Review: Orphan and the Five Beasts #1

 

In Orphan and the Five Beasts #1, Renaissance man James Stokoe introduces us to Mo. She spends her days training, and caring for her aging guardian. She strives to learn all the teachings of her adoptive house, and master its precepts.

One day, the apprentice finds a dying man branded with a strange symbol.

That evening, her master relates the sad history of their house, and how it has affected their land.

He tells her of a cruel aggressor who once terrorized their land. He also mentions the five men who asked him to give them the knowledge of his house, so they could defend their homes and villages.

Despite the way the invader devastated their land, the master refused their request. Unlike Mo, these villagers had not studied to learn such powerful knowledge. Nor had they trained to master the abilities they sought.  

 

Still, the men refused to leave him, and the people suffered. Reluctantly, the master bestowed one aspect of his house upon each man. Each promised that after using his newfound power to turn back the invader, he would return to the master, and devote himself to his teachings. 

Sadly, after safeguarding their homes, none of the five men returned. Over time, the power so easily gained unbalanced and corrupted them. In seeking to defend against a raging monster, they become monsters themselves.

 

 

So Mo is forced to leave her home, redeem her master's failure, and save her land from the depredation caused by the beasts these one-time saviors have become.

In Orphan and the Five Beasts #1, James Stokoe blends intricate artwork with a timeless story. Each panel is filled with expressive and detailed linework. His coloring, at once realistic and psychedelic, is reminiscent of the old days of four-color comics, but with today's graduated tones and shadings. His narrative boxes relate the history of their land, while his dialogue balloons reveal the strength and balance of his characters.

 

James Stokoe makes me yearn to know more of this earlier phase of this land's history. I wonder if Mo's parents were simple peasants who died amid the fighting. Or might she not really be an orphan, and her father one of the land's five would-be saviors?

If James Stokoe doesn't cover Mo's origins in this four-issue series, perhaps he will do so a prequel series someday.

In the remaining issue, I look forward to seeing how Mo erases her master's shame while safeguarding her homeland. I expect lots of martial arts action, along with Stokoe's unique over-the-top humor that makes this serious story more interesting.

With Orphan and the Five Beasts #2 coming out this week, check out this miniseries if you have not already done so. I don't know how Orphan Mo can possibly tackle all five of these superhuman beasts in the three remaining issues, but I look forward to finding out.

Orphan and the Five Beasts #1 is $3.99, and available from Dark Horse Comics.

Dragon Dave

Review: The Bequest #1

 

 

The Bequest #1, by Bloodshot writer Tim Seeley, caught my eye in the comic shop. After flipping through the issue, and seeing the artwork by Freddie E. Williams II, I knew I had to buy it. I'm glad to say that when I got it home, the comic didn't disappoint me.

 

The story introduces us to a band of adventurers in the realm of Tangea. They may be antiheroes, but you can sense the streak of good in them. Although they come from mixed ethnic and racial communities, they might not be welcomed with open arms by any of them. 

 

The backgrounds and characters look real and three-dimensional. Occasionally, the way artist Freddy E. Williams II plays with perspective threw me. But overall, his art really appeals. Rest assured, all the adventurers in The Bequest are (relatively) the same size, and worth getting to know.

 

In addition to our fantasy heroes (or antiheroes), this issue features two dragons. One is shown on the cover, and promises to play a prominent role as the series continues. This less colorful guy, an Elder Serpent, is named Veristine Kole. The way letterer Marshall Dillon colors the Elder Serpent's words red in a black dialogue balloon suggests that the dragon may not be wholly good, let alone overjoyed by his visitors' arrival.  

When Veristine Kole attacks them, the adventurers receive aid from an unexpected source.

 

In addition to soldiers from another realm, you may also notice two characters inked in silhouette. It is they who summoned the soldiers here. As the story unfolds, you will learn that the summoners pose a danger not just to our characters and their realm of Tangea, but to our realm as well.

 

Much to the displeasure of our antiheroes' leader, Warlock Garthodd, one of their party panics. Before the real world soldiers can save them from the dragon, Jerril Fain, a half-elf, summons the aid of the Chamber. This group of godlike beings, colored so beautifully by Jeremy Colwell, rescue them from immediate peril.

Standing in judgment over them, the members of the Chamber decide to conscript them into service. 

 

 

Thus our antiheroes, including sultry night elf Creedux, and a wood sprite named Billi, are transported to the realm called Earth. There, in the city of Chicago, they must pay penance for their crimes in their own world by policing the portals between our world and theirs.

Sound easy? There's one catch: the longer they stay in our realm, the more the magical powers they command will slip away.

At $4.99, The Bequest #1 runs a little more than your standard comic. But it contains twenty-four pages of story on hard, glossy cardstock. For you fantasy gamers out there, Tim Seeley has thoughtfully included five Character Sheets on our new friends. So while you read the series, you can also factor his heroes into your games.

 

I don't know much about publisher Aftershock, but I enjoyed The Bequest #1. With issue #2 coming out today, this would be a good time to check out the series, and decide if you'd like to get onboard. Personally, I'm very intrigued by this fantasy adventure. 

The Bequest reminds me of my own Dungeons & Dragons days, as well as the way author Brian Daley juxtaposed real-life soldiers into a fantasy world in his early novels The Doomfarers of Coramonde and The Starfollowers of Coramonde. It also reminds me a little of Roger Zelazny's Amber novels, and how the late science fiction author also enjoyed role-playing games. 

Well done, Tim Seeley, Freddie E. Williams II, Jeremy Colwell, and Marshall Dillion. You've crafted a very strong debut!

Dragon Dave

Recovered Photos

 

While going through my computer's photo library, I discovered four photos in a Recovered Photos file. They struck me as significant, so I thought I would share them with you.

I drew this first one on a trip to Florida. I had recently attended my first comics convention, and was looking to fill in some holes in my long-neglected collection. While taking time out for must-see attractions, such as Disneyworld and Gatorland, my wife and I also stopped by several comics stores. After this trip, I would reconnect with my friend Justin Ponsor. Through our dialogue, he gave me a greater appreciation for comics.

Sadly, Justin is no longer with us, coloring the comics we love. But at least he shared his love for them with me before he left. I no longer neglect my comics, and my collection is ever-growing. 

This second photo is of two ponies in a road in Dartmoor National Park. I took this during our trip to England in 2015. I did a good number of sketches that trip, including the view of Haytor from the room in our Bed & Breakfast. 

The hill, with its distinctive tor, was only a short walk away from the Moorland Hotel, where Agatha Christie stayed while writing her first published novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. As I sketched, I imagined her hiking up that scenic hill while pondering the scenes she would write the following day.

After checking out of our B&B, we took the short drive to Haytor, and watched all the tourists hiking up that hill. Oh, and taking photos of the ponies. There were oh so many ponies that day at Haytor, far more than the two along the road in this photo.

 

This drawing helped relieve a burden I carried. It helped me fix in my mind, for all time, a place that was hugely special to me. Even if it no longer existed for me (or at least, never could), only after I drew it, could the healing begin.

 

This was a church convention, from the denomination of my youth. I only attended the event because some people asked me to accompany them. The event reminded me why I left that denomination, and why I rarely attend church anymore. 

For whatever reason, my photo library decided to save these four. Together, they encapsulate the past I've left behind, and what I carry into the future. 

Perhaps I'll leave them on my computer awhile longer.

Dragon Dave

Douglas Adams: Mostly British

The wild beasts of Grantchester Common, England

 

In Douglas Adams' novel Mostly Harmless, his last novel in the Hitchhiker's Guide series, seasonal migrations takes place near the village where Arthur lives. Great beasts sweep majestically across the vast plains on their way somewhere else. When Ford Prefect arrives, he is struck by these herds of wild beasts that annually appear, and the local villager hunt to fill their storerooms with meat. This aspect of the story, along with a meeting late in the novel with a certain iconic rock musician, gives this British novel a decidedly American vibe. 

Seven years after he published Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adams emigrated to the United States, and lived there for the rest of his life. Or perhaps, as an American author, I should say that he lived here.

The way Douglas Adams ended his novel, as well as the entire Hitchhiker's Guide series, left me more than a little sad. Still, I'm glad I reread this classic series. It was one I fell in love with in my teens. After decades of loving the stories Adams wrote for Doctor Who, as well as those he oversaw and shaped in his role as the TV series' Script Editor, I can appreciate his Hitchhiker's Guide novels more. The way his characters navigate the complex possibilities of space and time travel still evokes a sense of awe, which is the signature of great Science Fiction.

Trinity College, Cambridge, England

When I visited Cambridge three years ago, I could see the town that E. F. Benson had described so lovingly in his novels Limitations and The Babe, B.A. I sensed a little of the university life that Adams' Doctor Who story "Shada" alluded to. Although I did not get to meet many students, the few I met showed an interest and respect for science. This helps me appreciate the fertile ground in which Adams' ideas were germinated. 

And yet, somewhere in Cambridge, peopled by today's aspiring comedians and dramatists, is the Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club. Perhaps, if I ever return to the university town, I can catch a performance of the storied group known as the Footlights. It'd be interesting to see what this troupe of performers, whose membership once included members of Monty Python and Douglas Adams, is currently doing. 

 

St John, Douglas Adams' college, Cambridge, England

The fact that Douglas Adams gave his final Hitchhiker's Guide novel Mostly Harmless an  American flavor, and eventually emigrated to the United States, reminds me of how much I have enjoyed traveling to England, and even considered living there. It makes me wonder if, through writing the series about exploring the universe, Douglas Adams discovered his own love of travel, and this caused him to consider living elsewhere. It makes me feel a little closer to the author I never really knew, apart from the stories he created. 

So long Douglas, and thanks for all the stories.

Dragon Dave

 

Douglas Adams: Mostly About Family

Grantchester, a village outside Cambridge, England

In Douglas Adams' novel Mostly Harmless, the fifth installment in his Hitchhiker's Guide series, the spaceship Arthur Dent is traveling aboard crash-lands on an alien world. Inhabitants of a nearby village accept Arthur, and he discovers that they've never heard of sandwiches. So Arthur assumes the role of Sandwich Maker for his village. This gives him an important role in the community, and he hires an apprentice to keep up with customer demand. 

After Trillian and Zaphod dropped out of the series in book three, we never learned what happened to them in book four. In Mostly Harmless we learn that Trillian has traded in her vagabond status for a career as an interstellar reporter. On her way to covering the next big news story, Trillian stops off on Arthur's adoptive homeworld, and introduces him to their daughter Random. 

As Arthur never had a close relationship with Trillian, you can imagine his surprise at Trillian's bombshell.

King's College, Cambridge, England

It seems that sometime after both Zaphod and Thor left her, Trillian decided she wanted a daughter. She reached out to the interstellar gene banks for a compatible match. As Arthur had sold his genetic material to travel aboard spaceships in First Class, she was able to get the requisite genetic material from a fellow Earthling. Now she has a daughter she's never has time for, as her interstellar reporting duties prevent her from having a stable homelife. 

During his travels, Arthur had thought he was getting something for nothing. Now, he realizes that, well, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Whether it includes sandwiches or not. 

She may have just arrived, but Trillian doesn't have time to stop and catch up with Arthur. Nor can she be bothered to bring Arthur with her, so they can function as a family while she's covering stories across time and space. Instead, she announces that she's leaving Random with Arthur because, well, she's his daughter too, and he should share in the responsibility of raising Random. One moment Arthur is content, if not completely happy, in his new life as chief sandwich maker for his village. The next, he's a father who must work to connect with a daughter who is a complete stranger to him.

Grantchester Common, Grantchester, England

 

Random has never had much of a relationship with her mother, as Trillian was always on the go for her job. So she's never really known where she fits in, and doesn't get along with others. How can she be expected to feel love for this man, and honor him as her father? After all, from her perspective, she's never even had much of a mother. 

There's no such thing as a perfect family, and even in the best of times, maintaining healthy family relationships can be difficult. Douglas Adams' parents divorced when he was young, so he knew how difficult it can be to build a happy and nurturing family. He had a complicated relationship with English barrister Jane Belson, whom he married in 1991 after several breakups and a broken engagement. As Mostly Harmless was published the following year, I imagine Adams drew upon his own childhood, as well as his on-again/off-again relationship with Jane Belson, in crafting the complicated dynamics between Arthur, Trillian, and Random in Mostly Harmless.

Dragon Dave 

P.S. Two years after Douglas Adams published Mostly Harmless, his wife Jane gave birth to a daughter.

 

Douglas Adams: Mostly Trisha

 

London, England

While Douglas Adams' first four novels in the Hitchhiker's Guide series appeared roughly a year apart, eight years elapsed before the fifth appeared. I'm not sure when I purchased Mostly Harmless, but I'm guessing it was several years following publication. Sadly, the first time I read it, I never really got into the novel. One thing I remembered as I reread it was my initial reaction that the novel was overwritten, featuring scenes that just seem to go on and on...and on.

Mostly Harmless is longer than any of the previous installments in the Hitchhiker's Guide series, and seems concerned that the changes and paradoxes created by people traveling through time. As an interstellar reporter, Trillian zips back and forth through time. If the events she covers get altered by herself or other travelers, and cause history to be rewritten so that the events she covers never actually happened...well, you can see how all of spacetime could become muddled.

Arthur and his girlfriend Fenchurch leave Earth and travel through space together. One day she just...disappears. Arthur never learns why she simply ceased to exist. Apparently, it's a remote--but very real--danger of hyperspace travel. Forlorn, Arthur continues traveling--not as a hitchhiker, but a paid passenger--and sells his genetic material to upgrade to First Class. 

 

London, England

 

Meanwhile, Ford Prefect notices that his original expansive entry on Earth is now included in his copy of the electronic travel book at the heart of this series: the Hitchhiker's Guide. After traveling to the guidebook's headquarters, he discovers that the Vogons, who destroyed Earth in the first novel to create a hyperspace bypass, are now in charge. 

In some ways, the change in management has proven beneficial. Under the previous management, secretaries often edited travel correspondents' reports. Thus, his entry covering Earth history, culture, and cuisine was reduced to "Mostly Harmless."*

Sadly, not all change is beneficial. Ford learns this firsthand, when the Vogon management attempts to kill him. Still, at least they merely shoot their weapons at him, rather than subjecting him to their poetry.

 

Buckingham Palace, London, England

 

We also met a woman called Trisha, a TV news reporter on Earth (which, remember, isn't supposed to be around, after the Vogons destroyed it in the first book). Trisha once met Zaphod at a party, but turned down his invitation to explore the universe. She has always regretted not going off with him in his spaceship. So when another spaceship lands in London, she makes sure that she is the one to interview the aliens. 

I enjoyed Trisha's journey in Mostly Harmless. We can all relate to regret over paths not taken. Her experiences in the novel are the kind that First Contact chasers dream about. She may have missed out on her first opportunity to travel and experience new things. Still, when that next opportunity came her way, she was ready!

Dragon Dave

*Even after all these decades, I'm still interested in reading the intergalactic guidebook. Perhaps now that the Vogons are in charge, it will soon become available for Earthlings to purchase. Just please, Vogon managers: no poetry!

So Long Douglas Adams, and Thanks for all the Fish

A Road near Holmfirth, England

 

Douglas Adams' fourth novel in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series is the shortest of all, and proved a surprising favorite. I thought it featured some of the best characterizations of any installment in the series, and told a beautiful love story. Like all the best bedtime stories, it begins with a dark and stormy night in England.

In So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish, Arthur Dent returns to England after hitchhiking throughout the galaxy. Unlike the first three novels, in which he was always dragged into an adventure by a character like Ford Prefect or Slartibartfast, he's charting his own course this time. Somehow the Earth exists, even after it was destroyed by the Vogons in book one. As Arthur walks along a highway in the rain, a car stops to pick him up. So now he's hitchhiking on a planet familiar to him, even if it shouldn't exist.

Back in his familiar British surroundings, Arthur falls in love with a troubled soul. Her name is Fenchurch, and she is troubled because she sees things she shouldn't, and exhibits talents her fellow humans do not possess. Arthur is drawn to her, and learns that she has seen visions of Earth's destruction by the Vogons, which somehow, on Earth, or at least this Earth, has not taken place.

 

In the previous book, Arthur developed a new ability. Or rather, he fell into it. It's a superpower many comic book characters exhibit, and if you haven't read the series recently, I won't spoil it for you. Let's just say that, in pursuing Fenchurch, he discovers that she also has this superpower. Finally, after all his travels, Arthur has found a kindred soul.

In the first three novels Arthur often came off as rather muddle-headed, and unable to grasp the importance of the situation he was thrown into. Zaphod constantly belittled him, Trillian looked down on him, and Ford lost patience with him more than once. Yet here, on this still spinning Earth, he becomes, if not a hero, at least the strong protagonist who always belonged at the heart of this series. 

Holmfirth, England

 

Events usually loom larger than the characters in Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide series. So after all his travels, In So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish, the way Arthur finally finds the place he can finally call home, and the person with whom he can share it, is what I most remember.

Dragon Dave

P.S. My late friend, Marvel colorist Justin Ponsor, held a deep and abiding love for Douglas Adams. Although he wasn't much of a reader, he surpassed me by reading every book Adams ever wrote. He told me how sad he became, when he reached the last sentence of The Salmon of Doubt, Adams' final unfinished novel, and the words just...stopped. 

At Justin's funeral, his sister referenced his love for Adams' stories, and concluded her talk with "So long Justin, and thanks for all the fish." Apparently, some readers have found in the title of this Douglas Adams novel a humorous way to say good-bye. For the most part, saying good-bye is, I think, a skill I lack. While the Hitchhiker's Guide series seems to end here, apparently Adams couldn't say good-bye to the series either. Thus many years later, he published his final installment, Mostly Harmless.

Douglas Adams, the Universe, Abandonment and Thor

St. John, Douglas Adams' college, Cambridge, England

Life, the Universe, and Everything, the third novel in Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, sees the unraveling of the not-so-friendly foursome of Arthur, Ford, Trillian and Zaphod. Zaphod, the two-headed ex-president of the universe, decides there's some crucial facts that he's hidden from his conscious (collective) mind. So he wanders off after awhile, and is never heard from again. Likewise, when Arthur meets up with Trillian at a party, she seems cold and distant. Again, she leaves with someone else. This time it's Thor, the Norse god of Thunder. 

The way these two characters just drop out of the novel, as well as The Hitchhiker's Guide series at this point, without any sort of resolution to their individual plot arcs, seems weird. Then again, before this novel was published, Adams had an affair with novelist Sally Emerson while she was separated from her husband. After the affair ended, and she returned to her husband in 1981, Adams dedicated Life, the Universe, and Everything to her. So perhaps, the way Zaphod and Trillian abandon Arthur and Ford ties in with events in Adams' life, and the theme of abandonment I noticed in the first two Hitchhiker novels. 

 

The Round Church (next to St. John), Cambridge, England

 

Thor has been on my mind for many years now, as he plays a large role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. My wife and I collected the comic for several years, after Thor Odin-son lost his worthiness to wield the hammer, and an Earth-woman, much to Odin's displeasure, took on the mantle of Thor. 

Recently, Neil Gaiman published the book Norse Mythology, in which he updated some of the  Norse myths about Thor and Asgard for today's readers. Dark Horse is currently adapting these stories in a comic book series. Thor's hammer hangs on my wife's keychain, and she has read Rick Riordan's series about the Norse gods. A print of the Marvel character Thor, taken from an original painting by my late friend comics colorist Justin Ponsor, hangs in our living room. So it's interesting to me that in a series that extrapolates so heavily on scientific concepts, Douglas Adams chose to make Thor, a character from ancient mythology, a character in two of his novels. 

Grantchester Common outside Cambridge, England

I wonder what attracted Douglas Adams to the Norse god of Thunder, and what he would make of the character as portrayed in the Marvel movies. Did he grow up reading the Norse myths about Thor like Neil Gaiman? Or did he grew up reading Marvel's Thor comics, and that was why he placed the Norse god in two of his books?

Dragon Dave

Douglas Adams, the Universe, and Cricket

Cambridge, England

 

While the set pieces of the first two novels in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series were familiar to me from their TV and movie adaptations, the rest of the series represented a fresh step forward. Nevertheless, as I read, aspects of the novels occasionally evoked a Deja Vu feeling. This suggests that even if my conscious mind didn't remember the stories, those decades-old reading experiences had found a foothold in the subconscious regions of my brain.

The third novel, Life, the Universe, and Everything, reunites Ford and Arthur with a friend called Slartibartfast. The trio leave prehistoric Earth, and travel forward in time to Earth shortly before the Vogons arrive to demolish the Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass. There, at Lord's Cricket Ground in London, a group of robots from the planet Krikkit arrive in a spaceship during a test match and start attacking everyone. 

I immediately recognized the premise of this third novel, having heard how Douglas Adams originally pitched it to the Doctor Who TV series. When the producer vetoed his idea, Adams offered up the story of "Shada" instead, which was what they filmed. Or should I say, tried to film, until labor union strikes prevented the story from being completed. Nonetheless, I've watched "Shada" many times over the years, as various attempts have been made to complete the story, and craft all the filmed sequences into a coherent story. In fact, "Shada" was one of the primary reasons I wanted to visit Cambridge, as the location filming took place there.

Cambridge, England

 

Douglas Adams' novels are always big on ideas. At the heart of this third Hitchhiker novel is the premise of the planet Krikkit. It is a planet blockaded by time from the rest of the universe. While life passes at a normal pace for its inhabitants, it passes at a completely different rate for everyone else. This idea was later used by Robert Charles Wilson in his Hugo award-winning novel Spin. I don't know if Wilson got the idea from Adams' story, but he certainly wrote a beautifully compelling novel, different from the Hitchhiker books in every conceivable way. 

I met Robert Charles Wilson once, before he published Spin. Even though I arrived late to the convention, and missed his signing, he graciously stopped what he was doing to sit down with me, sign his books, and answer a few questions. Years later, when talking with a friend about Spin, she asked if she could borrow my copy. She loved it so much she asked if she could loan it to her friends. While I never got the novel back, I'm glad I was able to introduce others to such a special novel.

I wish I could have met Douglas Adams. Apart, that is, than through his stories.

 

Cambridge, England

 

I don't know if Douglas Adams, who worked as Script Editor for Doctor Who, was as mad about Cricket as Anthony Ainley, the actor who later played the Doctor's chief nemesis of the Master. It's a game I've seen played many times on British TV programs, and generally portrayed as one that some Brits have a real passion for. I wish I understood the rules of the game. I liked Adams' idea that every planet in the universe has some variation on the game, and that all of them derive from the planet Krikkit.

I wonder if, in whatever portion of the multiverse the souls of Doctor Who alum end up, if Douglas Adams and Anthony Ainley aren't playing a game of Cricket right now, either with or without robots.

Dragon Dave

Douglas Adams at the End of the Universe

Cambridge, UK

 

In Douglas Adams' second novel in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the crew of the spaceship Heart Of Gold travel to the famous restaurant. Here Adams' scientific imaginings run riot, as diners at the restaurant watch the final, dying gasps of the universe. After each meal, the restaurant is maneuvered through time and space to allow the next group of diners to experience the end of everything all over again. Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian and Zaphod also meet the Norse god Thor there. It seems even the gods frequent this restaurant.

Afterward, Arthur and Ford end up on another spaceship crewed by people who love bureaucracy so much that they never actually accomplish anything. Along with the crew of the ship, who are constantly organizing committee meetings, Arthur and Ford land on Earth amid the prehistory of Man. There, no one aside from Arthur and Ford possess survival skills. But there are Hominids, and Arthur learns to communicate with them.

Sadly for dinosaur fans, but fortunately for Arthur and Ford, all the dinosaurs have been wiped out. I know, bummer, right? Who wouldn't like seeing Arthur and Ford being chased by dinosaurs?

 

Kings College, Cambridge, UK

 

It's an intriguing way to end the novel, with Arthur returned to Earth, and being in no danger of living to see the Vogons demolish Earth to make way for an interstellar bypass. Considered together, the two books also suggest a fear of abandonment, or getting stuck somewhere you don't belong. In the first novel, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Ford had gotten stuck on Earth for years until the Vogons arrived, and someone aboard ship kindly allowed him to hitch a ride. Now The Restaurant at the End of the Universe finishes with both trapped on prehistoric Earth, again with little hope of rescue. 

I guess that's one of the dangers of hitchhiking: getting stuck somewhere, and waiting a long time until you can get a ride somewhere else. You can certainly feel for Ford here. When he got stuck on 20th Century Earth, at least he had plenty to do to occupy his time. What's he going to do this time on prehistoric Earth?

To me, these two books feel like the halves of a complete story. Indeed, while the six-part BBC adaptation diverged greatly from these two books, this is where the miniseries ended.

Cambridge, UK

 

As I read these novels, I was reminded that Douglas Adams studied in Cambridge, and graduated from this prestigious university town. While Ford cannot call Earth his home planet, he continually reminisces throughout the series about arguing some topic with a group of British students or college professors. When I visited Cambridge a few years ago, I didn't attend any university parties, or join in a scientific discussion in a pub. Still, it was easy to imagine Adams doing that.

I wonder if there wasn't a lot of Ford Prefect in Douglas Adams.

Dragon Dave