Half of the Story

So I finished the book I was reading last night, it was the 4th in the 5 book Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy*, "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish", by Douglas Adams. This morning when I woke and went about my morning business I fired up my kindle for iPhone and went to the store intending to buy the 5th book to complete the Trilogy*.

The first three books I had read years ago, I had never read the fourth or fifth. I had been meaning to but never really got around to it. Have I mentioned how incredibly convenient having kindle on my iPhone is? Now, I'm never without my book, and frankly it's awesome. I don't miss print at all and if all books were published this way I'd have no problem with it at all, but I digress.

The fourth book was great. I enjoyed it quite a lot, and was eager to get to the fifth. But then as the kindle store opened up, the book had 3.5 stars out of 5. Odd, I thought to myself, as the other four books were at least 4.5 stars or higher. Intrigued by this finding, I decided to read a bit of the reviews before purchasing.   Apparently, some very disturbing things happen in the fifth and final book, and its ending is quite grim. I was frankly quite pleased with the ending of the 4th book.

So now I have a dilemma.  Do I read the fifth book and change Arthur Dent's somewhat nice ending in my mind to something else entirely? Or do I ignore the fifth book and leave him alone? Kindof like, sticking my head in the sand sort of thing, in my universe everything is pretty nice actually, why should I disturb that by letting the author control his own story to the end?

I think, for now, I'll let the characters sit in my mind, happy for a while. Maybe later I'll go back in and let the author put his final words to them, but I'm not eager to read the fifth book anymore.

* Yes, 5 books is a Trilogy, just ask any other HHGTTG fan.