Plagiarising Douglas Adams

If you saw this book . . .

Douglas Adams plagiarised by David Wilkinson (or his publishers)

 . . . might you be tempted to think that it had been written by Douglas Adams? 

It has the same title as one of Adams' own works, it has a cover reminiscent of The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy, and there is a reference to the number 42 in the notes on the front and back cover.

42 meditations??? 

It is such an obvious attempt to steal the intellectual property of the Douglas Adams estate that I'm surprised to find that it is still on the market.

On Amazon there is only one review (rating it at 4 stars) which amuses me.  The small notes are mine.

"David Wilkinson's book is an excellent series of short meditations. [I assure you - it isn't!]  Its one drawback is that to be fully understood, the reader needs to have a close acquaintance with popular culture [of the 80s!]. Some of the references to films and TV programmes were lost on this reader!" [Whereas . . . I would say that it needs a grounding in modern neuro-science to be fully understood!]

In the circumstances, being so detached from the whole point of the plagiarism, I can't see why that reader found it inspiring at all.  Personally I found the extracts that I read to be puerile and pathetic shams compared with the original works of Adams.