Talk:Dimension of Miracles

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Untitled[edit]

Is Carmody a civil servant? I can't find a mention of this. Carmody (talk) 10:54, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some kind of unspecified office worker as I recall......an important point which I think should be mentioned is that this book is an obvious source of the very popular Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, there are clear parallel passages. Obviously an editor can't just write that, it would count as original research, but presumably some science fiction critic somewhere has noticed and commented on it. The book also contains the quote (last few sentences) "In the long run, I never expected to get out of this Universe alive". Versions of this quote can be found in the language as a proverb or cliche now, I think this book may be the source...Jeremy (talk) 03:46, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Carmody is an office worker and an underachiever, where he works or what he does is not specified in the book (although he is probably in advertising, maybe an architect, depending how you interpret chapter 25). It has no bearing on the story. In the final chapter he returns to "his" New York, but it is probably not the New York we know. The prize was originally meant for a character named Karmod, who relinquishes his prize after some disussion (it is suggested that Karmod can look into the future and prefers not to own the prize).

Douglas Adams has stated that he had read several science fiction writers, claiming that Robert Sheckley has been an influence, it could be that Adams saw Robert Sheckley as Kilgore Trout is depicted by Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse 5. But I agree with Jeremy, that would probably constitute original research. People like Neil Gaiman^[1] or Terry Platt, will probably know the answer. I read the book because Douglas Adams recommended it, but I cannot put that in the article. JHvW 18:06, 19 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]

^ Neil Gaiman on Robert Sheckley and Douglas Adams

Adams on Sheckley[edit]

I have owned a copy of Don't Panic! for thirty years and in the book, Adams is directly quoted saying that he didn't know of Sheckley at the time of writing Hitch-Hiker's Guide (radio series and first book) but picked up Dimensions of Miracles because people were telling him (after the first novel had been printed), "if you're writing this stuff then you must know the work of Robert Sheckley". Reading it, he found the resemblances eerie, but concluded "those are coincidences". So it's not just Gaiman attributing this to him, Adams is on record saying it himself.

This doesn't mean that it absolutely has to be true, obviously questions of priority and writer's pride might come into play here, but at any rate the claim should be attributed to Adams, not Gaiman - and also, their slighly different ways of phrasing it should be respected. Gaiman is speaking almost twenty years after the interview and five years after Adams' death. 188.150.79.228 (talk) 00:22, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Neil Gaiman on Robert Sheckley and Douglas Adams

[1]