42
By Douglas Adams, edited by Kevin Jon Davies
A publishing event: hundreds of artefacts from Douglas Adams' archive, printed for the first time
Friday, 16 July 2021
A note from a certain President...
Something from the archives for the supporters of 42: the wildly improbable ideas of Douglas Adams, from Kevin Jon Davies....
This line (so redolent of a certain recent ex-POTUS) was written for Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox.
I discovered it in 2016 among some loose pages from a yellow legal pad in Douglas Adams’ archives held at Cambridge. They have it catalogued as written circa mid-1990s and there were jottings about his computer game "Starship Titanic" on the same page.
Douglas' notebooks are full of odd lines and non-sequiturs; ideas or concepts meant for one project or another. I passed this one, along with others, to the adapter/producer/director Dirk Maggs and he added it into the script for "The Hexagonal Phase" radio series. It was recorded by actor Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod, intended for a moment in episode one, although it ultimately didn’t make the cut.
Isn’t it magic to see things written in the author’s own hand? It’s part of what will make this book so special.
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Comments
"Starship Titanic"! Few days ago I discovered in a second hand book website, that there's a novelisation of it, written by Terry Jones, which has been translated into my native Greek. Of course, I ordered it!
I appreciate these kind of updates, which show us small details of the book and the editing process! That said, I'd liked to know a bit more on what is the current state of production.
posted 19th July 2021
This is wonderful! As much as it does sound like a certain ex-POTUS, though, I'm afraid he doesn't know this many multi-syllabic words. :) I can't wait to see the final product, and would also love to know where we are in production.
posted 19th July 2021