My Inspirations: The Universe and Other Mistakes

In the beginning, I regularly went to camp. This was commonly regarded as a mistake and many regret it. But we've been over this.

I did, however, make some friends, even though some of them also proved to be mistakes. But nonetheless one of them had similar interests and some things that he liked were ones I never heard of. One day, he showed me the text of a radio show from England. It involved the quaint life of a put upon British guy dealing with government imposition and bureaucracy.

And the world exploded.

Yes, I'm talking about the great Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the late, even greater Douglas Adams. At the time, I barely got as far as the space stuff, but it was among the most hilarious thing I had ever read. It took a while longer, but I finally got a copy of the actual book, which as fans of the series know is the same basic story minus some parts, plus other parts, and with everything else rearranged into a completely different story. Douglas Adams was either a perfectionist or a loon, or to a degree both. After reading the first book, I quickly bounded to the three sequels that existed at the time and even tracked down my own copy of the radio script, letting me finally learn the original story and best of all read Douglas Adams' comments about the script and why he made decisions with his story. A lot of his reasons was "I had no idea what I was doing," but it was brilliant nonetheless.

With time, I of course read the fifth and final novel, and best of all, I had the chance to meet the man himself, mister Douglas I Don't Know His Middle Name Adams! I got my books signed, and a towel, and I even got to ask him a question. That question, which only people who read the books will admittedly get (but it's not like the rest of you got the towel thing,) was "If Earth was really the most powerful computer in the universe, why did the Hitchhiker's Guide only list it as 'Mostly Harmless?'" His response was "I screwed up." It was a classic.

The last book was nonetheless a depressing book at times, especially the end where all the protagonists apparently die. I later read in an interview that he didn't like it much himself, and he planned on writing another sequel. And then he died.

So it goes. That's a reference to another late, great, science-fiction author, but it applies here.

But despite that depressing ending, I love the series, for many reasons. The first reason, before I even learn about the wonderful characters and science fiction, was the sheer dialogue. Maybe it was because it my first bit of British humor before I even watched Monty Python. It was the little things; Arthur Dent outsmarting the construction crew, at least for a while, or his tale about how he learned about his home being destroyed in the first place. It really took off for me, though, when I got to the story and really surreal stuff. Best of all, it improves with knowledge. For example, when I first read the story, I laughed at an infinite number of monkeys writing Hamlet because of how weird it was at first, but after I learned about the theory, it was even better. It's all those levels that make this book among my favorite books every made. For a long time, it and them (especially the first three) were my top two books along with Brave New World. It's ironic that both of the original books were shorter than a Nanowrimo novel at under 50,000 words.

So, how did it inspire me? Well, part of it was the theme, but few of my ideas tend to be so depressing, with the casual death of so many people as a laugh. It's funny in a black comedy, but most of my ideas tend to have dramatic elements that make it harder. The cynicism, though, has appealed to me. I think the most important idea that affected me was taking the future and making it human. Even in a universe of aliens, advanced technology, and civilizations beyond our imagination, stupid people do stupid things for stupid reasons. I also loved the frenetic style of adventure, where there is little to know status quo. People get separated or even die, characters are sent halfway across the galaxy by accident, and people can end up in places that are not that pleasant. It makes for a very fluid method of storytelling, especially for a video game junkie so used to more linear plotlines. It does admittedly give the protagonists little control, but for the concept of the series, it makes perfect sense. Even now, I try to avoid the "hunt x bad guy around the continent in a convenient loop" or at least a very overt "defeat all the members of bad guy team y in the convenient order of their strength."

Also, I make up words all the time. Because that's just hoopy. And I know where my towel is, but it's in the car, so I might be in trouble.