Book Review - The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

[Tom Harik]

Title - The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Author - Douglas Adams
Genre - Sci -FI, Comedy

Summery - Arthur Dent, whose house is about to be demolished for a planned road bypass, is lying down in front of a bulldozer when his friend Ford Prefect arrives and tells him that it is imperative that they go to the pub immediately. There Ford explains that he is actually from a planet near Betelgeuse and that another alien species, the Vogons, are about to destroy the Earth to make space for a hyperspatial express route. Meanwhile, Zaphod Beeblebrox, president of the Galaxy, and his human female friend Trillian steal the Heart of Gold spaceship. Ford and Arthur hitch a ride on a Vogon destructor ship, and Ford lends Arthur the electronic guidebook The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and gives him a Babel fish to stick in his ear to translate alien speech. The Vogon ship captain has Ford and Arthur ejected into space, but the Heart of Gold, which has an Infinite Improbability Drive, picks them up 29 seconds later. The drive makes it possible to traverse interstellar space almost instantly but also causes Ford to (briefly) turn into a penguin.
Zaphod sends his depressive robot, Marvin, to escort the hitchhikers to the bridge. Later that night, the Heart of Gold reaches its destination—the legendary planet Magrathea, which in the past built planets to order for wealthy customers but later disappeared. However, Magrathea, after sending a message that it is closed for business, fires missiles at the Heart of Gold. The ship’s computer is unable to take evasive action, but Arthur engages the Infinite Improbability Drive, and the missiles turn into a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias; both fall to the planet’s surface. Everything seems fine, except that Trillian’s pet mice, Benjy and Frankie, escape their cage.

On Magrathea, Zaphod, Trillian, and Ford explore the planet’s tunnels, leaving Marvin and Arthur to guard the entrance. Arthur encounters an elderly native of the planet, who introduces himself as Slartibartfast and explains that the populace is not dead but were sleeping until the economy improved. They are now engaged in building a second Earth, having been commissioned by mice, which are really hyperintelligent pandimensional beings, to build the first Earth. These beings had built a supercomputer, Deep Thought, to determine the answer to life, the universe, and everything. After a period of 7.5 million years, the computer declared the answer to be 42. The computer designed a more powerful computer, Earth, to find the question to which 42 is the answer. Earth had nearly completed its calculations when the Vogons destroyed it. Slartibartfast brings Arthur to meet the mice who commissioned the building of Earth, and they prove to be Benjy and Frankie. Zaphod and Ford suggest that Arthur may have some ideas about the Question, as his “brain was an organic part” of Earth, and Benjy and Frankie decide that they will buy Arthur’s brain and chop it up to look for their answer.

Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, and Trillian are saved by the arrival of the galactic police to arrest Zaphod for the theft of the Heart of Gold. Marvin depresses the computer running the ship and life systems for the police into committing suicide, and the five travelers all escape to the Heart of Gold, after which they head toward the Restaurant at the End of the Universe

My Thoughts - This was one of the very first books that i read and i come back to this time and time again. For me the love of sci-fi this appeals to me. Even at the start threes tragedy, there are bits of comedy which keeps the reader engaged. This is part 1 of a series of 5 books based of the radio show. Also i always like to answer when some asks what's the meaning of life I always get an awaked look lol

[Alexandra Starling]

I completed this book on July 5th, and it was awesome!!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy follows Arthur Dent, who's a hapless human who got whisked off planet Earth moments before it was destroyed by aliens. He discovers that aliens are real, that his friend is one of them and also that the Earth is actually run by rats. The book has a splendid cast of eccentric characters, including a two-headed Zaphod Beeblebrox, once the President of the Galaxy, planet-maker alien version of Dumbledore (whose name is Slartibartfast), an alien (obviously) race called the Vogon who kill you with poetry, and my personal favourite, a robot with manic depression, Martin. I'm not into sci-fi much, but this book was the perfect blend of the tools of sci-fi (teleportation, time travel, ALIENS) and general humour which made me laugh out loud often. Douglas Adams is a master of hilarious analogies - some of my favourites are "Arthur Dent was grappling with his consciousness the way one grapples with a lost bar of soap in the bar" and "He leaned tensely against the corridor wall and frowned like a man trying to unbend a corkscrew by telekinesis". And of course, "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
I also loved how in Adams' universe, the Earth and we who inhabit it and everything we do to with our lives is really of no importance at all - even the authors of the great Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy found nothing remarkable about plant Earth except that its residents were "mostly harmless".
All in all, this was a great read, and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the next parts of the series.