The sadly missed Douglas Adams had an imagination matched by only a very few writers. His fantasy, comedy, science fiction, lunatic, indefinable genre, books were near perfect. He had a skill with words that leaves me breathless. Not just ordinary language, but the inventive names of his characters and places that leave the reader in little doubt about their natures. The man was a genius, and
taken from us far too young. This tiny extract from
Life, the Universe and Everything illustrates his style perfectly.
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Another world, another day, another dawn. The early morning's thinnest sliver of light appeared silently. Several billion trillion tons of superhot exploding hydrogen nuclei rose slowly above the horizon and managed to look small, cold and slightly damp.
Douglas Adams.
Life, the Universe and Everything.
3 comments:
Wonderful stuff, I was hooked on his work from day one on the Radio (even before THHGTTG he wrote for several BBC comedy programmes)and I recall my amazement when I ran across his inspiration for the name of the world shaking Pop star in THHGTTG series. The Local estate agent in Islington with the unlikely name of Hot Black Desiato
I DEVOURED this series when I was a teenager. "Great yellow ships were hovering in the air, much like bricks don't." You're right. He truly was a master.
Douglas Adams - one of my all-time favorite writers!
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