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On May 11, 2001 Douglas Adams died and shortly afterwards a good friend of his began to look through the CD that Douglas left behind. This CD containing 2579 items. The most significant of these was a half dozen drafts of a novel he had began working on that was titled "The Salmon of Doubt." It became the heart of the collected stories, letters, articles and speeches that became "The Salmon of Doubt" book.

There is something poetic about the final work published by Douglas Adams being an incomplete novel as the man was notorious for missing deadlines. I like to think that he enjoy the idea that he missed that final deadline alone with so many others.

One of the better of these articles is the intro for the Hitchhikers Comic Book, this starts "People ask me where I get my ideas, sometimes as often as eight-seven times a day." He then goes on to give both humorous and good advice on where to search for inspiration.

This book is full of page length articles like that one, that work together to form an odd sort of autobiography that tell you as much about Douglas Adams as you would get from stories of his life. In these pages you learn about his passion for Macintosh Computers, his atheism, his love of animals, even a short Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy based story called "Young Zaphod plays it safe." And finally the first 11 chapters from the novel he was working on "The Salmon of Doubt" that was meant to join together Dirk Gently and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books.

Douglas Adams has one of the most recognizable and unique voices in science fiction. It is always funny, but never without a point. And that is what puts Douglas Adam's work above so many other stories. I may not always agree with the point of view of Douglas Adams and often his ideas are odd and seem silly but they always make you think. Reading his books you can sense both the intelligence of the man and the great amount of effort that went into these works, , but this is not a style that everyone loves and for those who have not liked Douglas Adams previous works there is not a great deal here that will change your mind.

If you believed that you had read everything that Douglas Adams had written, which is sadly not as difficult as it should be then A Salmon Of Doubt is an excellent chance to not only learn more about the man who wrote some of the most beloved humorous science fiction novels ever but about a truly interesting man.

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