If you cannot find what you're looking for within the whole of this Wiki, or any of the sources listed below, you might like to try the places listed below to find what you're looking for.
Usenet
The main Douglas Adams related group on usenet is of course the alt.fan.douglas-adams newsfroup. We're usually a helpful, if silly, bunch of various species, as you can probably tell from the rest of our website. A subgroup, alt.fan.douglas-adams.forty-two, was been set up as a special place for all the inane 42-related observations, but it is not as widely available on news servers as afda is and has nowhere near the same levels of traffic as afda.
Books on Douglas Adams
There are numerous books (well, four) about Douglas Adams, which may prove helpful to you in locating what you want to know.
- Don't Panic: Douglas Adams And The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. This was the first book written about Douglas, by Neil Gaiman. Originally published in 1988, it has since been revised by David K. Dickson and M.J. Simpson and is almost, but not quite, entirely up-to-date. If you want a copy, looking for the ISBN of 18 402 3501 2 should net you one. Buy from Amazon.co.uk Buy from Amazon.com
- The Pocket Essential Hitchhiker's Guide. This book, currently in its third edition, is by M.J. Simpson. The ISBN for the most recent version of the book is 19 040 4846 3. Buy from Amazon.co.uk Buy from Amazon.com
- Hitchhiker: A Biography Of Douglas Adams, again by M.J. Simpson, is generally held to be the best biography of Douglas in existence at the time of writing. It goes into the minutiae of his life, leaving no stone unturned at all. Apparently with each new publishment (UK hardback, then US hardback, then UK paperback, then US paperback) something new is added, so while I shall say that the ISBN 03 408 2489 1 would get you a copy of the UK paperback, I shall also say that if you can find the US paperback it does have (I think) some extra material. However, the foreword is different. It's your choice. Buy from Amazon.co.uk Buy from Amazon.com
- Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams by Nick Webb is less searching than M.J. Simpson's book, and is not as detailed. It feels more nostalgic – almost like an old friend giving his thoughts on Douglas' life. Which is a fairly good description, as Nick and Douglas had known each other almost since the very beginning of HHGG. I believe that 07 553 1156 6 is the ISBN for the paperback edition. Buy from Amazon.co.uk Buy from Amazon.com
Websites
Collecting together a complete list of web sites with a Douglas Adams theme or a connection of some kind would be a mammoth and pretty much impossible task. If you should feel like it, use Google and go hunting. Best of luck, since for every good site out there there are at least half a dozen pieces of dross. The following list are some of the best:
The official sites:
The unofficial sites:
- Planet Magrathea - sadly closed, but still with some good features and news archives.
- Douglas Adams Continuum - with a news page and forums which are almost as good as afda, I hear.
- h2g2movie.com - the first website on the subject, with news updated regularly.
- HHGTTGOnline.com - this has risen in popularity greatly recently.
- Floor42 - although this couldn't be called recent, what is there is very good material, including a good bibliography and chat forums.
Other resources
As well as turning to books and the people of afda, one can turn to a variety of other places. ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, for example.
Or, you could try the Definitely Inaccurate Douglas Adams Newsletter - an attempt to create an e-mail based fanzine which will be sent out to subscribers on a regular basis. Click the link to read their first newsletter, from September 1998. In fact, this seems to be their only newsletter, but we've linked to it so it will in some small way be remembered.