 |
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | Rating | |
| A | |||
| Douglas Adams | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| The Hitchhiker's Trilogy | The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything, So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish, Mostly Harmless | ||
What do you do after the world is destroyed? You can't go to the pub, or have a good time with friends, or even bum around the house and watch the telly. They no longer exist. You can't even make a go at restoring civilization in your spare time, as a hobby. Society didn't collapse, the planet evaporated. For Arthur Dent, late of England, the question is more than hypothetical. Thanks to his friend, Ford Prefect, who is not really an out-of-work actor and is in fact from a small planet in the viscinity of Betelgeuce, he was saved from evaporating along with the rest of Earth. But the galaxy, he is rapidly discovering, is a very, very strange place. If he's going to remain anything approximating sane, he's going to need some tea. Too bad it all went up along with Earth.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is considered by many a classic book of science fiction. It is the penultimate comedic sci-fi, the standard to which all other attempts are compared. Adams has a wicked way with words, turning out phrases that are a wonderful twist on readers' expectations. "The effect of drinking a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick," is one classic example. Adams explains things in such a casually upside-down manner that you can't help but smirk, unless you're too busy laughing.
Adams makes liberal use of tangents, non sequiturs, and side stories. It's kind of the Family Guy of science fiction that way, only much, much better. Some are used to define a term or illustrate a point; others are done pretty much for the heck of it. They're usually very amusing.
I'm not really sure why I even bothered to reread this before reviewing it. What I thought about it was a foregone conclusion. It's funny, damned funny. Even those who don't generally enjoy science fiction will probably enjoy this, so long as they can tolerate a high quantity of nonsense. But it's high-quality nonsense, as well. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy started as a radio show and spread out into television, movies, and of course books. There may be some debate over which format is best and funniest (except for the movie - yech!), but there is no doubt in my mind the books are the most accessible. If by some unholy miracle you;ve never read this book, I suggest you do so. Immediately. Even if you somehow don't like it, at least you'll finally be in on a major piece of popular culture. You'll understand what a hoopy frood is and why a towel is the single most vital piece of travel gear ever invented. And you wouldn't want to miss out on that, would you? No, I thought not.
| By Title | By Author | By Rank |