57. Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic

By: Terry Jones

Starship Titanic was Douglas Adam's last puzzle-based video game (after Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Bureaucracy. Although Adams didn't write this one, when I found it on our school library shelf, I figured it would hopefully be one more enjoyable read in the Adams universe that I thought I had already thouroughly explored. Moreover, I'd figure a book by Monty Python's Terry Jones based on an idea by Douglas Adams would be a hit.

...and I couldn't have been more wrong.

Starship Titanic, is, simply put, exceedingly stupid. The fact that it reads like a walk-through of the video game isn't even the worst thing about it (although its close)- the worst thing about it is that it reads like someone who is not Douglas Adams trying to write a Douglas Adams book. Which is, obviously, exactly what it is. When I was in working on the literary magazine back in high school we had this kid who would try and submit stories that were basically just Monty Python skits that were poorly transcribed. This book has the same sort of feeling. Jones takes Adams' ideas and tries on every page to make a Douglas Adams sounding observations in Douglas Adams seeming situations.

This was by far, the worst book I've read in a long time, in fact, I can't think of anything off hand that was worse.