I was going to paste up another page tonight, and explain why I've been lax about updating lately, and so on and so forth. But a few hours ago I found out that Douglas Adams died of a heart attack last night He was 49. I called my friend Katie to tell her, and we basically repeated, "That ain't right," at each other for a while. Katie compared it to finding out that Jim Henson had died, almost exactly 11 years ago. (Henson died 5/16/90).

There's going to be a zilliion memorial webpages for DNA, I'm sure. And I feel a bit cheap about adding mine to the mix. I really like Katie's comparison to Henson, though. I feel the same way about them both, which is, I don't know, cheated? I didn't know these people, and I won't pretend that this is a death that is personal to me. It's more a matter of feeling, "But wait! I was looking forward to what else you were going to do! You did things differently, and we need more of that!" The jealousy of an audience is a terrible thing, perhaps.

Let's go over the facts. Footlights at Cambridge led to a connection with Monty Python's Flying Circus which led to absolutely nothing, which led to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and all that it begat. And then there was Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Last Chance to See and the founding of The Digital Village, which created the marvelous Starship Titanic. And most recently The Digital Village morphed into H2G2, an ambitious attempt to recreate the Hitchhiker's Guide with voluntary contributions from anyone who had something to say. I think the BBC has taken it under it's wing, so it may live on. It was lovely to watch it grow, and I have been watching. And listening. I vaguely remember when NPR began airing the original Hitchhiker's radio shows -- my brother had heard of them and insisted we listen to, and tape, the shows. Which led to our reading the books. We were all hooked pretty quickly. I very vaguely recall sitting in an armchair, holding the book in front of me and reading along as we listened to the radio show (or possibly one of my brother's tapes). Somehow I managed to cope when the books and the radio show diverged -- and was able to reconcile them when The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts was published. I just looked at my copy, and I've read it so many times that the cover is completely detached from the binding now. I remember wandering about in elementary school, quoting bits of Marvin's depressive monlogues. I seem to recall that my friends were amused when I said, "I've a terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side," but I have no idea why they were amused. But then, I have no idea why I was amused; I look back and wonder how many of the jokes I got.

I still have this lingering fear that I'm contributing to the perception that anyone who reads SF is a fanboy in the making, someone who obsessively worships every word of their chosen guru. I think this is a bit different. Roddenbury and Lucas are, much to my chagrin, worshipped because they created alternate worlds, utopias where good and evil were plain to see. I'll spare you all from digressions about the relative worth of such cartoon worlds; my point is that no one read DNA's books for this kind of moral purity. If anything, his books empahsized chaos as a guiding force. Vogons were evil, but they were a stuffy, bureaucratic kind of evil. Evenly matched with Ford, Zaphod, and Arthur, who were good only in a particularly self-serving way. I didn't worship DNA's every word. I didn't care for So Long and Thanks for All the Fish and I disliked The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul even more. But I read them for the odd moments when I caught a glimpse of the person behind the book. Last Chance to See is lovely for the same reason; yes, I'm concerned about the rate at which human expansion is wiping out endangered species, but there are a hundred books on that topic I could read. Last Chance to See is a delight because you get a sense of DNA just talking to you for a few hours, telling you about the strange creatures (some of which are humans) he's encountered in his travels. It's a trip around the world with a paricularly amusing companions, for the cost of a paperback book.

Let's make it clear. Was DNA a great literary figure, an author on the "must read" list, someone who reshaped what fiction could be? No, certainly not. He's not important or significant in the way that Joyce or Shakespeare or even (cough, hack, spit) Dickens are. He might come close to Swift, in the way his themes were timely and timeless, but even that might be pushing it. But to people my age, and particularly to people who read SF, I think he was important because he introduced us to satire in the guise of slapstick, and most importantly, to humanism. DNA's books mock humanity, but there is an affection for people there too, and I think they encouraged a lot of readers to look at the world with exasperation at humanity's stupidity, but tolerance for it as well. And judging by the reaction to his death, that meant a lot to a great many people.

As I write this, I'm watching a tape I have of The South Bank Show about DNA. It was done just before Mostly Harmless came out. There are portions where you can see bits of the book, which is funny since most of the excerpts in the show are very different from what ended up in the published version. The show is also treasured because it features characters from various DNA creations -- the Electric Monk from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Ford, Marvin, Arthur, and the enigmatic bird from Mostly Harmless . Oh, and Adams himself. All of whom interact with each other and comment on the quantum mechanics that have allowed them all to meet. I can't describe it properly, but it's very funny and cleverly done.

The show does establish fairly convincingly that DNA was a very intelligent and witty person. Which seems obvious, but there are plenty of people who come off very well on paper, and very badly in person. Watching this show, one gets the impression that if anything, DNA was limited by prose. He had one of those minds which can bounce backwards and forwards and sideways and see connections that a linear thought process won't reach. Which has it's drawbacks; DNA was notorious for failing to meet his deadlines, and there are several people in this show who comment on the fact that he'd show them a draft of something, and then turn up a few weeks later with a new, shorter version -- when he rewrote, he rewrote from start to finish. I can empathize with that, although I'm a bit better about pushing through when I absolutely must meet a deadline.

This show also features snippets of interviews by such luminaries as Stephen Fry, Geoffrey Perkins, Richard Dawkins (inventer of the concept of "memes"), and John Lloyd. Stephen Fry is another one of those special minds I admire, and no pressure, Stephen, but please don't die unexpectedly any time soon. I can't take much more of this. Fry and Adams have both written books which are so fabulously plotted that, upon finishing them, I immediately turn back to the first page so I can reread them and see how all the clues were there all along. I know a lot of people didn't like Mostly Harmless, and I maintain this is because they only read it once. On a first reading, it's almost incoherent. The second time through, you can see how there's a joke on page 38 which only makes sense if you know what happens on page 277. And so on. Fry writes the same way, and it boggles me.

A few years ago I applied for a job with The Digital Village, the company DNA founded with a few others. It was a joint application with two of my friends, and I thought it was fairly amusing. I didn't really expect that anything would come from it, but it was one of those, "what the hell" deals. I got an email back from DNA's assistant, who said nice things about our application, but explained that they weren't hiring any more people at the moment. (Plus, we were all in the U.S., which we admitted could make our commute difficult.) But she was nice and said she'd think about us in the future, although she certainly could have been lying. It really doesn't matter, though. It was such a nice daydream, to imagine working with people as smart and funny as they all seemed to be. (At the time, the site had pages for all of the employees, so I'm not just guessing that they were all smart and funny.) Anyway, I bring this all up to explain why this message just made me even sadder. It just makes it even worse to think that, not only is DNA gone, but the group he helped form is gone as well.

I wish you could all see this tape I'm watching. I want to quote bits of it, but if I did I'd never stop because you need context to get the jokes. Yes, I'm a fan, but he was smart, and funny, and did things I didn't expect. His friends and family will miss him more than his fans were, and I won't be shameless enough to claim their pain is the same as mine. But I am sad. Because I wanted to read more of his words, I wanted the pleasure of seeing those thoughts happen. DNA really did seem to like people as individuals, despite his cynicism about society at large. And maybe that's what gave him such a connection to his fans; maybe we all felt like, if we'd had the opportunity, he'd have had a drink with us and gabbed about the world. As I said at the beginning, I just feel sad and cheated. I feel sure that DNA had more to say, and I wanted to hear it.

• Neil Gaman, who wrote Don't Panic, mentions a few things about Adams here.

• Richard Dawkins wrote a lament of his own.

• And here's an article from New Scientist about the recently named Arthurdent asteroid.

• Some fans have posted messages at DNA's official site. There are several hundred posts already. I think this is geekdom's version of Princess Di's death. Except that DNA did a bit more than marry someone famous.

• The BBC also has a posting board.

• And this is where H2G2 correspondents have added their thoughts.