C.1. Starship Titanic
Starship Titanic is the current big project of The Digital Village and Douglas Adams. Its full name will in fact be Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic, a computer game released Easter 1998. Douglas has played an integral part in the writing of the game, being one of the "ideas men".
The Starship Titanic novel has now been written, by Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame), who also voices the demented parrot in the game itself. This novel was published just in time for Christmas '97. It's published by Pan Macmillan, and it costs £5.99.
It seems pointless to supply too much more information here when a great deal of official information can be found at the official Starship Titanic web site at:
A very early (around 1990, possibly earlier) working title for the project that eventually became Starship Titanic (above). Either that, or it was a badly overheard and corrupted rumour. Either way, it doesn't exist in its own right.
The Digital Village (TDV) are the multiple media company with whom Douglas Adams works, although Douglas is only one of the eight directors, and TDV are involved in quite a large number of projects, several of which do not directly involve Douglas at all.
Their first major release is Starship Titanic (see C.1.). After that, a project with Douglas' backing and part-involvement is an online Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy (see C.3.1.).
The Digital Village are working on a new Internet service called The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which has been described as "much more than just a search engine and much more than that". The project has Douglas' endorsement although he is not as closely linked with it as he is with, say, Starship Titanic.
TDV are keeping this project quite tightly under wraps at the current time, and it is not expected to appear on the World Wide Web (and beyond) in the immediate future. Keep your eyes peeled and fingers crossed, though.
The sixth book in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy may well be The Salmon of Doubt- see C.4.
Douglas Adams sold the rights to a Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy movie in the early 1980s, to his regret, and then bought them back in the early 1990s at considerable personal expense. It was also at one time in the hands of Michael Nesmith's production company Pacific Arts.
However the rights have recently been picked up by Mike Myers. More news as it happens. A lot of people are quite optimistic about it this time.
As for discussions about who should play who in the forthcoming movie, the discussion is wearing seriously thin and most people are now bored of it.
The Salmon of Doubt may or may not be Douglas Adams' next book, depending on what he thinks of in the bath. However, it is quite definitely not published yet, no matter what any number of online bookstores might want to tell you. It has had publishing dates dating back to 1994, but it has still not been written. So there.
The Salmon of Doubt was originally going to be called A Spoon Too Short, and it was going to be a Dirk Gently book. The blurb went something like this:
ISBN numbers have been bandied around for this book but none of them are currently relevant or useful. If you have ordered the Salmon of Doubt through a bookshop, cancel the order.
Tim Browse, of The Digital Village, said this about The Salmon of Doubt:
C.1.1. Dark Ship Titanic
C.2. The Digital Village
C.2.1. What's the Digital Village's URL?
C.3. The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy
C.3.1. Online
C.3.2. The books
C.3.3. The movie
C.4. The Salmon of Doubt
A gorgeous woman approaches Dirk Gently, holistic detective, and requests his help in finding the missing half of her beloved cat. He looks at her with the disdain he reserves for achingly beautiful women he knows will never go out with him. 'I don't do cats,' he sneers. Happily, he doesn't have time to regret his decision before untraceable deposits in Dirk's checking account indicate that someone has indeed hired him. But who? And for what? Acting on his principle that all things are interconnected, he tails the very next person who walks by his London apartment.
"The following day, in Los Angeles, Dirk finds himself enmeshed in a case that will turn up the missing bit of cat, replenish his depleted finances, and answer the most important question of all: What is the salmon of doubt, anyway?"
At one point an American trade journal even featured a front cover for the novel, with the subtitle "a Dirk Gently novel". Dirk was eventually written out of The Salmon of Doubt because he was the "wrong fit." It is possible that The Salmon of Doubt may now be the sixth book in the immensely inaccurately-named Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, but even in this case, the book will not show up in the immediate future."Don't hold your breath. Not even if you're a Polynesian oyster diver. ...It will most likely come out eventually, rather then when other people want him to do it."