گفت:«...در سیارهٔ این روبات انسان‌ها شهروندن و مارمولک‌ها حاکم. انسان‌ها از مارمولک‌ها متنفرن و مارمولک‌ها بر اون‌ها حکومت می‌کنن.»
آرتور گفت «عجیبه. مگه نگفتی که سیاره‌شون دموکراسیه؟»
فورد گفت «چرا. گفتم. دموکراسیه. چه‌طور مگه؟»
آرتور امیدوار بود که سوالش خیلی احمقانه به نظر نرسه. «خب پس چرا انسان‌ها خودشون رو از شر مارمولک‌ها خلاص نمی‌کنن؟»
فورد گفت «به ذهن‌شون نمی‌رسه. به همین ساد��ی. همه‌شون حق رای دارن و فکر می‌کنن که دولتی که به‌ش رای دادن کم‌و‌بیش همونیه که می‌خوان.»
«یعنی می‌خوای بگی مردم داوطلبانه به مارمولک‌ها رای می‌دن؟»
فورد شونه‌هاش رو بالا انداخت. «معلومه.»
آرتور دوباره رفت سراغ اون سوالی که در پرسیدنش استاد بود. «چرا؟»
«چون می‌ترسن که اگه رای ندن مارمولک بدتری بیاد سر کار.»

I read this book a few years after the previous one, but what I thought was a gradual impoverishment of the story, here is felt even more. The focus of this novel is mainly on Arthur Dent, that we find on Earth, in search of a normal life that has lost. For this reason, there aren’t so many space travels, who were the constant of the first books, guided by the omnipresent Hitchhikers's Guide. In this case, the plot seems rather weak, with some inconsistency with respect to the previous book and the reader jumps from one event to another, without knowing where it will go. Centered on Arthur, the story is totally missing of Zaphod and Trillian. What in the first books was a fun and brilliant style, starts to get heavy, even if the fantasy is, however, indisputable.
To read if you want to complete the series.

If any of the inappropriately named Hitchhiker's Guide Trilogy could be called "best", I think this is it. I see two elements setting it apart from the other books in the HHGG series: its tight plot, and the fact that it is at heart a romantic comedy more than a farcical satire of the Science Fiction genre.

As one would expect, the focus of the storyline is the continued pursuit of the Ultimate Question, to which we already know that the Ultimate Answer is "Forty-two".

The characterization of Arthur Dent seems at first to be inconsistent with the Arthur Dent known from the earlier books, until one realizes that this takes place eight years later, as time passes for him. Simply put, Arthur has matured and grown into his own as a Galactic Hitchhiker. He is more confident in who he is, and how to get around, while still maintaining his bumbling ways with women, which naturally leads the reader into the romantic comedy of the story.

I know many people who have never read any of the Hitchhiker's Guide books because they are "not into sci-fi", or simply didn't get much of the humor in the initial trilogy. For them, I think that the prize of getting to this, the fourth book in the (inappropriately named) trilogy, will make reading the first three books worthwhile*.



* Despite an effort by the author to explain within the text of the story links to the previous books, the characters and plot do require prior knowledge.

This one is a little different than the previous books in the series. It doesn't really seem to follow any real plot or storyline. Trillian and Zaphod are also absent from the book. I still like it overall, though. I generally view this as Arthur's happy ending after everything he put up with in the first three books. This requires pretending book 5 doesn't exist, but I'm okay with that since I really hate Mostly Harmless.

More or less pointless, yet exceedingly charming. Adams' writing is in killer form here, hilarious and touching as ever. Books #3 and #4 are pretty much about nothing (in retrospect, book #3, 'Life, The Universe, and Everything,' has a brilliant title), yet they could have been about Something and I would feel pretty much the same about it, I'm sure. It's the quality of writing I go in for, and Adams can't be beat at what he does. I loved every minute of reading this tiny book, and believe me, there were several.

Compared to the previous parts, I should say, this one was not that interesting anymore and could have been a little bit shorter to be worth more than 3 stars. Still, I liked it and some of my favorite quotes:

"Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. and some said that even the trees had been bad move and that no one should ever have left the oceans." Indeed, stop the evolution - bad bad idea. :)
***
"He had read somewhere that the Eskimos had over two hundred dif ferent
words for snow, without which their conversation would probably have got
very monotonous. So they would distinguish between thin snow and thick
snow, light snow and heavy snow, sludgy snow, brittle snow, snow that came
in flurries, snow that came in drifts, snow that came in on the bottom of your
neighbour’s boots all over your nice clean igloo floor, the snows of winter, the
snows of spring, the snows you remember from your childhood that were so
much better than any of your modern snow, fine snow, feathery snow, hill
snow, valley snow, snow that falls in the morning, snow that falls at night,
snow that falls all of a sudden just when you were going out fishing, and snow
that despite all your ef forts to train them, the huskies have pissed on."

***
Visibility test in the rain..
"Rain type 17 was a dirty blatter battering against his windshield so hard that it didn't make much odds whether he had his wipers on of off.
He tested this theory by turning them off briefly, but as it turned out the visibility did get quite a lot worse. It just failed to get better again when he turned them back on."

Well, it starts off quite nicely with some classic Douglas Adams' humor but becomes a love story and the ending was, well, "okay".

“Rob McKenna was a miserable bastard and he knew it because he'd had a lot of people point it out to him over the years and he saw no reason to disagree with them except the obvious one which was that he liked disagreeing with people, particularly people he disliked, which included, at the last count, everybody.”

“This is flight 121 to Los Angeles. If your travel plans today do not include Los Angeles, now would be the perfect time to disembark.”

“No," said Arthur, "no," he added thoughtfully. "No," he added again, even more thoughtfully. "What?" he said at last.”

“Tips for aliens in New York: Land anywhere, Central Park, anywhere. No one will care or indeed even notice.”

2023 reads: 30/350

this is the fourth book in the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy series.

arthur dent is back on earth and ready to believe that the past eight years were all in his imagination. but then all of earth’s dolphins disappear and his battered copy of the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy shows up, and arthur knows something fishy is going on.

it’s been a long time since i read the previous books, but i had fun jumping back into this story. there weren’t as many funny moments in this book, but it was still pretty interesting. excited to continue this series!

Buch 4 von Per Anhalter durch die Galaxis ist ziemlich bodenständig, für die Verhältnisse der Reihe jedenfalls, und es ist ... eine Romanze? Der Ton ist ganz anders, zurückhaltender, zarter und ... ich mag das. Es ist ein Bruch mit dem, was vorher die Reihe ausgemacht hat, aber mir ist das egal. Bisher hätte man nach jedem Buch aussteigen können, obwohl ich empfehle, mindestens die ersten beiden zu lesen. So sehe ich das eher als optionale nächste Episode, weniger als zusammenhängendes Epos, das den Fokus verliert.

Mein Urteil: Ich mochte das Buch. Das steht über allem.
Und dann: Es hat seine Schwächen.

Adams lässt diese Geschichte über einen längeren Zeitraum spielen, was grundsätzlich ganz gut funktioniert, aber besonders im letzten Drittel enden Szenen auch mal abrupt oder wirken überflüssig, die Übergänge stimmen noch nicht so ganz, wie in den Büchern davor. Adams hat wohl selbst das Buch als mit heißer Nadel gestochen beschrieben, weil es viel Druck für ihn gab, endlich mal eine Deadline einzuhalten. An manchen stellen ist der Teig dann wohl noch flüssig gewesen.

Und dann meldet sich der Erzähler immer mal zu Wort, was ja schon von Anfang an der Fall war, aber dieses Mal gibt es so Kommentare wie. "Wer wissen will, wie es mit Ford Prefect und Marvin weitergeht, kann auch einfach zu den letzten Kapiteln springen", oder so, was im Prinzip aussagt, das Teile des Buchs überflüssig seien (was natürlich nicht stimmt), aber trotzdem ... es ist irgendwie bevormundend. Zuerst fand ich es witzig, dann ließ es einen schalen Beigeschmack.

Nun, ich mochte das Buch, wie gesagt, immer noch sehr gerne. Die Aussage, dass die Per-Anhalter-Durch-Die-Galaxis-Bücher von Teil zu Teil (nach Band 2) immer etwas schwächer werden, kann ich aber langsam nachvollziehen.

This is a return to form for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I thought book one (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) was fantastic, but I thought that book 2 was mediocre, and in some ways forgetable, and I was so frustrated by how nonsensical and boring and plot-lacking book 3 was. I was unsure whether I would complete the series, but since I already owned books 4 and 5 and they were only 200 pages each, I decided "In for a Penny, In for a Pound".

I am so glad that I did, because I really enjoyed So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

There are still some chapters and paragraphs in here that have seemingly no sense other than the author wanted to go off on a tangent or had a joke and required a long set up. However, this book actually has a solid, complete, overarching story that books 2 and 3 (especially 3) didn't have.

First of all, the mystery behind this book was intriguing from the start. How is Arthur back on earth after it blew up? Who is this "Fenny", and does she find Arthur attractive as he does her? All these were fascinating and enrapturing from the beginning.

The romance in the book is relatable, sweet, and delightful to read. Adams could have easily gone a much more slapstick way with it, but instead turned in something surprisingly heartfelt.

I didn't much care for Ford Prefect's story once he leaves the bar, and it never picked up again for me until towards the end of the book. Arthur's story was enchanting from beginning to end though.

I hope that book 5 answers a lot of questions that I have, but if it is as entertaining as this one, it'll be worth it.

Overall, I think this isn't as good as book 1, but is a solid entry into the series that feels like it's back on the right track. I'll give it an 8 out of 10.

It might be very silly to be upset that I don't see the point of the book. Its in hitchhikers guide to the galaxy series. Arthur falls in love with a girl who thinks she is a hedhodge. She has unfortunately forgot how to turn the earth to good and happy place so they look for answers in God. It's very silly and it really did work in the beginning but I'm desperate to find a real meaning of the book. I like sillyness but with a cause. Will continue on with the series though.

Let me start off by saying first of all that I am a huge fan of the Hitchhiker ‘Trilogy’. I loved the first three books of the series. This one was very, very different from the others though and I don’t think I like the change in the pattern.

First of all, two major characters, Trillian and Zaphod weren’t even there in the book, they were simply given a brief mention towards the end. And Marvin, who was my favourite character of the lot didn’t come around till the very, very last bit of the book.

Secondly, unlike the first three books where the author almost deliberately steered clear of any hint of romance, even between Zaphod and Trillian who were in a relationship at the time. The plot had no definite structure; the characters simply ambled along through space tackling adventure when it came in their way. Here for the first time Arthur had a more or less definite mission towards the end and more importantly there was an actual romantic story in the book. I’m not sure I liked the sudden infusion of romance, it was all too sudden.
So yeah, I really, really hope that the next book has Zaphod, Trillian and Marvin in it as well and they all go on an adventure together, like old times and that Arthur dumps what’s-her-name.