ORBzine Douglas Adams [Obituary] May 2001
So Long And Thanks For All The BooksDouglas Adams wrote for the Doctor Who series in the 1970s, but he is most famous for his humourous SF series The Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy. It was made into a BBC television show in the early 1980s, but the much-awaited movie version will probably never appear. [*] Of all the SF authors to pass away, Adams is the one you would have expected least. Asimov was in his seventies, as was James White - Harry Harrison's seventy-fifth birthday was at MeCon 2000, and he's still going strong. Adams was only 49 - which is uncomfortably young. For this writer that is only about 23 years away, and none of us is getting any younger. One of Adams' last works, released about ten years ago, was a non-fiction book called Last Chance to See. It is an environmental book, about Adams' personal quest to see a number of endangered species before they finally became extinct. How poignant that the endangered species are still around, but that Douglas Adams himself is no longer with us. The moral we can learn from Adams' tragic death? To adopt the motto Carpe Diem, to live every day like it could be your last.
[*] 2005 CE update! Yes, the HHGTTG has finally arrived. So much for gloomy nay-saying!
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