MFAQ 2.1k - alt.fan.douglas-adams

From: "Greg Pacek - CrazyOne"
Organization: Creative Craziness Worldwide
Message-ID: <300919992301546736%crazyone@SPAMXcity-net.com>
Subject: [MFAQ 2.1k] Why not go mad?
Newsgroups: alt.fan.douglas-adams
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 23:01:54 -0400

"This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays."

*** The alt.fan.douglas-adams MFAQ (Most Frequently Asked Questions) ***

Version 2.1k / Last changes 30 September 1999 / This posted 30 September 1999

Welcome to alt.fan.douglas-adams!

In this little corner of Usenet we discuss things supposedly related to
British book/game/film/radio author Douglas Adams and his works. This
MFAQ is meant to answer the common questions so that discussion on the
group can be more about the less common and/or totally absurd ones.

This MFAQ is posted weekly on Thursdays; the web home of the MFAQ is:

http://www.city-net.com/~crazyone/mfaq/

Note that this text version is more definitive; the web edition suffers
from a rather severe case of non-updatedness at the moment.

For more in-depth info on Douglas Adams and his work, please visit the
more than complete FAQ at:

http://www.atomiser.demon.co.uk/mh/faq/

A few notes about the alt.fan.douglas-adams newsgroup: This is an
unmoderated group, which means you may see "spam" from time to time.
It is best not to respond to spam, except maybe to send a mail to the
spammer's service provider if you can figure out who it is and you feel
like it. This is also NOT a binary group. That means if you have this
great picture file, background "wallpaper", etc. you should post an
offer to email it to people or a pointer to where they can download it
rather than attaching the file to the post. Binaries to the group will
be met with a flurry of nasty notes from regulars. So if you didn't
know before, now you do. :-) Also, common sense, while not often seen
on Usenet, can be a help. Ridiculous breaches of netiquette tend to
result in flames. If you're totally new to Usenet newsgroups, you
might want to look at this piece on netiquette that I found; it's at
http://128.2.232.225/~julie/netiquette.html One thing to note is that
we're not particularly picky about being on-topic all the time, which
means if you want to know what Douglas Adams fans think of this or
that, you're usually okay in asking. In fact, these days it's rare to
see much on-topic at all.

The FAQ team is Greg Pacek, Owen Cameron and Stuart Bruce. This MFAQ
was developed and is maintained by Greg "CrazyOne" Pacek (email:
crazyone@city-net.com) with the help of a.f.d-a participants. Please
send comments and suggestions to Greg.

And now... on with THE ANSWERS!

** The questions/contents (in some sort of order):

(new info since previous post indicated with + in the contents)

1. Who is Douglas Adams anyway?
2. What has he written?
3. What is he currently working on?
4. Does Douglas Adams read this group?
5. What is his email address / web address / snail mail address?
6. What happened to The Salmon of Doubt?
7. What's this I hear about a movie?
8. How do I find the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
or Bureaucracy computer games?
9. Where can I get other CDs, tapes, books, etc.?
10. What do you get if you multiply six by nine?
11. What kind of stuff is in the complete FAQ?
+12. Where do I find HHGG/DNA _______ on the web?
+13. Where else can I interact with Douglas Adams fans or DNA?
14. Is there a fan club? (ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha info)

1. Who is Douglas Adams anyway?

You really don't know? ;-) Douglas Adams is a British author of
humorous books and other items in various media (radio, tv, computer
games, etc.) By far his best-known work is The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy (in its various forms) and its sequels. For a lot more
info, please visit the more than complete FAQ mentioned above. And of
course check out http://www.douglasadams.com

By the way, his name is Douglas Noel Adams, so around here we often
call him DNA for short. He was born March 11, 1952, in Cambridge. For
more off-line info about DNA you can't beat _Don't Panic_ by Neil
Gaiman.

2. What has he written?

Well, the best bibliography is with the more than complete FAQ (see
also item 11), but here's a quick list of the most common works (some
of these have co-authors):

Radio Series:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

TV Series:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Books:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Life, the Universe and Everything
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
Mostly Harmless

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul

Last Chance to See

The Meaning of Liff
The Deeper Meaning of Liff

Computer Games:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Bureaucracy
Starship Titanic

Feature Film:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (see item 7)

3. What is he currently working on?

Douglas Adams is one of the principals of a multimedia company formed a
few years ago called The Digital Village, around here TDV for short.

The best way to get the best info on TDV is to go to http://www.tdv.com
yourself. TDV's current DNA-related projects include the online
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (http://www.h2g2.com) which is the
Guide to everything, Starship Titanic (http://www.starshiptitanic.com)
which supplements the game and novel, and douglasadams.com
(http://www.douglasadams.com), which is a site for DNA's current
goings-on. TDV will also be involved in the HHGG movie and a new HHGG
game to go along with it. They also work on some projects that have
nothing to do with DNA.

It has, in fact, just come out that TDV will be branding handheld
devices (personal digital assistants) and adding software to make what
is essentially a real handheld Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

h2g2 is the latest web project from TDV. Go check out this amazing
site, the guide to everything, as researched by everyone! www.h2g2.com
Submit your own guide entries, comment on others, put up info on the
web without knowing any HTML, and on and on. There are something
around 15,000 registered researchers now, and lots of ways to interact
with others.

A note about Starship Titanic: it's got that cool website mentioned
above but it's also a fairly elaborate computer game and a novel
written not by DNA but by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. Reviews of
both are mixed. The Mac version of the game is shipping at long last.
The ST website has forums that have taken on a life of their own, from
what I hear.

Douglas himself is currently working on the HHGG movie script (see item
7) and a novel or two that will be neither HHGG nor Dirk Gently. He is
involved in some of the TDV projects (such as the ones above) but not
all of them. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to suggest that one main
purposes of douglasadams.com would be to keep people up to date, though
I'm sure it's not the only one.

And now, for those of you who are just itching to read a new DNA novel
(and what fan isn't?) we have the latest info from the beeb.com chat of
27 July. DNA's own words in response to the question of there being
any new novels in the works:

"Yes, there is one I'm working on at the moment which I hope to have
done a lot of work on by the end of the year ... but top priority at
the moment is to get my screen play done to everybody's satisfaction."

This is most likely one of the non-Hitchhiker, non-Dirk novel ideas
he's mentioned before. The link to the full chat transcript (actually,
a rather good chat with mostly non-bs questions that he answered
thoughtfully) is in item 12.

For those wondering, he has said that he'll likely do another HHGG
book, but again that will not be one of his next couple projects.

4. Does Douglas Adams read this group?

He hasn't posted regularly for several years. In fact, it was
significant hassling from people here on the group that chased him
away. He does post occasionally, generally when there is something of
particular import he would like everyone to know (see item 7). There
was a certainly an indication someone was scanning the group during the
time of silly movie rumors. It seems pretty clear that someone from
TDV is scanning afda, but it's gone back to pretty much nil from them
over the last few months.

He is now posting somewhat regularly in the Info Forum at
douglasadams.com. Threads with posts by DNA are even marked for easy
finding of what he writes. He's very behind the idea of h2g2.com, but
he's not really very active there.

5. What is his email address / web address / snail mail address?

Well, the web address again is douglasadams.com, where one of the
things he mentions is about his decidedly non-secret email address. He
would fans and others like us to please send email to askdna@tdv.com
rather than his other address. There's no guarantee of a personal
answer or any acknowledgment at all, but you never know. Keep in mind
that when he started posting things on the Forum at douglasadams.com,
he said that it was probably more likely to get a question answered
there than by email, so you may want to simply post your question to
the Forum. Snail mail should be sent to him at TDV's offices and *not*
care of Ed Victor like the FAQ used to say for so long. (This came
direct from Sophie Astin, DNA's assistant.) That address would be:
The Digital Village, 11 Maiden Lane, London, WC2E 7NA, UK Even more
contact info (phone, fax, etc.) is available on the TDV website.

6. What happened to The Salmon of Doubt?

Despite persistent publication dates in some ordering systems and a
bunch of fake reviews on Amazon.com, this book does not yet exist and
won't for some time (if at all). This won't stop some stores from
taking your order, but don't expect to see it anytime this millennium.
Basically, Douglas started writing a Dirk Gently book. Then Dirk
didn't fit. Then later he gave up on the idea for now. He has said
that many of the ideas he came up with belonged instead in a Hitchhiker
book, so the eventual fate of Salmon may be as the sixth part of the
Trilogy. Douglas has several other projects between now and then,
though.

7. What's this I hear about a movie?

The best description of what's happening is what DNA said himself in a
rare post to the newsgroup on 13 September 1998:

"Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well,
including this, I suppose.

"Here's where we are at.

"On Christmas Eve I agreed the deal with Disney to sell them the film
rights, to write the screenplay, and to be executive producer. Robbie
Stamp, my partner from The Digital Village, is also executive director.


[Note: this would have been Christmas Eve 1997]

"I have only just actually signed the deal. Everything in between has
been lawyer stuff. Really.

"The producer is Roger Birnbaum, of Caravan Pictures (now Spyglass
Pictures). There is no decision about which of Disney's various
imprints (Touchstone, Hollywood, etc) it will go out under. The
director will be Jay Roach, who directed Austin Powers, and is just
finishing a new movie called Mystery, Alaska.

"Now that the contract is signed, I am about to deliver a first draft
of the new screenplay. Other than me, nobody has seen it. No copy of
it exists outside my study.

"Jay is about to go into production of Austin Powers II.

"I will do rewrites to the screenplay after Jay, Roger and Disney have
reacted to it. Once everyone is happy that it's right, casting will
start. If all goes according to current intentions we should be
filming next summer for release in the following summer.

"That's it."

At a talk he gave in April here in Pittsburgh, he mentioned a few new
things. Apparently he's currently doing some rewrites of the script
and involved in some "discussion" about what actually will be in the
final version. He's not at all happy with the hurry up and wait
process this and other Hollywood-associated tasks seem to involve. In
fact, he thinks the slow progress will delay the release about 6
months. (That would put the release at Christmas season 2000 instead
of the summer 2000. Not sure if it's better or worse positioning; it
depends upon when the other big movies of the year are released.) He
also said he thinks the budget will be around $120 million. That's
pretty serious big-event film territory, and yet another part of the
reason things are going slow, since when you spend that much there are
a lot of people who want a say. (That's something he said, not just
me.) The final thing I remember him saying is that he's a great
protector of the Englishness of it, particularly the character of
Arthur Dent. He's not as concerned about the other main characters,
but Arthur must be English, period. Oh, yes, on this note he said he's
very happy at the success of Shakespeare in Love, which seems to have
given him even more leverage with the Englishness position.

Other than that, little has changed from above, except that the release
of Jay Roach's recently completed Mystery, Alaska has been moved to the
fall; it was actually completed before Austin Powers 2. No casting or
really much else has been decided as they're still doing a bit of
wrangling over the script. DNA is also planning to move to California
in August. (Not LA; you'll remember that he hates LA, and that that
feeling is somewhat tied up in a previous attempt to do a film of
HHGG.)

He has said that the film will be based roughly on the first book with
a bit of new material added in. It will not try to cover the whole
series or anything. If it's successful, they will do more.

By the way, this is not a second movie of HHGG. The other version is
the BBC TV Series, no matter how it's packaged on video. And despite
it being released and funded by a division of Disney, it's not an
animated film.

8. How do I find the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
or Bureaucracy computer games?

Well, the deal is that the rights to the HHGG game have reverted back
from Activision (successor to Infocom) to Douglas Adams. In fact, this
is why the game did not appear on the most recent Infocom collections.
(It does appear on "The Lost Treasures of Infocom" and "The Infocom
Sci-Fi Collection", both of which are now apparently out of print, or
at least very difficult to find.) If you do have an old version of the
game, however, it is possible to take the data files from it and use it
on virtually any type of operating system. Infocom designed the game
(and other text adventures they did) to use the same data file on any
sort of computer and utilize an interpreter program that was written
for that platform (often refered to as a Z Interpreter). The practical
upshot is that you can get a shareware or freeware Infocom interpreter
for nearly any platform you like. This FTP site has been recommended
as a source for several such interpreters:
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/interpreters/

Occasionally people sell their copies of these collections on the
auction website eBay (http://www.ebay.com).

Please note that unauthorized distribution of the game remains illegal,
and TDV may well take action against such distribution (including but
not limited to closing of web sites, lawsuits, concrete shoes, calling
in the Vogons, etc.)

You can now play a Java version of the HHGG game online at
douglasadams.com. (This was done with little fanfare. Not sure if the
Comic Relief site one is still meant to work or not.) Just hop on over
to http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/infocomjava.html to play the
game. I don't know to what degree they care about downloading the z
datafile itself, but its location can't be hidden anyway. It's at
http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/hhgg.z5 You can use it with any
z interpreter as mentioned above. Keep in mind the above remark about
unauthorized distribution. You should direct people to the site,
nowhere else.

There will be an all-new Hitchhiker game to go along with the movie,
though. The newest info from douglasadams.com
(http://www.douglasadams.com/news/) suggests both computer and console
versions will be available at the time of the movie's release. Work on
this game has in fact already started.

Bureaucracy is slightly easier. It appeared on a couple of Infocom
collections in the past, and appears on Activision's newest collection
of old Infocom stuff called "Masterpieces of Infocom", just released on
their "Essential Collection" budget label. This collection is very
inexpensive (around 10UKP/probably about US$10) runs on PC or Mac and
includes 30 or so other old Infocom text adventure games.

Look, it's simple. DO NOT post the games on your web site. DO NOT
post the address of any site (yours or otherwise) where the games
supposedly have been posted. DO NOT post requests for the games or
offers to send them. And most of all DO NOT post the games themselves
to the group. (It's NOT a binaries group.) Unauthorized distribution
of the games REMAINS ILLEGAL. Play the Java game online for HHGG; buy
the inexpensive collection for Bureaucracy.a

9. Where do I get other CDs, tapes, books, etc.?

The Radio Series is getting notoriously hard to get ahold of, at least
in the US, and the TV Series is approaching that point. In the UK and
other places in the EU you can still get these directly from the BBC
(www.bbcshop.com/bbc_shop/ and click on the Science Fiction section),
but the BBC won't ship across the pond, or, indeed, outside the EU. As
for walking into a store, well, the BBC shops do usually have them.
Info from Australia suggests the ABC shops are a good source for the
radio series. Info from the US suggests Media Play for the tv series
and possibly even the making-of video. I saw US-edition videos
recently at amazon.com. The best place for most of the world to look
for the radio series is probably amazon.co.uk, which carries the latest
BBC editions and ships anywhere. If you're a member of ZZ9 (see item
14) you can buy the radio series (and other merchandise) through their
members-only merchandise catalog. (Remember you have to be careful
with video because the North American format is different from most
other places in the world including Europe and Australia. Japan is the
same as the US and Canada, though.)

Some of the books are more difficult (impossible) to get than others.
My recent experience indicates that the UK-based online bookstores
(Internet Bookshop at www.bookshop.co.uk and amazon.co.uk) hold
possibility of getting UK editions of many of the books and audiobooks.
US-based online stores (Borders, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc.) and
their brick and mortar counterparts offer varying success at getting US
editions. The Dove Audio unabridged editions of all the novels read by
DNA himself can be purchased directly from www.doveaudio.com. Smaller
bookshops both on and off the web can be great sources of hard-to-find
stuff. If you scoore a radio scripts book at this point you are very
lucky indeed. Don't forget to check ebay.com for people selling used
stuff. Or, to search a large database of used and rare books, try
www.abebooks.com.

You can still get The Voyager Company's CD-ROM version of Last Chance
to See. The current web address for Voyager is:
http://voyager.learntech.com

Please note that like the game, the Radio Series and TV Series are
under copyright. Uploading or downloading audio or video files of them
could get you into trouble. Use a bit of common sense. Fair use
should allow short audio clips of under 30 seconds, though. (Standard
disclaimer applies. I do not have intimate knowledge of the law.)
Same with the books. Quotes are okay, but posting the whole things are
a big no-no. Expect to be shut down or worse if they catch you.

10. What do you get if you multiply six by nine?

Well, 54, of course. It can be argued that in base 13 you get 42.
Those of us who have followed this group for some time have seen the
revelations of those who have newly discovered this. (Some of us have
even been there ourselves.) It's an extremely tired discussion,
though. The joke, when Douglas wrote it, was simply that it was the
wrong question for the answer (or the wrong answer for the question, if
you prefer.) He has said himself "Nobody writes jokes in base 13."

11. What kind of stuff is in the complete FAQ?

Well, all kinds of good stuff, like differences between US and UK
versions of the books, more answers to less frequently asked questions,
song lyrics, biographical info about Douglas, all sorts of silly info
about the making of things, DNA and Dr. Who, links to other cool stuff
and the Question to the Ultimate Answer. Well, maybe not the last one.
Again, the address is http://www.atomiser.demon.co.uk/mh/faq/

Two of the better things linked to the FAQ page are the Ultra-Complete
Indices. These were undertaken a few years back by Mathias Maul and
are very useful when you are looking for a certain quote. You can find
The Ultra-Complete Index to The Hitchhiker's "Trilogy" or The
Ultra-Complete Index to Dirk Gently on the FAQ website.

In the places where these two documents overlap, info there should be
in agreement with info here. If we have any incorrect info, we are
therefore at least definitively inaccurate. Or maybe it's more like
this: the FAQ is definitive; reality is frequently inaccurate.

12. Where do I find HHGG/DNA _______ on the web?

Looking for sound clips, bad poetry, quotes, indices of certain
passages from the books and other such stuff? Check the FAQ site above
(item 11), douglasadams.com, the pages at TDV (see item 3), the ZZ9
website (see item 14) and the sites below first! You're bound to find
nearly anything you're looking for.

http://www.floor42.com/
(Kate Brown's very professional-looking site with general info, message
boards, a trivia quiz and more. The best looking DNA fan site I've
seen, period. Sometimes the info here is better than the info in the
FAQ. This site also has the best DNA bibilography, definitely better
than the one in the FAQ.)

http://come.to/afda/
(The unofficial official homepage of a.f.d-a, now under direction of
webmaster Iain Barker.)

http://www.zinezone.com/zones/arts/literature/science/adams/interview.html
(This recent (June 1999) interview is the best I've seen. There is
quite definitely some info in here that isn't found anywhere else that
I know of.)

http://www.chat.beeb.com/chat/transcripts/990727_adams/t990727_adams.html
(The transcript of the beeb.com (BBC) chat from 27 July 1999, probably
the best online chat with DNA that has taken place so far.)

(Note: new chats, interviews and such are cropping up frequently.
Stay tuned to douglasadams.com and the group for a heads-up on most of
them. Can't promise to catch them all!)

http://www.megadodo.com/
(Home of Project Galactic Guide. Conceived and executed long before
h2g2.com, the idea is a similar one. Everyone contributes entries on a
wide variety of subjects. While the execution may not be as flashy as
h2g2, it's worth a visit for the content alone.)

http://www.viracocha.demon.co.uk/
(Kieran John's slightly rough but promising site with a character
database and recreations of the guide entries among its unique
features.)

http://studio42.iwarp.com/
(Megan Branning's page now called Studio 42. Home of Bart's Guide to
the Galaxy. ;-)

http://hem1.passagen.se/fist/hhgttg/
(Tomas Wallin's page has a large selection of audio samples from the
radio series in RealAudio format.)

http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~nhughes/dna/
(Nathan Hughes' Douglas Adams Worship Pages - the original source for
lots of cool stuff. He used to maintain the FAQ.)

http://www.oocities.org/Area51/Hollow/1535/
(Lee Haslam has totally overdesigned this site, but it's one of the
cooler overdesigns I've seen. I like how all the info of the site
appears on a sort-of HHGG-like screen when you press the link.)

http://www.oocities.org/Area51/Station/4711/
(Slartibartfast, from the country with the award-winning coastline, has
put together a bit of useful info. Most of it can probably found
somewhere else, but it was the button at the bottom that says "Do not
press this button" and how that is set up that did it for me. Maybe
I'm just easily amused.)

http://www.vogon.com/
(Vogon Heavy Industries is home to an impressive Java HHGG
implementation which I finally did get to work recently. Alas, it
appears to have been neglected for some time. Still, the design is
good and concept is certainly sound, worth visiting just to see how
similar it is to the Guide described in the original versions.)

[If you want me to plug your website, please post or email your web
address, and I'll take a look.]

13. Where else can I interact with Douglas Adams fans?

Since this group has filled with so much, er, off-topic silliness
(nothing bad if you like it! but hey, some don't), Stuart has created
the afda-news moderated mailing list at onelist.com. All messages sent
to the list will be approved by a moderator before being sent to
everyone else. To join, go to
http://www.onelist.com/viewarchive.cgi?listname=afda%2Dnews and click
on the "Subscribe to this Community" link. In fact, there are 7 or 8
other lists on OneList with DNA-related subjects, but somehow I'm
guessing none of them receive that much traffic, even though they are
unmoderated. I've joined several to see what, if anything, goes on in
them. Mailing lists are usually not my thing, though.

The forum at douglasadams.com is a good place to check out. If you
post a thoughtful enough question in the info forum, you might even get
an answer from DNA himself! In other sections, much silliness can be
found.

The new h2g2.com is certainly full of DNA fans, and is just a cool
concept in all respects.

The forum at Floor 42 (www.floor42.com) has become rather active as
well. It's populated by some of the same people who frequent the
douglasadams.com forum, as well as some others. Many of these people
do not frequent afda, so you might meet some new fellow fans. Floor 42
also maintains a contact list. AOL Instant Messenger seems to be the
most likely chat method, though you'll also find some ICQ numbers and
possibly even more ways to be in contact with the people listed there.
And you can add your own listing, of course, if you'd like people to
contact you.

Many afda regulars chat via Internet Relay Chat. Fire up your IRC
client, login to irc.slashnet.org and join channel #afda. If you need
an IRC client, it seems that mIRC is rather popular for Windows. For
Mac it's IRCle. And there are clients for other assorted operating
systems as well. You can find these in the usual software download
places. I'm not going to write a primer for IRC in here, partly
because it would take too long, but mainly because I'm not really
qualified. Floor 42 has an IRC channel as well, #Floor42 on
irc.dal.net. I mention this mainly because DALnet's homepage,
www.dalnet.com, has some good general info if you're new to IRC.

14. Is there a fan club? (ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha info)

ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha (aka ZZ9) is the official Hitchhiker's Guide To The
Galaxy Appreciation Society. It was established in 1980 and have
released a quarterly magazine, Mostly Harmless, full of interviews,
fiction, news, art, discussion, and so on, ever since. They also
produce a wide range of merchandise related to Douglas Adams
exclusively for members of ZZ9. They come highly recommended by many
people on the newsgroup. They also arrange and coordinate meetings for
fans of Hitchhiker's Guide, mainly based around the UK. The society is
based in the UK, but it recently became able to accept memberships in
US dollars. Current details, including contact addresses and so forth
can be found at their homepage:
http://www.arcfan.demon.co.uk/sf/clubs/zz9/

Thanks for reading!

That's all I have for now. If you have suggestions for more questions
or new info on these ones, please send it/them!

CrazyOne <---

The presented texts may contain copyrighted material. Trademarks are property of their respective owners.

© 1999 Uwe Milde

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Last edited on 02.10.99.