So Long and Thanks For All the Fish by Doug Adams
Getting down to the dregs here. All I remembered about So Long and Thanks For All the Fish was that it was too much Arthur Dent. I understand he’s nominally the main character, but he’s never been the good character. He was a straight-man to the others’ riotous insanity. So you take away the riotous insanity and you’ve got the sound of birds chirping as no one makes a joke leaving no one anything to react to. Arthur Dent is no comedian and Arthur Dent is no hero.
I re-read it once Steve was done with it (he said it was OK for the first two thirds, which is generous of him) and discovered nothing to change my memory. I found myself skimming frequently.
Four down and one to go. About Mostly Harmless I remember nothing except the quip on the cover: “The fifth in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy.” Sadly, I suspect that’s the funniest line in the book.