...and I am, apparently, the world’s leading authority on Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The Observer called me “the world’s leading Douglasadamsologist.”
I am the author of two books on the subject: The Pocket Essential Hitchhiker’s Guide, a paperback companion to the works of Douglas Adams published by Pocket Essentials in 2001; and Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2003.
In addition, I was asked by Titan Books to revise and update Neil Gaiman’s book Don’t Panic: Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for its third edition in 2002. (Chapters 1–22 of this book, and the appendices, are by Neil; chapters 23–26 are by David K Dickson; chapters 27-30, and a few footnotes in the earlier chapters, are by me.)
In 2002 I suggested to Pan Macmillan that it was high time that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts, originally published in 1985, came back into print. The result was the 25th Anniversary Edition, published in 2003. This includes the script of a ‘lost’ thirteenth episode of Hitchhiker’s Guide which I discovered during my research for Hitchhiker. I wrote some notes on the origin and discovery of that script and contributed biographical notes on the cast and crew of the radio series (I also suggested the cover design!).
Click on the appropriate cover to buy any of these books from Amazon.co.uk (for links to American, French, German and Japanese Amazon pages, go here):
In addition to all the above, I am the Research Archivist for ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, the Official Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Appreciation Society. Founded in 1980, ZZ9 publishes a quarterly newsletter called Mostly Harmless, holds meetings around the UK (and very occasionally elsewhere) and produces a range of exclusive merchandise, including ‘Don’t Panic’ towels, black-on-black T-shirts and two-headed ‘Beeblebears’. I was previously President of ZZ9 for two years and before that I edited Mostly Harmless for two years.
When The Salmon of Doubt was being edited in 2001, I was asked to help with tracking down and identifying uncollected Douglas Adams material. Editor Peter Guzzardi gave me a very nice acknowledgement at the back of the book. The forthcoming 3-CD set of Douglas Adams at the BBC was my idea and I helped with the research as well as providing some rare recordings. Most recently I contributed an essay on the history of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition coming soon from Harmony Books.
I am often approached to speak about Hitchhiker’s Guide on radio and TV; notable appearances have included Reading the Decades on BBC 2, Top Ten TV: Sci-Fi on Channel 4, and The Big Read: Battle of the Books on BBC 3. I also provided help and advice to the BBC documentary Douglas Adams: The Man Who Blew Up the Earth and the biographical feature-length documentary Life, the Universe and Douglas Adams.
Let me stress: I do have other interests! I’m a big fan of science fiction and horror in general, and I have written about SF, comedy, horror, pop music, movies, TV, radio, science, etc for The Sunday Times, New Scientist, Record Collector, Book and Magazine Collector, Fangoria, SFX (on which I used to be Deputy Editor), Video Watchdog, Shivers, Starburst, Psychotronic Video, Doctor Who Magazine, Hammer Horror, MonsterScene and – for reasons which are still unclear – the Singapore version of Elle. You can read some of my SF/horror movie reviews and interviews on my other site.