Novelist Doug Adams Reads From New Book

British novelist Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, entertained a capacity crowd of science fiction enthusiasts at the Brattle Theatre last night with readings from his new book.

The novel, Mostly Harmless, marks the fifth in what Adams persists in calling the Hitchhiker's Trilogy.

Adams, wearing a large blue-green sports jacket, read five passages quickly in his native British accent and in the varied voices of his characters. The audience of 250 punctuated the readings with laughter and applause.

In the course of the evening, Adam assumed the voice of an Australian zoologist, a gruff machine tank and a sarcastic robot named Marvin.

Before speaking as the Australian character from his nonfiction work Last Chance to See, (co-authored with Mark Carwardine), Adams began to excuse his faulty accent but then remembered his audience.

"You're from America, aren't you?" he asked. "I should apologize for the quality of my Australian accent, but you're not going to know the difference."

In introducing Adams, Cambridge author Craig Gardner praised Adams for bringing humorous science fiction fantasy books to widespread popularity.

"Funny science fiction does sell, and I think Douglas Adams is responsible for that," Gardner said.

Before reading a passage from Mostly Harmless, Adams explained why a main character of the Hitchhiker's Trilogy appears in the new book as a revered sandwich maker in an alien village.

"The origin of it has to do with when we were recording Hitchhiker on the radio. There was a pub right around the corner from the studio...There was a guy there who had made sandwiches as if they were an extraordinary work of art," Adams said.

"He was subsequently killed by muggers leaving the pub one night, and I thought about it and ended up putting this passage in."

Adams said he hopes to begin work on a new book after completing the publicity tour at the end of the year. He said it will probably be another sequel to Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, with the tentative title A Spoon Too Short.

In addition, Adams plans to write and present a television series about the universe.

He said he would capture the entire scheme of the universe in twelve or thirteen episodes.

"It's going to be about the universe in general and everything in it in particular," he said.

Adams' appearance is the third in this season's series of Words Worth Readings.