After finishing these one after the other (more due to circumstance than any compelling urge after completing the first), I decided to write notes about them together despite their fairly different plots (effectively only the titular character carries over).

I found both works surprisingly readable (I don't know why my recollection of later Hitchhiker is somewhat dense and winding) and fast-paced – if completely confusing by the end. In some ways, it was almost more like Murakami (having a joke) than my earlier impressions of Adams, at least on a large-plot scale. I probably missed plenty of things along the way, but it was an enjoyable & strange time without much a point to it. The moments definitely had plenty of potential, but everything ran headlong to a conclusion without really playing with all the pieces that were introduced. (Adams does a great job introducing and then bringing together the cast [more so in book 1 than 2], but then the ending just sweeps them all together into a mound of mild confusion.)