Get ready for the rollercoaster ride of your life!

books:

	• The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams Del Rey, 2002 - 832 pages average customer review:based on 117 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Amazing

This book is one of the most amazing books ever wrote. Douglas Adam's satire ranks up with the best satirists who ever lived. He is the reincarnation of the classics: Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, Aristophanes, etc. Here is an example of his writing. He writes about some people who inhabit a small nut tree on one planet. Their whole life is spent on that one nut tree, living, dying, writing about the meaning of life. The only ones who ever leave are the ones who are forced off because they wonder if there's anything besides this nut tree or if the other trees are inhabitable. Sound familiar? That is just one example of the all the wonderful jokes about our life. I completely and wholeheartedly reccomend this book.

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You Almost Can't Ask For Anything More

While reading this book, you will frequently find yourself debating a few things in your mind. One of those things is: "I really need sleep, but I need to read this book more, I just don't know what to do..."

This book is really a collection of all five books in the Hitchhiker's trilogy (um, ya, five books shouldn't be in a trilogy but thats how this series works), written by Douglas Adams. However, I had no previous experience with these books or with Douglas Adams and I thoroughly enjoyed reading them in this form. I couldn't image having read one of the books, then having to wait to get the other one. This series really is meant to be read in its entirety. The entire story flows throughout each book and needs to be read in order too.

So here is the story, a terrible accident is about to befall earth which drags the main character, Arthur Dent, on a wild romp throughout a hilarious Galaxy. Arthur just wants to get back home to Earth which leads to the stunning climax. This series is full of one liners, two liners, and even some three liners. If your a fan of British comedy, British satire, sci-fi, or just great literature then Douglas Adams weaves a tale that will appeal to you.

The first book in the series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy really should be required reading in school, it really is that good.

Most "funny books" wouldn't even attempt to dissect the absurdity of our so-called civilization, this is what sets the Hitchhiker series apart from anything else. At points you see that while it may be funny -- all it really is, is insightful. The ridiculousness of humanity is displayed brilliantly -- through aliens. You'll find yourself laughing out loud.

As far as the ending to everything, it is one of the best endings of any series ever (in my opinion of course). It really instills an important moral, whether you get it at first or not, you may have to think about it a while. The ending also wraps up everything and makes perfect logical sense. The spontaneous happenings will have you on the edge of your seat until the very end too.

This series deals with what it really means to be alive and what the meaning of life really is. Isn't that really what everyone wants to know anyways? The answer might be so funny you'll die laughing!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is being made into a movie too, due out in 2005. I don't see how it could live up to the high standard set by this book but we will have to see.

If you enjoy this I'd highly recommend The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition by Richard Perez, a somewhat unrelated (not sci-fi) but very amusing and FUN book. Short, quick, and funny -- that's how I like them.

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Get ready for the rollercoaster ride of your life!

There is not one version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there are at least five, soon six, official versions: the original radio series (I think there are even two versions of the radio series), the transcript of the radio series, the vinyl record (a treat if you can get hold of it!), the books, the television series, and soon the film. All are different, and developed for their respective mediums. All are fantastic. Douglas Adams himself said that there is no definite version. If the film is any good people will want to pick up the books also, so this is a word of caution that they should not expect the film to follow the books.
The books are very funny, extremely cleverly written, and also very thought provoking. If you read them just expecting some clear cut fun you might be in for a shock. The books have a complex intrigue and several subplots, can be read on many levels, and they seem to want to reveal something to the reader, but it is always just out of grasp. Since the seeming message of the books is never revealed, the reader instead is left wondering: What is the message? Which turns out to be the message! The closest we come is "42" and God's final message to his creation, neither of which is very ehaustive...
The universe described is not the cosy universe of science: cause and effect have no meaning since you can travel through time and space and change everything anyway. Small actions have enormous reprecussions, but apparently monumetous events leave no mark on the space-time continuoum whatsoever. Nothing is what it first seems: the Earth is run by mice, Arthur Dent has created and destroyed civilizations, but humanity as a whole is totally unimportant (not to mentioned descended from hairdressers!), the role of the galactic president is not to wield power - it is to draw attention away from the real power (a premonition of Dubya's presidency?)!
The Hitchhiker's Guide itself becomes a symbol of our struggle to create order where no order exists, it is a source of false comfort (just like organised religion, which seems to be the theme of the film).
The books, like few others, really create a sense of wonder, a feeling of the infinite. Douglas Adams was a very clever man and with a lot of life experience, therefore he could write such a complex, and funny, book.

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A Book Review

"Zany!" is the word to describe The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Douglas Adams' five books that amount to this series are put together into this book. In it, you follow hapless Arthur Dent in his struggle for survival in the galaxy. Earth has been destroyed, and Arthur survives only by leaving at the last minute with his friend, Ford Prefect, who turned out to be an alien. So, Arthur is turned into a hitchhiker, and seeks out the reason for the destruction of Earth. In a universe of multiple dimensions, he tries to find his place. But what happens instead is totally random things that almost end up making him lose his sanity altogether. The style of humor and eccentric characters are what brings me to the "Zany!" conclusion.
It was a whole new world (or galaxy, if you will) that Douglas Adams created. The book is completely random, with no real story line, but that's what made it such good fun. For example, the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" book: (The title of this guidebook is also the title of the first book itself.) in it are some of the oddest descriptions, such as its description of Earth, which is, humbly put, "Mostly harmless."
I loved the characters and the humor in this book. Everything was new to me; especially the people. One such race was the Vogons (the baddies), amphibious creatures who were infamous for their vileness---and their poems. A very humorous passage in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy goes like this:
"During a recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem `Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning' four of his audience died of internal hemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off."
A clear picture of one of the `eccentric characters' mentioned above is Zaphod Beeblebrox, who is an "adventurer, ex-hippie, good-timer, manic self-publicist, terribly bad at personal relationships [and], often thought to be completely out to lunch." Yet, this man was the president of the galaxy. As explained by the Guide, he was the perfect president, because the president does not hold any power at all!
Douglas Adams plainly had the goal of achieving fun with this series, with no other point in mind whether the humor be ironic, poking fun at fellow humans, or just plain odd (but still, funny). I admire this about him. Some would say that the Hitchhiker's series are pointless. I say, "That's the point!"

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reviews: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, page 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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