The Life and "Other" Works of Douglas Adams Quiz

Answer: bartender

Douglas Adams, though a phenomenal author, did many other jobs before finally making a dent, (pardon the minor pun), in the writing world. He was quite busy in the "real" world before finally settling down to become a full time author of books, radio, computer games, and television material in 1979. Though these world experiences might have slowed his entry into the writing world, they definitely seem to have given him good material!

Answer: 3

In addition to the three serials he wrote or co-wrote, he was also the script editor for the seventeenth season. The three serials were "The Pirate Planet", "City of Death", and "Shada", though "Shada" was not broadcast due to industrial disputes.

Answer: The Meaning of Liff

It was finished around the same time as "The Meaning of Life" by Monty Python. They complained that the title "The Meaning of Liff" was an obvious knock off of "The Meaning of Life" but nevertheless Adams was able to get the book published without a major lawsuit.

Answer: Dirk Gently

The title of the first novel Dirk Gently appears in is "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency". Douglas Adams described the book as "a kind of ghost-horror-detective-time-travel-romantic-comedy-epic, mainly concerned with mud, music and quantum mechanics."

Answer: Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy is based on Adams' experience with paperwork on a trip to Madagascar and also based on one of the times he moved and ran into a lot of paperwork trouble. In the game the player has a simulated blood pressure meter that increases when the player encounters bureaucratic annoyances and lowers when going through a period of time with no annoyances.

The player has an aneurysm if the blood pressure meter gets too high. The game was released by Infocom in 1987 with little fanfare, though Douglas Adams personally said that he was very pleased with how it came out.

Answer: Save the Rhino

He participated in said climb as part of a group in 1994. He wore the rhino suit while traveling to the mountain and not during the true climbing but it is still quite a feat to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

Answer: 2

The two books are "The Meaning of Liff" and "The Deeper Meaning of Liff". If you've heard of "sniglets", (an American comedy piece about words that don't exist, but should), then now you know where the inspiration for sniglets came from, these books!

Answer: 2001

On May 11, 2001, he died of a heart attack while working out in his private gym. He was 49 years old. He is survived by his widow Jane Belson and his daughter Polly Adams.

Answer: Terry Jones

Terry Jones was also the voice actor for a parrot in the game, earning himself the unusual credit of "novel written and parrot performed by". Douglas Adams was pleased with the end result of the work, as he had long been a fan of Terry Jones' work, and had worked with him on previous occasions as well.

Answer: 2002

The book is a collection of essays and an incomplete novel by Douglas Adams that were published after his death. The incomplete novel was what Adams' had planned to be a Dirk Gently book, though he said that it "could" have been turned into a "hitchhiker's" book.