Masterful comedy sci-fi, originally BBC Radio 4 productions in the 70s, later adapted to novel format. Incredibly imaginative and funny. My favourite character is Zaphod Beeblebrox.

My rating for Book 1 was a resounding 5 stars. Things got much worse from there, but I would still recommend people read the first book because it is so good. In fact, it is the only book that I would recommend. Someday I'll tell my children, "Just read Book 1 even if you feel like the story doesn't have a definitive conclusion. Reading the next four books in the series doesn't give the story a conclusion anyway, so save yourself some time."

The first book is so strong that I'll give this collection a 3-star rating even though I hope to never read four of the books in this collection again.

Now that I have finished the 5 books in the “Hitchhiker's” series (written by Douglas Adams), here is how I would rank them (from best to worst):

1. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

2. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

3. So Long, and Thank for All the Fish

4. Mostly Harmless

5. Life, the Universe, and Everything

Just as funny as advertised, but I made the mistake of reading the collection of all five novels, and - what's more - trying to read them all in one go. Once I got about halfway through Life, the Universe, and Everything, it had stopped being funny and had gotten a little confusing. Adams is excellent at humor, not so much at plot.

So, for clarification: 5 stars for the original Hitchhiker's, 4 for The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and 3 stars for the others.

Douglas Adams is either the craziest, most creative and funniest author I've ever read, or he's just on crack.
Or maybe it's a little of both.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the books that follow it are all completely insane and impossible to summarize, so I'm not even going to try. They're books that can't be taken too seriously, so just sit back, relax, and enjoy the portrait of insanity Adams so expertly paints.

✒️

In my opinion, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the best in the series. I can only imagine what it must have been like to read a first-edition of the novel when it was originally published back in 1979, or to have listened to the original radio broadcast even earlier. The story was highly original, zany (sometimes even incomprehensibly silly), the characters lovable and bizarre at the same time, and the concept...out-of-this-world original. I mean, the creator of Vogons (and their poetry!) ought to get a 5-star rating all the time, every time.

Unfortunately, I do not have the same endearing feelings for the subsequent books - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, and my least-favorite, Mostly Harmless. As a radio/TV concept, the material for stories seems endless. But I don't know, that longevity didn't work for me in novel format.

So while I love having an omnibus copy of all the books in the series (loving this larger, more compact edition more than the single-volume Hitchhiker's...), I still prefer the first story to the others in the series.

And now...a poem I wrote!

See, see the Type-A sky
Marvel at its big turquoise depths.
Tell me, Bertha do you
Wonder why the monkey ignores you?
Why its foobly stare
makes you feel irritable.
I can tell you, it is
Worried by your wackity facial growth
That looks like
A pineapple.
What's more, it knows
Your snog potting shed
Smells of snail.
Everything under the big Type-A sky
Asks why, why do you even bother?
You only charm socks.

4.5 stars

Brilliant sci-fi nuttiness, 5 books and a short story collected in one volume. I remember having an omnibus volume of the first three books, then a volume of the first four plus the short story, now all five in a leatherbound volume from Easton Press. The first three books make for a fun series. The fourth is just a wonderful coda to the original set. The fifth is forgettable, but important for completionists only.

Read on for reviews of each work.

There are 5 illustrations in the book

THE HITCHHIKIER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

5 stars



Classic bit of sci-fi insanity as Earthman Arthur Dent stumbles his way through the aftermath of the Earth's destruction by a Vogon Constuctor Fleet to make room for a hyperspace bypass.

A story that began as a BBC radio program that became a book that became a recording and another radio program, A TV show, and a motion picture--each with contradictory events and details. But for all the silliness, there is a solid rationality to this work that makes one realize it's useless to argue with idiots.

But it sure is fun!

So grab your favorite volume of Vogon poetry, mix yourself a stiff Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster and join Dent, HHG field reporter Ford Prefect, sexy space traveller Trillian, Head Honcho of all Creation Zaphod Beeblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android for a gut-busting trip across the universe. And don't forget your towel.

Just remember: Don't panic, the answer is 42.

THE RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE

5 stars



In the beginning the Universe was created.

This has made a lot of people very angry and been regarded as a bad move.

The second book of Adams' 5-book trilogy is not as sprawling and scattershot as his first, but its loopy humor is just as funny-bone tickling. The Hitchhiker's Guide felt like an improvised skit; Restaurant is a darker, more focused philosophical jab at the idiocy of modern life.

Among the unforgettable moments of this book are:

--witnessing the final cataclysm of life as a dinner sideshow
--the self-advertsing menu of that dinner (my favorite scene)
--meeting the true ruler of the universe
--watching the ancestors of the human race crawling out of the primordial swamp
--discovering the ultimate question to the ultimate answer of life, the universe, and everything

This was the first HHG book I read and still my favorite. I found a copy of it on the paperback rack of the local drugstore in 1982 and immediately when on a mad search for the first one.

LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING

4 stars



Funny, weird, and chock-full of Adams' bizarre shenanigans, this third Hitchiker's entry has a great opening and a terrific conclusion but drags in the middle as our band of heroes flit across the universe attempting to thwart the War Lords of Krikkit from destroying the universe.

The Infinite Improbability and the Bistromathic Drives, while deviously inventive, are used to propel Arthur, et al, into such diverse entanglements so quickly that the reader begins to feel as put-upon as poor Arthur Dent--which was probably the point, but it becomes taxing after a while.

Adams' observations on the lunacy of human behavior remain on-point.

I expect to encounter Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged one day (though this may already have happened as I've been insulted by strange-looking tall persons who just walked away before.)

SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH

4.5 stars



Not so much a continuation of HHG, but an an epilogue to Arthur Dent as he returns to his house in the hamlet of Cottington after eight years of zipping around the Universe's several billion year existence.

An eloquent coda periodically interrupted by the bizaare antics of Ford Prefect becomes a comfy, if off-kilter, ending to the whole affair. But the character of Fenchurch, Arthur's mastery of the art of flying, and a cameo by Marvin the Paranoid make this a satisfying ending to Adams' saga. The argument can be made that this book is his masterpiece.

YOUNG ZAPHOD PLAYS IT SAFE

3.5 stars

A delightfully weird story about Zaphod working as a salvage ship operator before he blocked off parts of his brains and ran for President of the Galaxy. He is tasked with recovering the cargo of a ship that was supposed to be jettisoned into a black hole but lies at the bottom of a lake on an unknown planet because the ship's captain decided to make detour for some really great lobster.

Mostly, it shows that pre-brain blockage Zaphod had morals and a code of honor while still being a goof off. Until it becomes known to the reader that US editors removed the reference that a "reagan" used the ship's escape pod prior to the crash and landed on Earth. That revelation was worth an extra half star.

MOSTLY HARMLESS

2.5 stars



The title says it all. This book will be mostly harmless to Adams' reputation as an absurdist and satirist. But it destroys the whimsical nature of his seminal work.

Bleak, disjointed, and not as funny as it thinks it is, this fifth book in the Hitchhiker's trilogy is a mixed bag. Adams delivers a darkly satiric conclusion to his saga but destroys everything that made the series great.

Arthur is still the Everyman, and focus, of the series; Ford Prefect has turned into a misanthropic alcoholic (though still a functioning one); Trillian/Tricia McMillian is still a stock character, though now less interesting; and Zaphod Beeblebrox is (thankfully) out of the picture.

I kept hoping that Fenchurch would return, but that didn't happen. Oh well...

It turns out that Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council is the real hero of the series.

Book 1: 5*
Book 2: 5*
Book 3: 5*
Book 4: 4*
Young Zaphod: 3*
Book 5: There’s a book 5?

It’s been 6 months since I started this with the intention of re-reading books 1-4 and reading YZ and Book 5 for the first time.

This was the first time I’ve ever done a proper re-read, and to be honest I didn’t find it to be a super compelling all the way through and with how little I like what I’ve read of Mostly Harmless I’m just going to throw in the towel. Maybe I’ll give MH another try at some point, but for the time being I’m done with Hitchhikers.

n  December 14, 2018:n

H2G2, volume 1: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, read by Stephen Fry, finished.
So long, and thanks for all the fishiness :)

A LITERARY SIBLING :
The Cyberiad - Stanisław Lem


n  September 24, 2020:n

H2G2, volume 2: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe finished!

Much of the British variety of nonsense, loads of ludicrousness and quirky characters by the dozen, this short novel is an Improbability Field all by itself :)

Buddy reading with Tara 10/10 would do again :^)


DOUGLAS ADAMS' OWN SOUNDTRACK:
One-Trick Pony Album - Paul Simon


n  October 4, 2020:n

H2G2, Volume 3: Life, the Universe and Everything - finished!

FEATURING:
Wowbagger, the Infinitely Prolonged,
Slartibartfast and his Bistromathically-driven spaceship,
Agragag, the Karmic Hater,
Hactar, the Purposeful Computer,
The Ashes of English cricket,
The people of Krikkit, a bunch of real sweet guys who just happen to want to kill everybody,
Armies of robots doing quadratic equations instead of fighting,
The hell of an extremely disreputable party in an erratically flying building,
Half-crazed etymologists raving on Sqornshell, swamp planet and natural habitat for loquacious mattresses,
Anonymous, the half-mad journalist.

Buddy read with Tara during the Goodreads black dust storm, disabling email notifications, in-app notifications, and push notifications to phones :p


HINTS AND ALLUSIONS?
The Cyberiad
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Trial


SOUNDTRACK:
Paranoid Android - Radiohead

Tubular Bells Album (the Caveman passage) - Mike Oldfield

Elohim's Voyage - Weidorje

Parts were and at times remain the height of funny, but there's a lot of trash in there (wtf was going on with the last book?). Certainly an old friend, read and reread literally countless times. Back when I ate a lot of acid, I'd curl up with this big hardback as the sun rose and those horrible hours of introspection, self-loathing and promises to improve oneself tried to kick in. Everyone ought read it, but that also means everyone *can* read it, which kind of reduces the allure.

So, the bloke and I reread this together, one chapter a night, over many, many months. I read the first three in a mad rush as a teenager, consumed as most readers of Adams are by the sense that this writer understood me, my values, my sense of humour so perfectly that nothing would ever touch it. I waited with eager anticipation for each subsequent volume - rereading the first three so often my copies are falling apart and I can recite whole passages. I surprised myself with how much I liked the sly humour of Dirk Gently, but like many fans, felt that he should be dedicating his energies to the genius of HHGTTG. When he died, I was actually devastated - the first time a 'celebrity' death had hit me like that.
So it was a surprise upon rereading to discover that actually, I don't think the last two books are very good. The genius is strong with the first three, the zany and the clever and the 70s and the future all mixing perfectly into can't-read-cause-laughing-too-hard, but the tone shifts in the long gap between Life, the Universe and Everything and So Long and Thanks for All The Fish. The 80s introspection and celebration of mundanity creeps in, the books focus much more on Dent's inner life, and are not the better for it. Trillian inexplicably turns into a talk-show-host type figure, and the sense of each scene being a delight in itself falls away in relation to a more conventional moving through a plot, and the plot itself seems tired. They are still worth reading - moments of genius like Fenchurch and Arthur flying on Earth, pretty much anything with Ford and no Arthur, and Old Thrashbarg is a wonderful creation, but I found myself secretly relieved to get to the end. I wanted to go back to bloody marvellous Marvin, and two troopers arguing themselves to death, froody mattresses.
There is nothing in the world as good as the first three books in this series, I suspect, so I'm sticking to my five star rating. But I guess I suspect Dirk Gently was the real recipient of Adams more brilliant ideas of the 80s/90s.

The story is intricate, and beautifully woven, involving inter/intra galactic worlds, employing science and of course probability.
This sci-fi book takes some of the major metaphysics questions (or at times put some, if deeply thought, in its own way) - pertaining to cosmology, universe, epistemology in a humour, which is imaginative, innovative, and illuminating on the subject. Right from addressing philosophical questions to attending idiosyncrasies of each character to the description of each one of them - in books lingua - is humorous, very humorous, really humorous, humorously humorous.
I have always enjoyed Doulas Adams' playful use or misuse of our language.
Surrealiously folks, you have to read it to believe it. And you won't believe it!