Interviews with two writers - each extremely successful in their own quite different genres.

In the science fiction camp, Douglas Adams, author of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.  And over in the crime corner -- Elmore Leonard, a master of capturing the stories and voices of the gritty American streets.

He's the creator of a unique combination of humour and science fiction in the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was originally a radio serial, and then it grew into a series of novels, a computer game and a movie. Fans had an almost cult-like obsession to the books. Perhaps it was the irreverent humour or the absurd plot lines. Or maybe it was that Douglas Adams came up with the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything -- apparently it is 42.

After the massive success of the Hitch-hiker's guide series, Adams followed with a novel called, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.  He described it as - and I quote -- "a kind of ghost-horror-detective-time-travel-romantic-comedy-epic, mainly concerned with mud, music and quantum mechanics."  Got that?  

The interview on this show is from Vicki Gabereau who spoke with Douglas Adams in July, 1987.

After that, we travel back to earth- and stop on a street corner in Detroit. This is the gritty world of Elmore Leonard, one of the most successful crime writers in the world.  

His tight dialogue and vivid, realistic characters have earned him acclaim from critics and readers alike. The interview we have for you is from Gabereau in December 1987.