I don’t know why it took me so long to get into this book – I absolutely loved it. I know I’d attempted to pick it up once or twice over the years, but something just didn’t quite click with me for some reason. This time, it did – with the help of an “as read by the author” book-on-CD and a long car trip.
It would be futile for me to attempt to describe or sort out the plot in this encapsulated format. (Even Adams himself has admitted that he made the story so complex in order to disguise the fact that it was full of holes.) I will say – and this really isn’t meant to sound as presumptuous as it sounds – that he very much succeeded with the sort of novel that I wanted my own Fish Stories to be. It’s a science fiction story at its core, but it also contains elements of the paranormal that might otherwise move it into the “fantasy” genre. It is, of course, silly in that uniquely British way, but also contains some very profoundly serious and touching moments. The events that unfold could never happen in the rational world that we know, yet most of the inhabitants of said world seem quite familiar and realistic.
So where I’ve been trying to sell Fish Stories to people by comparing it to Hitchhiker’s Guide, perhaps I should instead be comparing it to this, Adams’ lesser-known (yet no less entertaining) work. I look forward to reading the second (and, sadly, the last) book in this series.