The Hitchhiker's Guide to Douglas Adams

Imaginary Worlds

Eric Molinsky

Arts, Science Fiction, Fiction, Society & Culture

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Arvind Ethan David was a student, he decided to adapt the Douglas Adams novel Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency into a play. Arvind didn’t imagine that Adams would show up to see the play (which he did), nor that Arvind would grow up to become a caretaker of Adams’ legacy. Arvind just released an audiobook called Douglas Adams: The Ends of The Earth, produced by Pushkin Industries. It features unheard archival audio of Douglas Adams and interviews with friends and colleagues of the late author who ponder what Adams was trying to tell us, and whether the great humorist always meant what he said. I talk with Arvind about the origin of the audiobook, and we hear an excerpt on why Adams publicly rejected the label of being a science fiction author -- even though he had created a sci-fi cultural phenomenon with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief.
0:07.1	I'm Eric Malinsky.
0:09.4	Don't panic. So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.
0:13.2	42.
0:14.8	If you've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you know what I just said was funny.
0:19.6	Or at least it's funny in the context of those books. The Hitchhackers Guide to the Galaxy, you know what I just said was funny, or at least it's funny in the context of those
0:21.5	books. The Hitchhackers Guide to the Galaxy began in 1978 as a radio show written by Douglas
0:28.8	Adams. It was so popular, Adams turned it into a novel that he wrote a bunch of sequels.
0:35.7	The main character is an Englishman named Arthur Dent.
0:39.1	He is one of the few survivors, after an alien race of bureaucrats called the Vogons,
0:45.7	blow up the earth to make way for an interstellar highway.
0:50.6	Discovering the books of Douglas Adams has become a rite of passage for kids and teenagers around the world.
0:57.0	Arvin, Ethan David, was one of those kids.
1:01.0	Today, he is co-writing and producing a theatrical version of The Hitchhiker's Guide that will debut in London in the fall.
1:08.0	He co-produced a Netflix series starring Elijah Wood that was based on another
1:13.4	Douglas Adams novel called Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency. And Arvin just released an
1:20.7	audiobook called Douglas Adams, The Ends of the Earth. The style of the audiobook sounds like a
1:27.1	podcast or a radio documentary.
1:29.5	And he explores what Douglas Adams was trying to tell us
1:32.8	and whether he always meant what he said.
1:36.2	Douglas Adams died in 2001 at the age of 49.
1:41.0	I never read Douglas Adams when I was younger,
	...

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