Douglas Adams was responsible for one of the most beloved comic novels in science-fiction history—The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy—and its four sequels. He also co-authored a brilliant book about endangered species (Last Chance to See) and two books of neologisms, in addition to his two strange fantasies about "holistic detective" Dirk Gently. But his output over the course of his 20-year-plus career was erratic. The gaps between his books kept growing, and his newer novels were increasingly strained. The final Hitchhiker's book, written a decade ago during a deeply depressing period of Adams' life, was less a comedy than an aggressive repudiation of sequel-hungry fans. Adams occasionally claimed that he intended to write a less dismal follow-up someday. But he died in 2001, leaving readers mourning both him and their hopes for more of his singular work.

Until now. After Adams' death, editor Peter Guzzardi went through Adams' personal computer, rooting out various incomplete or uncollected projects for an anthology of pieces by and about the author. The new book, The Salmon of Doubt, bears the misleading subtitle Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time, and is broken up into sections dubbed "Life," "The Universe" and "And Everything," in an evocation of the title of the third Hitchhiker's book. Actually, its only significant Hitchhiker's connection is that it includes the previously published Hitchhiker's short story "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe." Salmon has more links with Adams' Dirk Gently books—its centerpiece is an 80-page chunk of what might have become a new Dirk Gently novel.

Also included in the anthology are various newspaper and magazine pieces Adams wrote about such diverse topics as alcohol, computers, The Beatles and the act of scaling Mt. Kilimanjaro in a rhinoceros costume. There are reprints of Adams interviews conducted by sources as disparate as American Atheist, Virgin.net and The Onion, and solicitations to come discuss specific issues at Adams' BBC-sponsored Web site, www.h2g2.com. There are liner notes, speeches, essays, bits of fiction and even what seem to be unpublished humorous thoughts. Perhaps most valuable of all, there's a lengthy newspaper article, reprinted from Britain's The Guardian, which offers invaluable insights into how Adams worked and lived, what he was like as a person and why his career worked out as it did.

A final feast fit for a writer's wake

It's usually creepy when a publisher mines a dead writer's unpublished works for fragments of incomplete projects that can be lumped together and sold. At best, it's ghoulish; at worst, it's opportunistic profiteering. That's why it's shocking that Salmon is such an essential book. It's basically just scraps, and many of the scraps weren't even written by Adams himself. But it's still a hilarious, warm, funny collection that paints an aggregate portrait of Adams as a complex and very human figure who struggled with depression, low self-esteem and writer's block, but also dove into life as a glorious and highly amusing venture.

Part of the credit goes to Adams' typically British sense of humor, which walks the fine line between dry wit and sheer absurdity. Another key factor is the wide range of his interests. In one piece, he discusses, in all seriousness, his plans to ride a manta ray in Australia, then do a comparative test drive between it and a one-man submarine, and then get a magazine to pay him to describe the entire event. In the very next piece, he's introducing P.G. Wodehouse's final book. Later, he discusses Bach, the fourth age of sand and Macintosh software. Salmon jumps all over the place thematically, but sticks close to Adams' typical style: light, wry and prone to bizarre whipcrack metaphors and logical hairpin turns. Adams was a technophile and a traveler, and his pieces about technology and travel are insightful and informative as well as hilarious. And of course, there's his fiction.

As the centerpiece of the book, the unfinished Dirk Gently segment (which, Adams claims, might have eventually mutated into a Hitchhiker's novel, though it's hard to see how) is mostly saddening. It raises many questions, while practically screaming that they will never be answered. The many interviews and articles provide a lot of fascinating information about the author, but they can't help determine where this tragically incomplete story was headed. (Possibly even Adams himself didn't know.) And some people may want to avoid raising those unanswerable questions. But for Adams' devoted fans, this is more than a taste of lost pleasures: it's a rich, diverse feast, albeit a sadly final one.