Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
Hilarious |
| Disadvantages: |
Rare and Expensive |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
Douglas Adams was a visionary. In the late seventies he wrote a radio play, which later became a novel, a TV series, and possibly a film. This play was called the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (HHGG) and it was about the WAP phone.
The Hitch Hikers Guide is an electronic guide to everything, a portable, wireless device; used for finding out information at the touch of a button. Reporters could also send articles over the ether for instant update.
And how did Douglas Adams come up with this idea - lying drunk in a field in Europe.
The various incarnations of HHGG all have slightly different variations on the basic story, but use the same main characters, from Zaphod Beeblebrox to Marvin the paranoid android, and everyone knows that 42 is the answer to life the universe and everything.
Most people know the basic premise of the story, but unless you've read all five novels in the trilogy (yes trilogy) which are: HHGG, Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life the Universe and Everything, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish and Mostly Harmless, you may not know about some of the funniest and most enlightening things ever written. For example you won't know about; the importance of towels, or about the man who decides that the whole world is mad when he discovers instructions on a packet of toothpicks. Neither will you know that biros escape to their very own planet, you won't know how to fly, and you won't know that the only person suitable for ruling the universe is someone that doesn't want to.
HHGG can be picked up for 99p in second hand book shops, unless its a first edition, the radio scripts and TV series are also available. However, one of the best versions of HHGG to buy is the large, and fairly expensive, illustrated version. This has fantastic digitally created photos of Vogons, whales falling through space and Babel fish amongst others. This may be hard to track down now, but if you wanted to find out, the best place would be ZZ9.
www.zz9.org is the official fan club, which has been running for 20 years. They have a regular newsletter called Mostly Harmless, merchandise including two headed beeblebears, towels with Don't Panic written on them (mine goes everywhere with me). They also arrange meetings, called slouches, and keep you completely up to date with Douglas
Adams's activities. They age range is very wide, and writing to other members (or weirdoes) is encouraged. If you're sense of
humour leans towards the inane, you will find friends here. If the film version of HHGG ever comes out, they'll be the first to know.
Some little known facts about DA - he plays left handed guitars, and during his 'wilderness years' in the late seventies/early eighties, he wrote a few episodes of the cartoon Dr Snuggles (I think that's the right name) Which is without doubt, the weirdest, most surreal cartoon I've ever seen.
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