restaurant at the End of the
|
|
Universe" in Britain (contracted Fits 7, 8, 9, 10,
|
|
11, 12, 5 and 6).
|
|
: Harmony Books releases the first book in the United
|
|
States.
|
|
: Second record album recorded (expanded Fits 5 and 6).
|
|
1981: Six television episodes aired by the BBC, based on
|
|
Fits 1-6 (used revisions made in the books).
|
|
1982: Harmony Books releases the second book in the
|
|
United States.
|
|
1982: "Life the Universe and Everything" released
|
|
simultaneously in Britain and the United States.
|
|
1984: "So Long, And Thanks for All the Fish" released
|
|
simultaneously in Britain and the United States.
|
|
|
|
1985: Harmony releases "The Original Hitchhiker's Radio Scripts'' in
|
|
the US, and Pan Books releases the same book in the UK as
|
|
"The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: The Original Radio
|
|
Scripts".
|
|
1986: "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" computer game released.
|
|
1989: "The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide" published in the US
|
|
by Wings Books in 1989.
|
|
199?: "Last Chance to See" released.
|
|
199?: "Last Chance to See" CD-ROM released.
|
|
1992: "Mostly Harmless" released.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
4 Explanations
|
|
|
|
Not all of DNA's writing is easily grasped. This section includes
|
|
explanations of some of the trickier sections.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
4.1 The Ending to "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency"
|
|
|
|
From: bhack@mundil.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Brendan Hack)
|
|
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1991 23:08:13 GMT
|
|
|
|
First of all you need to know something about Coleridge. There was
|
|
never a second part of the poem _Kubla Khan_. Yet, at the end of
|
|
Chapter 6 when The Director Of English Studies is reading _Kubla
|
|
Khan_ the book says `The voice (that of the director of english
|
|
studies) continues, reading the second, and altogether strange
|
|
part of the poem.'
|
|
|
|
In the book, _Kubla Khan_ has a second part. The book is not
|
|
actually set in our existence. It is set in an existence in which
|
|
the second part of _Kubla Khan_ exists. This second part of the
|
|
poem tells the ghost about the existence of the time machine and
|
|
how to travel back and stop the ship from exploding. As we well
|
|
know the explosion of the ship is what caused life to begin on
|
|
this miserable little planet of ours. When Dirk and Reg realised
|
|
this they simply went forward in time to when Coleridge was
|
|
writing the second part of _Kubla Khan_ and stopped him. Dirk just
|
|
interrupted him and talked so much that Coleridge forgot what the
|
|
second part was going to be about and therefore could not finish
|
|
it! This change of history sent reality back into our perspective
|
|
and the human race lived on (Yay, yippee!).
|
|
|
|
Quite simple really.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
4.2 Young Zaphod Plays It Safe
|
|
|
|
Good question. The reference to the shining city on a hill is
|
|
probably a reference to Matthew 5:14. Some people reckon they can see
|
|
Ronald Reagan in the story.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
4.3 Paul Neil Milne Johnstone (aka Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings)
|
|
|
|
Paul is a real person, who wrote some appalling poetry. DNA used his
|
|
name, but was forced to retract it for the books and later recordings
|
|
of the radio series. Hence the original programmes have Paul Neil ...
|
|
whereas the later works have Paula Nancy ....
|
|
|
|
Either way the poetry still sucks.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
5 Miscellaneous
|
|
|
|
This section has stuff that didn't really fit anywhere else.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
5.1 Stuff
|
|
|
|
The phrase "the long dark teatime of the soul" appears in Chapter 1 of
|
|
"Life, The Universe and Everything". Wowbagger the Infinitely
|
|
Prolonged is described as being eventually ground down by the Sunday
|
|
afternoons, and "as you stare at the clock the hands will move
|
|
relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark
|
|
teatime of the soul."
|
|
|
|
If you ring the Islington telephone number, you will get some people
|
|
who have nothing to do with Douglas Adams and who are very annoyed.
|
|
Don't do it.
|
|
|
|
Arthur plays Dire Straits' "Tunnel of Love" from their "Making Movies"
|
|
album to Fenchurch, in "So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish". The
|
|
Radio Scripts book has plenty of information on music used in the
|
|
show.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
5.2 Number Games
|
|
|
|
Yes, 6 times 9 equals 54. Yes, 6 times 9 equals 42 in base thirteen,
|
|
and we don't want to know about the implications for the number of
|
|
fingers on cavemen.
|
|
|
|
The bit about monkeys was a reference to someone's comment that if you
|
|
get an infinite number of monkeys at typewriters, eventually one will
|
|
bash out a script to Hamlet. If you want to discuss probability,
|
|
quantum physics or anything else that has nothing to do with Douglas
|
|
Adams, bugger off to another group.
|
|
|
|
DNA himself has said:
|
|
The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be
|
|
a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that
|
|
one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are
|
|
all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the
|
|
garden and thought `42 will do'. I typed it out. End of
|
|
story.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
5.3 Other Authors
|
|
|
|
If you like Douglas Adams' writing, you might appreciate books by:
|
|
* Neil Gaiman
|
|
* Terry Pratchett
|
|
* Tom Sharpe
|
|
* P J O'Rourke
|
|
* P G Wodehouse
|
|
* Tom Holt
|
|
* Grant Naylor
|
|
* Dave Barry
|
|
... but I offer no guarantees.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
5.4 The Future
|
|
|
|
Having just released "Mostly Harmless", Douglas Adams says he wants to
|
|
do a TV series about the Universe and the stuff in it. He estimates
|
|
this will run around 12 episodes in length.
|
|
|
|
Plans are being bandied around for a ``Last Chance To See'' type book
|
|
with the wildlife photographer Jody Boyman (married to Berke
|
|
Breathed). DNA says ``it won't be happening for a while, though.''
|
|
|
|
The movie rights have been regained, apparently, and work is
|
|
progressing towards a movie of the series being made.
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
5.5 Related Electronic Information
|
|
|
|
PGG (Project Galactic Guide for long) accepts entries on real-life
|
|
subjects, as well as unreal-life subjects. A reader for the guide is
|
|
available, as vela.acs.oakland.edu:/pub/swbaker/guide.zip Don't forget
|
|
binary mode, ftp outside of business hours and contact
|
|
swbaker@vela.acs.oakland.edu if you have any questions.
|
|
|
|
Check out the newsgroup alt.galactic-guide, where PGG is alleged
|
|
to be happening. The person to contact is the Editor-In-Chief,
|
|
Supreme-God-Over-All-Beings and Leader-of-The-Hack, Paul Clegg
|
|
(cleggp@aix.rpi.edu). After long and protracted discussions on
|
|
which format is best for this, a decision was reached and I wasn't
|
|
interested enough to record it for posterity. Contact Paul for
|
|
information.
|
|
|
|
There is also a paper-based list, maintained by David Hodges. It
|
|
is used to raise money for charity and has been approved by
|
|
Douglas Adams. You can buy copies (for charity), it is very
|
|
large, and would be tremendously illegal (and most would find it
|
|
immoral) to put on the net. Contributions to this can be sent to
|
|
alm@doc.ic.ac.uk (remember to say they're for David Hodges as this
|
|
isn't his account).
|
|
|
|
There is a bibliographic FAQ posted alt.fan.douglas-adams and
|
|
news.answers. The title of the article carrying the FAQ is
|
|
"alt.fan.douglas-adams Bibliographic FAQ". It was initially compiled
|
|
by David Polak (ak515@cleveland.freenet.edu) and is maintained by
|
|
Nathan Torkington (Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz).
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------
|