"Hitchhiker's Guide" Author Dies

Mon., May. 14, 2001 1:50 PM PDT by Emily Farache

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Douglas Adams, the British writer famous for masterminding the classic sci-fi cult novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and its sequels, died suddenly of an apparent heart attack Friday at a gym in Santa Barbara, California. He was 49.

"It was a very sudden and unexpected death," Sophie Astin, his personal assistant, told Reuters. Adams had been in good health, Astin said, and did not have a history of heart trouble.

Created as a late-night BBC radio series in 1978 about a group of galactic travelers who survive the demolition of Earth (destroyed to make way for a space highway, natch), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy quickly earned legendary status among science-fiction and fantasy buffs. The Monty Python-esque show was spun off into a series of novels, which have sold more than 15 million copies, as well as a television series, a stage play, two records and an interactive video game.

Adams said he was inspired to write The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy while backpacking with a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe. He says he was staring up at the stars when he realized that intergalactic thumbing could provide the basis for a new kind of science fiction.

"There really is no reason why we should wait until we can build our own long-distance spacecraft before being able to travel the universe," he once proclaimed. "I rather like the idea of being able to hitch a ride on somebody else's."

Before his untimely death, Adams had been working to turn his Guide series, which sets out to answer the question of life, the universe and everything (the answer is 42) into a film and an online guide called h2g2.

Adams got his start writing scripts for another cult BBC classic, Doctor Who. In addition to his Hitchhiker series, he wrote several books about bumbling "holistic" detective Dirk Gently. He also contributed travel essays and environmental-themed pieces to many magazines.

A self-proclaimed gadget geek, Adams was an early-adopter of personal computer and Internet technologies. Calling himself "cheif fantasist," Adams launched the Digital Village, a production company specializing in developing comedy science-fiction adventure games on CD-ROMs, including the critically acclaimed Starship Titanic.

Adams was born in Cambridge, England, in March 1952. He is survived by his wife Jane Belson, whom he married in 1991, and their 6-year-old daughter, Polly.