I just received a copy of the first anthology to which I contributed, which was surprisingly exciting for me. It will surprise no one here to know that the Original Cyberpunk contributed one of the best essays of the lot, which are about 75 percent interesting and occasionally insightful takes on THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY and 25 percent excuses for the writer to talk about her mother, herself, her interests and nearly everything but Douglas Adams or his work. Jacqueline Carey’s self-parodying piece on assuring the reader how she, an American, nevertheless “gets” British humor may be the most amusing essay for all that its comedy is inadvertant; it has to be read to be believed. Seriously, it’s entitled “Yes, I Got It.” Well, good for you, lady.
As for me, I contributed a number of run-on sentences, if you can believe that, as well as a take that is so entirely different from everyone else’s both in terms of substance and style as to cause the reader to conclude that I crashed the party. And yet, Don DeBrandt not only managed to top my a priori outrageous interpretation of the text, but did in a way that is surprisingly convincing until you put the book down and say to yourself: wait, that can’t possibly be right.
Anyhow, here’s the editor’s intro to my essay, THE SUBVERSIVE DISMAL SCIENTIST: DOUGLAS ADAMS AND THE RULE OF UNREASON
It’s a little known fact that Douglas Adams was close friends with Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, whom he met while obtaining his doctorate in economics at the University of Chicago. An advisor and confidant to Margaret Thatcher, he was responsible for much of Thatcher’s economic platform and was instrumental in her rise to power. Actually no. None of that was true. But it could have been….
THE ANTHOLOGY AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE
BenBella Books
240 pages
$14.95