Douglas Adam's Starship Titanic Review

The classic Douglas Adam didn’t always write books. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy actually started as a long-running radio play before the book was written. He also did a few text-based adventure games for Infocom, including the utterly amazing Bureaucracy. When the landmark Myst released, Adams dreamed of doing a similar game, but with conversations (as Myst was eerily silent). The result was Starship Titanic.

While the novelization of said game may be have “Douglas Adams’s” on the cover, the apostrophe warns us that it’s actually authored by someone else, in this case ex-python Terry Jones, himself a master of the dry British wit. 

The Starship Titanic herself is a ultra-mega cruise liner, whose construction was so expensive and extravagant that it bankrupted the economy of an entire planet. The debacle continues until it suffers a Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure on its maiden voyage, only to land on some poor earthling's house. To compensate them for their loss, the occupants are given free tickets, and it all unfurls from there, much like a what happens when you tug on a loose thread in a sweater (for the characters more so then the readers).

To his credit, Jones does a great job of keeping Adam’s rhythm. The bizarre observations and metaphors remain and in true Adam’s fashion, often the most hilarious part is simply the method of writing itself. If you enjoyed Adams' writing, you'll enjoy Jones mimicking. 

The downfall of Adams later books was the plot tried too hard and the humor became too bitter. While Starship avoids this, it develops its own issues. Starship Titanic’s issue is largely the blandness of the characters. Little develops about them until the end, and even then they seem more all to “regular”. Compared to the bizarre cast of Hitchhiker, they really don’t hold a candle. I kept imagining a Zaphod, Ford, Marvin or Dent to walk in and steal the scene, but they never showed up.

Adam's Python Cameo

While the first two Hitchhiker books are as highly recommended as they come (I find myself quoting them verbatim often), I can only recommend Titanic to Adams fans. It’s better than Mostly Harmless, but it’s far short of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

The most awesome part of this whole deal is that it connects Adams deeper in British culture. Not only did he write a Dr. Who episode and star in a two-second cameo in a Flying Circus skit, and named the final Pink Floyd album, but a Python wrote the novelization of one of his games. That just makes me geek out.

But seriously, go play Bureaucracy. You’ll need a walkthrough, but it’s almost his best work. You can even read it here, which is just as funny. Just experience it somehow.