The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future: Douglas Adams and the Digital World

by Mitch Benn (Narrator)

Technology affects almost everything we do, and its possibilities can be both exhilarating and daunting. This collection features two radio documentaries exploring Douglas Adams’ vision of the digital future, plus Did Douglas Get it Right?, presented by Mitch Benn.

Douglas Adams was a passionate technology enthusiast. His bestselling The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is full of futuristic tech, and in 1990 he predicted something very like the World Wide Web in the BBC2 film Hyperland. So in 1999, he was the natural choice to present Radio 4’s The Internet: The Last 20th Century Battleground. In it, he looked at the explosion in online communication, the evolution of cyberspace, and the risks and opportunities of the new virtual world.

A year later, he hosted The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Future, in which he and his guests discussed how music, publishing, broadcasting, and society in general would be transformed in the 21st century. Sadly, this was Adams’ last BBC project: his death in 2001 meant he would never see if his visions came true.

However, in 2015, Mitch Benn dipped into the archives for a follow-up programme, Did Douglas Get it Right?, revisiting Adams’ predictions to discover how prescient (or otherwise) they turned out to be...

Fascinating, funny and insightful, these three programmes are a wonderful tribute to Douglas Adams, and a treat for fans and futurists alike.


Produced by Mark Rickards.

Genres: Nonfiction

1 pages, Audio CD

Published March 5, 2020

About the author

Mitch Benn is a British stand-up comedian, author, satirical songwriter, musician and actor. He is perhaps best known as the resident comic songwriter on BBC Radio 4's The Now Show from 1999 to 2016. As a comedian, Mitch has toured extensively in the UK and internationally over the last 20 years. Mitch's voice acting credits include Neil Gaiman's Good Omens TV series and the Sandman audiobooks. He also writes a weekly column in The New European newspaper.

Mitch has written three Sci-Fi novels. The Terra Trilogy is aimed at young readers (or adults who remember being one) and follows Terra, a human girl raised by aliens, on her adventures across the galaxy. The first two books, Terra and Terra's World, were originally published in 2013 and 2014 to wide acclaim, including glowing reviews in The Times and The Independent. Terra was also listed in The Guardian's Top 10 Sci-Fi books of the year.

The long-awaited conclusion to the trilogy, Terra's War, is available now. The first two books have also been relaunched with new cover art. The trilogy is available in paperback and ebook formats, with audiobooks to follow in the summer of 2021.

Profile picture by Steve Ullathorne.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to this book via Audible.

Ever since I first picked up a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I've been a fan of Douglas Adams and have read and reread his fiction and nonfiction over the years. So perhaps I'm a bit biased when it comes to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future, but I thought it was fantastic to hear Douglas himself, all these years later, predicting, with sometimes uncanny accuracy, how technology would proliferate.

In the course of the audio program, we hear Adams and others discussing the impact of the Internet and technology on books, music, video, and more. They take it a step further and share their thoughts on where that would extend in the future. The best part was at the end when Mitch Benn takes a look back and sees how close everything was. They weren't perfect, but they were very close on a number of topics.

It was definitely a nice, quick look at the then impending digital age and gave some nice perspective on how things have changed so quickly. I definitely recommend people give it a listen!

[Christopher Whalen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of BBC radio programmes in which Douglas Adams indulges his love of technology (things that don’t quite work yet). It’s quaint to hear people talking about the internet in its early days. Many of Adams’s predictions are remarkably accurate. I’ve heard bits of this elsewhere but as I’m a completist I’m glad I sought this out. The final programme is narrated by Mitch Benn, looking back at what Adams got right.

[Steve Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Audible consists of a two-part and a four-part series that Douglas Adams made for BBC Radio 4 in 1999 and 2000. Following Douglas’s untimely passing at the ridiculously young age of 49, Mitch Benn made a half hour one-off episode to look at how close Douglas was to predicting the future.

If you’re a fan of all things by Douglas Adams then this is a must have. Mitch Benn’s contribution highlights just how amazing Douglas was as an educator: scoring better in these series than many futurologists and virtually every other writer of science fiction. Even the bits he missed - social media is notable by its absence - he managed to identify the need for easy ways of staying in touch.

[Ms Hazel Tragy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to hear what we thought the future would hold in 1999/2000

[Rishabh Srivastava · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're a fan of Douglas Adams and enjoy books about the history of technology, you'll enjoy this. It was strange to see how many things about the internet Douglas Adams got right.

My main takeaways from this were:
1. The history of the internet is waves of anarchy followed by phases of consolation
2. Internet cuts out the middle man, and allows creators to connect directly with their fans
3. “Digital smart payments/digital cash” — crypto payments like thing. Will be a game changer for creators
4. Authors and publishers — there will be a lot of vanity publishing. Also reduces the speed of publishing dramatically. Distribution is radically increased
5. Content will be barbell shaped — either extremely newsy, or extremely evergreen. Magazine kind of content is dead
6. People don’t really reading on there PCs. What if there was a device that could mimic a book (Kindle in the future)