T;LDR: The quintessential pop culture space adventure novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a whimsical read.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The ultimate space adventure, you definitely want to read this with your tongue firmly planted in cheek. It is silly, whimsical, odd, and entertaining (I think I could come up with a few more adjectives if I tried). And I finally – as in, I should’ve read this ages ago – read it.
Overall, it is a fun read. There are a few moments where I found myself wanting just a touch more depth. But, if I really wanted depth, I wouldn’t read Douglas Adams. For this reason, it gets my top rating – 5 out of 5 stars.
Plot
Poor Arthur Dent. His day, a Thursday, a day he could never get the hang of, didn’t start off well. He wakes up to bulldozers attempting to knock down his cottage to build a bypass road. He lies in the mud to stop it, not knowing that his house and indeed, the entire planet will be decimated before dinner time.
And that’s the story. His friend, Ford Prefect, arrived on Earth 15 years before and got stranded here. Ford is a hitchhiker, but not across Europe or even the US, but across the galaxy. And Ford got word the Earth was due for imminent destruction. To build a hyperspatial express.
Ford, armed with his trusty towel (“the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have”), his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and having downed as many pints as possible before the Earth exploded, was prepared to leave. And Arthur was coming with.
And thus, they leave Earth and have some adventures – you have to read it as I’m not giving out any spoilers. And even if I did, I don’t think you’d understand them anyway.
T;LDR: With Earth destroyed, Arthur Dent joins Ford Prefect as a hitchhiker across the galaxy and hijinks ensue.
What I Liked
I loved the silliness of it. I loved that everything had a meaning and yet nothing did.
I loved the randomness and yet coincidence of it all.
The characters were fun, silly, odd, and endearing.
Earth is every bit as inconsequential in the galaxy as it appears to be on the those maps NASA puts out with a tiny teeny dot and an arrow pointing to Earth. And yet, is it?
And the mice. Who doesn’t love the mice?!
I loved and hated the depressed robot. He got a bit annoying, which brings me to…
What I didn’t Like
Real talk…for a moment. Arthur wasn’t given any time to process anything. He was supposedly brought along because Ford Prefect liked him and wanted to save him, but Ford abandoned him at every opportunity.
But then, if you had a personality like Arthur, I might abandon you as well.
Also, Arthur also kept reacting the same way over and over again, which got annoying. But then Adams poked fun at this characteristic, which was on purpose, and so I liked it.
To Sum Up (too late!)
I enjoyed and was irritated by this book, but not in equal measure. The whimsicality firmly in place, it almost reminded me of Carl Hiaasen’s books. But his books are based in Florida and while Florida is a lot like the galaxy in many ways, it’s not quite the same thing. Except for maybe Florida man.
About the Author
Douglas Noël Adams was an English author, comic radio dramatist, and musician. He is best known as the author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. Hitchhiker’s began on radio, and developed into a “trilogy” of five books (which sold more than fifteen million copies during his lifetime) as well as a television series, a comic book series, a computer game, and a feature film that was completed after Adams’ death. The series has also been adapted for live theatre using various scripts; the earliest such productions used material newly written by Adams. He was known to some fans as Bop Ad (after his illegible signature), or by his initials “DNA”.
If you wish to purchase this book, pick your vendor of choice here, or just cave to the man and get it from Amazon here.