A great book with a note: the story in the book has not finished.

This book reminded me why I like UK humors more than US ones. The jokes are clever

This is my second review of hilarious SF novel (the first is The Martian) and I decide not to discuss the content much. I believe the best way to enjoy a humor is if the reader has as little expectation/knowledge as possible, to optimize the surprises.

It's not you, it's me... well maybe it's also you.

Unfortunately this book wasn't for me. Some of the humor I liked but it was too absurd for me and it was too slow to really start.

I wish I had liked it as much as everyone else but it definitely didn't make it to my "favorite books of all time" list!

UPDATE: I finally figured out what was my issue with this book. There's a French movie called "Rrrrrrr" (similar humour to Monty Pyton) and I've had way more fun using the jokes out of context with friends than I did actually watching the movie. Recommending it was always a bit weird because it's just an okay movie but... the jokes are funny afterwards.

This summarizes exactly how I feel about this book!

This was my first exposure to the writing of Doug Adams. I went on to read the full Hitchhiker series with great enjoyment. The perfect tongue in cheek humor and a plot that pulls you along combination.

Absurdity at its finest.

Arthur Dent is having a bad day, his house is about to be levelled down because it’s in the way of the construction of a new freeway. At the local pub, he encounters his enigmatic friend Ford Prefect. Prefect, a galactic hitchhiker, is leaving the Earth, and taking Dent with him. A minor nuisance; apparently the Earth is just about to be demolished to make way for an interstellar freeway. Dent’s realization is instant, several billions of people are going to have a very bad day.

This is the most ridiculously funny book I’ve ever read. Although that may be because it was my very first of the kind. I think the hype is very well deserved, if you are into that kind of humor. I lost track of how many times it made me laugh, and I’m not really an easy person to make laugh. Outrageously silly sci-fi humor in every single chapter. An unforgettable ride through an absurdity of worlds scattered along the vast craziness of an unfathomable galaxy.

The movie (2005) is a mediocre adaptation at best; even with a stellar cast like Rockwell, Deschanel and Malkovich. It’s not nearly as funny as the book, not by a long shot, at least for me. It doesn’t make it justice and is not exactly faithful to the original work. And sadly, you just can’t bring down the magnificently complex absurdity of Douglas writing to cinematic dialog without losing much of its original magic.

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n  PERSONAL NOTEn:
[2007] [193p] [Humor] [Highly Recommendable] [Outrageously ridiculous] [Wonderfully crazy galaxy] [Never forget Marvin] [ –I really don’t think you are going to like it. –Tell us!!! – Ok… 42. ]
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★★☆☆☆ 0.5. Young Zaphod Plays It Safe [1.5]
★★★★★ 1. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
★★☆☆☆ 2. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe [2.5]
★★★☆☆ 3. Life, the Universe and Everything
★★★★☆ 4. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
★☆☆☆☆ 5. Mostly Harmless
★★★☆☆ 1-5. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy  
★★★☆☆ 6. And Another Thing... [2.5]

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Absurdidad en su máxima expresión.

Arthur Dent tiene un mal día, su casa está a punto de ser derribada porque está en el camino de la construcción de una nueva carretera. En un bar local, se encuentra con su enigmático amigo Ford Prefect. Prefect, un autoestopista galáctico, está por abandonar la Tierra, y se va llevar a Dent con él. Una pequeña molestia; al parecer la Tierra está a punto de ser demolida para darle paso a una autopista intergaláctica. La realización de Dent es instantánea, varios billones de personas van a tener un muy mal día.

Este es el libro más ridículamente gracioso que leí jamás. Aunque eso es tal vez porque fue el primero que leí de su especie. Creo que su fama está muy bien merecida, si te atrae ése tipo de humor. Perdí la cuenta de cuántas veces me hizo reir, y no soy una persona realmente fácil de hacer reir. Atrozmente tonto humor de ciencia ficción en cada capítulo. Un inolvidable paseo a través de una absurdidad de mundos esparcidos a lo largo de la vasta locura de una insondable galaxia.

La película (2005) es una mediocre adaptación cuando mucho; incluso con un elenco estrella como Rockwell, Deschanel y Malkovich. No es ni de cerca tan graciosa como el libro, ni por asomo, al menos para mí. No le hace justicia y no es exactamente fiel a la obra original. Y tristemente, no podés traer la magníficamente compleja absurdidad de la escritura de Douglas a diálogo cinematográfico sin perder mucha de su magia original.

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n  NOTA PERSONALn:
[2007] [193p] [Humor] [Altamente Recomendable] [Atrozmente ridículo] [Maravillosamente alocada galaxia] [Nunca olvidar Marvin] [ –Realmente no creo que les vaya a gustar. –Dínoslo!!! – Ok… 42. ]
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Popsugar challenge 2020 - A Book with a Robot, cyborg or AI character / A Book written by an author in their 20's

Yeah, I'm not the intended audience for this book, with a male dominated cast in space I was never going to be able to relate.

I'd heard great things but I couldn't get into it, my mind kept drifting, i looked for the humor but couldn't find it (was it where the British guy wanted a cup of tea on a spaceship?).

It just didn't hold my attention i'm afraid which is a shame as its such a cult classic.

I have spent almost six hours in the delightful company of Stephen Fry, reading the satirical science fiction classic with incredible skill and humour.

As I had read it before, I had to bow to Fry’s ability to speak the strange, evocative names of the characters without giving away his amusement more than with a tiny rise in the voice.

The story starts with a bleak outlook on life on Earth, of course. While Arthur Dent, a regular human being, is in a rage over a bulldozer which is about to tear down his house to make space for a bypass road, a slightly bigger construction project in space causes an alien company to erase the whole planet Earth for the same reason. Gone is our home, just moments before the extraterrestrial company receives information to the effect that the demolition of Earth is unnecessary.

Well, it is not the first time unnecessary things have happened in the construction business, and Earth is not that important anyway, from a universal standpoint, as Arthur realises while travelling with an alien journalist researching for a book called “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. After 15 years of studying Earth, he is able to expand the entry on our planet by adding a “mostly” to the previous one-word comment summing up our entire globe: “harmless”. Arthur, reflecting on the loss of Trafalgar Square and McDonalds as the planet is destroyed, has a moment of hardship accepting that all that is left of his previous home now is a redundant note on it being “mostly harmless”.

Thus thrown on an odyssey in space, the pair makes acquaintances of diverse kinds, always learning something new about how not to take life too seriously, while still trying to understand it. One fabulous scene features the travellers on a hostile space ship, subject to the so-called vogons’ Poetry Appreciation Chair, where they are kept in place while inundated without mercy with the unbearably horrific Vogon poetry, the third worst in universe. I imagine it a bit like being strapped to a chair and forced to listen to and appreciate some famous twitter that is produced on our mostly harmless ex-planet.

When asked to choose whether they prefer to be thrown into space or to appreciate the value of what they have heard, the two heroes deliver a duet of superb poetry appreciation bullshit bingo, leaving the mean vogon wondering whether he might really have talent after all: but being heartless and cruel, he kicks them out of the spaceship anyway. Escaping certain death yet again, with a second’s margin, the hitchhikers are picked up by another ship in an act of major improbability, which is accurately calculated for them.

The most impressive character in the book is the supercomputer Deep Thought, whose sulking voice is brilliantly interpreted by Stephen Fry. He has a godlike attitude, and is preparing for the arrival of the messiah of computers, which will ultimately trump him, even though it is to be designed by Deep Thought himself.

While awaiting the time of the new supercomputer, Deep Thought agrees to give the answer to life, the universe and everything. As the recipients of the answer are not happy with it, not being able to understand what it means, they set out to find the proper question to make sense of it. Deep Thought himself can’t do it, and tells them they have to wait for the new messiah computer.

However, being inventive, they try different questions that match the answer in the intermediate time, acting very much like true philosophers.

Their first try is a bit too straightforward:

“What is six times seven?”

Then they have a touch of genius, and find the perfect interim question for the answer:

“How many roads must a man walk down?”

“Brilliant!”

“The answer, my friend, is Forty-Two, the answer is Forty-Two!”

All universe must have conspired to make them come up with that deep question for the hard-to-understand answer. It could almost be a song, if you changed the lyrics a bit? Or maybe the kind of horrible Vogonian poetry that ex-Academies would award?

While our characters are off to have lunch at the end of the universe, Deep Thought is preparing for the arrival of his son, the new supercomputer. He has given him a name already:

“The Earth!”

And the most intelligent creatures on the old, demolished planet say:

“Thank you for all the fish!”

Delightfully irreverent journey through the nonsensical human existence!

n  Summaryn
n  n

Along with his friend, Arthur Dent escapes from Earth before it was demolished and goes for a hilarious yet intriguing trip through the galaxy.

n  Some fascinating facts related to this this book n
I thought that this was a book mainly for the younger audience, and I wouldn't enjoy it. Then I accidentally came across an interview of Elon Musk where he discussed his Hitchhiker’s-Guide-inspired Design Philosophy and told that it was this book that inspired him to make SpaceX. That, at last, convinced me to read this book. And it was an absolute joy to read.
n  n

n  Why are so many people obsessed with this book? How did it influence Elon Musk’s design philosophy?n
For knowing more about it. I am sharing the excerpts from Elon Musk's interview here.

n  Science Fiction to Realityn
Here Elon beautifully lays out the philosophical points from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which have shaped the way he thinks through tough engineering challenges.

n  Elon Musks’ Hitchhiker’s-Guide-inspired Design Philosophyn
1. "Question everything, including the question".
As Hitchhiker’s Guide teaches us, if you are given access to the Universe’s most powerful supercomputer—a system that can answer any question you throw at it—don’t waste its time with a question you haven’t properly thought through. The same goes for a beautiful human brain.
When approaching any challenge, first ask yourself, “Am I asking the right question?” Alternatively, “Am I being asked the right question?”

2. “Take ages to form your question.”
The climax of the first book in the series focuses on relaying this lesson to its readers: If you don’t understand the question in the first place, you won’t understand the answer it produces.

3. “Question your constraints.”
The world of rocket science comes with a load of constraints: Time, physical, budgetary, the list goes on. But, Elon warns, “Don’t design to your constraints without calling into question those constraints.”

4. “Don’t optimize a thing that shouldn’t exist.”
We all find ourselves in the midst of a task that suddenly seems silly. “Why am I doing this?” We are creatures of habit, and we are great at following orders. But, sometimes, we forget that orders come from creatures of habit. And, sometimes, habits must be broken in the name of efficiency and progress. SpaceX’s extremely fast-paced innovation makes it clear that they are great at putting this lesson into practice.

5. “The product errors reflect organizational errors.”
To be a great leader, you have to understand the trickle-down effect of your organizational errors. They will flow all the way down the chain, injecting themselves right into your products and services.
That goes for any level of organization, all the way up to whole societies. Starting on page 1, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy does a wonderful job poking fun at the absurdity of error-filled bureaucratic processes that trickle all the way down from a government body, forming persistent issues in the daily lives of its citizens.

n  My favourite lines from this book n

n  “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” n  
n  
n  "For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.” n  
n  
n  n    “Don’t panic.”n  n

n  Verdict n
4/5 This is one of the best Science Fiction classics out there that can make us laugh and think at the same time.

This is one of those books that I had been meaning to read for ages and thanks to my awesome friend, Roya, I finally did. I will be honest, this is one of those books that I couldn’t have finished by myself. Thanks Roya!

As a big fan of science-fiction, I felt obligated to read this book. This book is a classic and so many of my friends love it that I just had to try. However, I knew I might need help for reading this for two personal reasons. First, I am too used to a serious tone in my science-fiction stories. Science-fiction and humor in one book? Fascinating and a little hard to believe. I wasn’t sure this combo could even work. Second, I don’t easily laugh. Almost 90% of books and 98% of movies that are supposed to be very humorous and funny, only succeed in making me smile.

Now this book's introduction actually managed to make me laugh several times! The introduction raised my hopes and I started to look forward to the story. Unfortunately, I found the beginning of the story boring and I had to drag myself through it. As I continued to read, I kept wondering, where is the appeal? How come so many of my friends love this? Why is this book SUCH A BIG DEAL? I thought perhaps it's necessary to read the entire series. I reminded myself that sometimes the first book is more like a pilot episode and the series gets better as it continues.

I did love Arthur as the main character and I specially loved his reactions to all the madness. But I didn’t really care for all the other characters that were running around. Except Marvin. He was awesome too.

While I think the author has a very nice sense of humor, I didn’t find the story that hilarious. But the book IS filled with witty and memorable sayings and these sayings were one of my motivations to continue. Eventually I got so far into the story that I couldn’t leave it unfinished since I was very curious about several intertwining plots. I am sorry to say the book ended very abruptly and the story was left unfinished. I was like…what the hell did I just read?

So...I didn’t love this book while reading it. I didn’t enjoy it that much either. Many events were just a little too random for me. I actually really love nonsense stories that have their own unique logic, like "Alice in Wonderland" or "Howl's moving castle" but I had a hard time finding any kind of logic in many parts of this story. All the Petunias and whale sperms were just too random.

So…why 4 stars?

I actually started to really like this book when I finished it and got around to thinking about it. The thing is, this book was first published in 1979. I completely forgot this tiny important detail when I was looking in the story for the appeal. With this in mind, I came to see the ingenuity of the author.

I am sure there are people that find Startrek: the original series very silly and don’t pay much attention to the depth of the stories and their messages. I love this series and while I too laugh at many scenes that really are funny to today’s viewers, I also take this series very seriously. Startrek was a visionary series at the time of its creation and the same applies to Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy.

“To boldly split infinitives that no man had split before... “

This books contains many visionary elements, from electronic books, holograms and computers networked together to usable portable information devices and touch-sensitive objects. Even the guide, the book inside the book, is very similar to Wikipedia, a database full of instantly available information. The artificial intelligences like Marvin, the depressed paranoid Android and Eddie, the spaceship’s mind are very unique and memorable. The quotes and sayings that I mentioned above also play an important role in my rating. Many of them are unique, witty and simply unforgettable. Here are a few famous examples:

…"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

…"Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?"

…"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

…“‘You know,’ said Arthur, ‘it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young.’
‘Why, what did she tell you?’
‘I don't know, I didn't listen.’”

…“Arthur: If I asked you where the hell we were, would I regret it?
Ford: We're safe.
Arthur: Oh good.
Ford: We're in a small galley cabin in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.
Arthur: Ah, this is obviously some strange use of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of.”

…“The President of the Universe holds no real power. His sole purpose is to take attention away from where the power truly exists...”

…“Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”

The plot IS too random and some events ARE too silly, but all the visionary elements, great quotes and funny commentary on human behavior and society, make it worth reading.

So...give this book a try if you are a big fan of science-fiction and want to read the classics. Give this book a try even if you are like me and might not find this story very humorous. Do keep in mind how old this book actually is and that it started out as radio broadcasts.

Don’t look too hard for logic. In this book, the universe is a joke and that’s kind of the whole point of the story.

“The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the 'Star Spangled Banner', but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish.”

I came to Douglas Adams in the way a lot of guys do, probably: I was introduced to it by someone far nerdier than I. Some of us become nerds when people we come in contact with share their obsessions; others are born nerds, and somehow organically discover Monty Python & the Holy Grail or, say, the original BBC miniseries version of this book. And then they make you watch it, twice, and spoil all the jokes by quoting them alongside it.

If I remember right, this happened to me freshman year of high school, which is a good time for The Hitchhiker's Guide. Douglas Adams' humor is offbeat and makes you feel smart for getting it, and if there is anything a 14-year-old boy likes to have reinforced, it is his smug sense of self-satisfaction.

I went on to read the sequels, which kind of petered out for me (not sure I ever finished Mostly Harmless), but the first book is pretty hard to dislike. Though when I re-read it my senior year as part of a sci-fi/fantasy English elective, I don't know if the entire class appreciated it quite as much as I was expecting, perhaps because I didn't know that they weren't taking the course because they liked the idea of reading Tolkien for credit, but because they needed the credit to graduate and the teacher was really nice. Like, open book, multiple choice quiz nice. And some of them still didn't pass. How is reading 25 pages of Anne McCaffrey homework? It was homework for me to stop reading after 25 pages! Not that I did.

So, you know this book, I am sure. Probably in more than one of its incarnations: TV series, radio play, big budget Hollywood movie. I love its elasticity -- each medium offers a slightly different take on the plot, which seems appropriate for a "trilogy" that somehow has five installments. Though it's humor, it really is a great sci-fi book, with a lot of ingenious concepts (my favorite being the Improbability Drive, which makes the most unlikely things happen, or the Point of View Gun, which shows you just how insignificant you are on a universal scale).

After experiencing all of the various versions, I am getting a little sick of the jokes (Vogon poetry and depressed space whales are only funny so many times), but it was still an easy choice for this day of the book challenge.

Facebook 30 Day Book Challenge Day 25: Favorite book you read in school.

6 shiny twinkling ★'s!

Really wonderful humor, funny language, absurd imagery and fantastic characters. The most fun I've ever had with books. And audiobooks.. I had this on tape, the BBC version, and would listen to this in my car or on my walkman repeatedly.

If you've ever wondered where those references to the number 42 come from, what it would be like to have two heads or what about the answer to life, the universe and everything - look no further.

Actually, I'm gonna head off right now to get the audiobook and pick up a ringtone & notification sound from that. Sorry, got to go!

Yay!

edit: back from picking up the BBC audiobook. OOOhhh, how wonderful. Sorry, gotta go again, walk the dog and listen to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on my smartphone (that walkman is soo history..)
**hurries off whistling the intro tune and grinning crazily**

★★ /5

This was fine… I guess?
This was definitely easy to read and absorb, but at the same time, it didn’t feel like a real book. The ridiculousness of the plot sometimes was just too much and brought up me from the story. Some parts of this book were actually really interesting, but a lot of things were just annoying. I didn’t really like the character, at least for me they didn’t have the proper motivation for their actions.
I understand why people like it, but sadly it was just not for me.

It’s true what they say... You pick up n  The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxyn and either chuck it away when your head starts to whirl OR you totally appreciate the head-whirling sensation, plunge right in and don’t surface till you have reached the Restaurant at the End of The Universe.

It is with great delight and spots before my eyes that I can proclaim that I belong to the latter breed. You need a wee bit of whimsy, a lot of quirky and a love for all things whacky (all three which I possess in abundance) to appreciate the magnificence of this space odyssey.

The plot is fairly simple. Seconds before planet Earth is completely demolished to make way for a galactic bypass, bemused Englishman Arthur Dent is whisked away to safety by his friend, Ford Prefect. Ford is not an out-of-work actor as he has led everyone to believe. He is in fact, the resident of a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and a researcher for the revised edition of ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’.

Together, the bursting-with-enthusiasm Ford and the bursting-with-disbelief Arthur get set to cruise around the galaxy. Adding to the comedy of errors are Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed galactican president; Trillian, a lady who by some bizarre coincidence had once given Arthur the ditch at an earth-party and Marvin, the oppressively-depressed robot who could drive even a spaceship to suicide.

Along the way, they have many a hit-and-fly situation with various warped creatures who inhabit the universe…they listen to some truly terrible poetry…they land on the legendary planet, Magrathea…and even learn about the super-intelligent computer *DEEP THOUGHT* and it’s mission to answer the question to Life, The Universe and everything. All this while trying to find a decent cup of tea...

Douglas Adams was the king of one-liners and whip-smart dialogue. He took human flaws, failings and reams of red-tape and converted it into a seriously funny tale. Many argue that the written work is just a reflection of Adams’thoughts…well hell..which book isn’t?!?

I have hemmed and hawed over the years wondering whether I should pick up the book or not…always inhaling it in bits and pieces. All I can say to the still-wary is this: grab the spaceship by it’s tail-lights and get geared for a mad-trip of a lifetime.