Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams > Reviews > A Fantastic Book, A Great Read, Overall- Brilliant

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	Brilliant read, extremely funny, just buy it OK?
Disadvantages:	None !

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Douglas Adams’ ‘Hitch-hiker’s Guide’-trilogy consists of The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, The Universe and Everything, Goodbye, and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless. These five books together lend a whole new meaning to the word ‘trilogy’.
The first book starts off with the Earth being destroyed by Vogon warships to make way for a new hyper-space bypass. Shortly before the destruction the main protagonist, Arthur Dent, is whisked off into space by another important character, Ford Prefect, who is in possession of that wonder of wonders: The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Universe, which, when activated, displays the message: ‘Don’t Panic’.
Through the first three volumes Arthur Dent is exposed to the perversities of a largely inexplicable universe. He meets, among others, the paranoid robot Marvin and also discovers the answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything, namely 42.
The author sums up the view of the universe expressed in the first three books in two statements at the start of ‘The Restaurant at the End of the Universe’:

‘There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will immediately disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.’
and
‘There is another theory which states that this has already happened.’

At the start of the fourth volume, So long, and Thanks for all the Fish Arthur Dent returns to Earth (!) and meets Fenchurch, the girl he has always been looking for. He also finds that the Dolphins have gone, leaving a message: So Long, and thanks for all the fish. This volume, although entertaining, is the weakest of the five.
The fifth volume - ‘Mostly Harmless’ - starts with Arthur and Fenchurch going off into space. Fenchurch disappears and Arthur is again adrift in a universe he really does not understand and definitely does not like.

The five volumes describe, with the ‘sense of Wonder’ characteristic of all good Science Fiction/Fantasy, the absurdity of life itself. I would sincerely recommend these books to anyone wondering what life is all about, and also to those who like to laugh about Life, the Universe and Everything.