The Salmon of Doubt

What Hacker News says

1. RGX9Mar 2025
   There's "The Salmon of Doubt", an excellent collection of misc essays and writings of Douglas Adams published after his death, and it contains his last unfinished Dirk Gently novel.

   It's about one third finished, and it's really just wild: There's one narrative strand about Dirk Gently, a private detective, receiving mysterious anonymous payments and deciding to follow random strangers, one about a paragliding genius architect who's all by himself in a weird future architect's utopia, and one about an escaping rhinocerous that's mainly narrated in terms of what it smells.

   It's fantastically creative and incredibly sad that we won't get to read AD's ending, although I doubt that he actually knew where he was going with it at the time he wrote the bits that are there. It's this grand setup that really leaves you wondering what it means and how it's supposed to come together.

   I'd encourage anyone to read it and try to come up with an ending. It feels like a fiendishly hard puzzle, and really gets you in the authors head. And do let me know if you have a good one!

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2. jschulenklopperNov 2022
   > I'm excluding that one book that was written by another author after Douglas Adams' passing.

   If this is _A Salmon of Doubt_, I can strongly recommend that book. It's a collection of the things they found on his computer (with permission to publish it). It's a great and varied set of DNA's writing. I really enjoyed reading it.

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3. cfcostaMar 2022
   The Salmon of Doubt was the one from Douglas Adams for me. I loved hitchhiker's, but there's something so earnest in that book. Like a late goodbye from someone you would've loved to be friends with.

   Made me go on a life-long quest to understand what I am leaving, and how I want to be remembered after I'm gone. I've never met him and read his books after he passed away, but he still makes his presence aware through his words.

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4. vidarhMay 2021
   I liked A Salmon of Doubt.

   If he'd published it himself in that state, I'd have found it embarrassing.

   But as a posthumous memorial that I knew from the outset would be unpolished, it was fine and a bit sad knowing it's never be finished.

   I think comes down to how well you're able to keep focus on that what you're reading is unfinished, and enjoying the glimpse of something raw.

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5. russellbeattieJul 2020
   This is actually one of the essays included in The Salmon of Doubt, a posthumously published collection of some of Adams' best writing. The audiobook version of this chapter being read by Simon Jones is a treat.

   https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Salmon-of-Doubt-Audiobook/B00...

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6. codeulikeAug 2017
   I thought the essays in Salmon of Doubt were fascinating though (half of the book was a collection of previously published essays)
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