This was another strange installment in the ever-strange Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Out of all of the books so far, this book was a little easier to get into. Maybe it's because it takes place on Earth (even if things are still topsy-turvy and all of the dolphins disappeared and whatever), but this book seemed a little easier to grasp what was going on. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it, per se, but it wasn't a bad read.

Somewhere in a parallel universe, Douglas Adams's immensely clever, imaginative, and hilarious books also include a satisfying plot and characters that you can care about and enjoy caring about. Until trans-dimensional publishing becomes a thing, we are stuck with five "pretty fun" books that will delight and then disappoint. It seems sacrilegious to criticize something so amazing, but there it is-- mostly harmless. I love what Adams accomplished, but a second later it fills me with longing. Advice: Read the first three, skip the last two.

Notes: In this book, Adams tries to make a more novel-like adventure, featuring true love and a narrative. There are some neat successes, but the meandering failures are there too.

Still here.. still working my way through this terrible series!
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Dent's back on Earth, 8 years and light-miles of travel in time and space since the first book, and I still don't care; still think it's very poor infantile humour, very weak storytelling and just so shocking that this series is so much loved and cherished... it really is rubbish!
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1 out of 12. A One Star read, because there is no Zero Star facility!

I truly enjoyed this one. And I laughed so hard at the biscuit-story! It’s too long to quote, so to remind myself: It was on page 90-92.

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Quote:

‘Well, it’s not the sort of thing you’re trained for, is it? I searched my soul, and discovered that there was nothing anywhere in my upbringing, experience or even primal instincts to tell me how to react to someone who has quite simply, calmly, sitting right there in front of me, stolen one of my biscuits.’

من واقعاً این سری رو دوست دارم و برای همین سخته بگم کدومش بهتر بود اما تا اینجا جلد اول واقعاً عالی بود. پر از شوخی ها و اتفاقات درجه یک. یه قصه بامزه در عین حال دیوانه وار و جفنگ با چاشنی تخیل. اما این جلد برگشته بود به عقب و اتفاقی از جلد اول رو دنبال می‌کرد که فکر می‌کردیم چرا تا اینجا بهش هیچ توجهی نشده؟ آیا این آدم شخصیت اول ماجرا جز چای و ماجراهای فسلفی بزرگ و پاسخ به جهان و همه‌چیز و عدد ۴۲ و گشتن و اتواستاپ زدن شور و هیجان نداره؟ هیچ جور علاقه خصوصی براش پیش نیومده و عاشق نمیشه؟ یا لپ مطلب: سکس نداره؟
ترجمه کتاب شکل روونی داشت. یه جا فقط اشتباهی باید تعداد کلمات اسم کتاب رو به فارسی می‌نوشت که به انگلیسی نوشته بود. و دوم اینکه مترجم شت رو ترجمه نکرده بود و خودش رو نوشته بود که خیلی تاثیر بهتری نسبت به «لعنتی» داره.
در کل لذت بردم.

WARNING: This review contains a slight spoiler.

At the end of Life, the Universe and Everything, the third book in Douglas Adams' five-book “trilogy,” as in the first two — The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe — Arthur Dent pines due to the destruction of his home planet, Earth.

Only it didn’t happen. That’s right — in the eight years that Arthur has spent dodging bullets and lasers and otherwise just barely evading death, going back millions of years to the dawn of time on Earth, bemoaning the lack of a decent cup of tea, and having dozens of adventures, Earth has been just fine. In fact, just six months have elapsed back on planet Earth. His house in the West Country hasn’t been flattened to make way for a bypass, nor has the Earth been destroyed by the Vogons to make way for an intergalactic bypass — even though Arthur is certain that he witnessed both destructions. Despite all of that, here’s the earth pretty much as he remembered it, except that everyone he meets remembers a platoon of spaceships hovering overhead at just that time, but chuck it up to mass hysteria.

So was this series a complete sham of the Dallas variety where everything was just a dream? What do you take Douglas Adams for? Some Hollywood hack? Of course not! I won’t ruin the book, but, of course, it's more complicated than that -- or as Ford Prefect says in another context, "nothing so simple, nothing anything like so straight-forward" -- although I don't think we'll know the entire story until the fifth book, Mostly Harmless.

While I absolutely adored the first two books in this Douglas Adams’ five-part “trilogy,” the third book simply didn’t measure up to Adams’ usual standard: It wasn’t as funny or engaging or — I have to admit — philosophically stimulating. And as So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish tacitly admits, not enough Marvin the Paranoid Android, either. However, Adams has completely redeemed himself here.

What I can reveal is that So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish finds Earthman Arthur Dent, who thought he was literally the last man in the universe, reveling in new love and coming into his own. After three volumes where poor Arthur always ended up the goat in every mishap or misadventure and the butt of every joke, it’s nice to see Arthur finally happy and feeling more sane and confident than ever. How nice to see Arthur finally getting answers and the happiness he’s been seeking all along.

I love this series. I laugh so hard when I read it, and I don't mean like low chuckle and a smile, I mean laughing so that other people look at me and I have trouble explaining to them why I'm laughing in public laughs.

خب
اگه قرار باشه کمتر دوست داشتنی ترین جلد مجموعه رو معرفی کنیم، همین جلده.
اگه بخوام دلایلش رو بگم اسپویل میشه و منم دوست ندارم اون تیک پایین رو بزنم.
خلاصه اگه دوست داشتین بدونین چرا کمتر دوست داشتنی بود، پیام بدین.

3.5 stars

This series is so absurd that the usual writing rules don’t seem to apply. While the plot in this book was tighter and less convoluted than previous installments, that actually worked against it. What makes this series so riotously fun is how absolutely absurd they are. Don’t get me wrong, this book is still completely bizarre, but it didn’t have quite the same level of convoluted ridiculousness as the first three books.

However, So Long, And Thanks For All the Fish still delivered on the hilarious one-liners, and really upped the ante on the breaks with the fourth wall.

كالعادة، أسلوب الكاتب ممتع و مسلي و مبتكر، و حتى أحياناً سخيف بشكل عبقري ممتع، و هذا هو أكثر شئ " و ربما الشئ الوحيد" الذي أعجبني في هذا الجزء.

للأسف معظم الرواية حول القصة الرومانسية بين آرثر و فينتشيرتش "اسمها كده"، و هي قصة لا بأس بها في حد ذاتها، و لكن ليس حين تقرأ كتاب خيال علمي رائع و عبقري مثل دليل المسافر عبر المجرة.

آمل بأن يكون الجزء الأخير بنفس مستوى الكتب السابقة و نهايته رائعة مرضية.

As usual, Douglas Adams has his unique writing style, funny, amusing, & brilliant, sometimes even brilliantly amusingly silly, it's the most "or maybe the only" thing I like about this book.

I liked the earlier books more, this book is more about the romance between Arthur & Fenchurch "Yes, it's her name", which is an okay story by itself, but not if you expect another book of the brilliant thrilling Sci-fi series The Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy.

Hope the last book is a good one with a satisfying ending.

Fantastic vintage Sci-fi space odyssey with weird and wonderful characters and planets. Now for the last and number 5.

“Life... is like a grapefruit. Well, it's sort of orangey-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It's got pips inside, too. Oh, and some people have half a one for breakfast.”



Hmmm … it pains me to say it but I have such mixed thoughts

I did enjoy it and it was still fun but I was also rather disappointed too!
I mean Marvin was in one chapter .. one chapter .. right at the end .. big boo there!! Also boo ☹️
Less laughs too.


“For a moment he felt good about this. A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it. Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it and satisfied, drove on into the night.”



“God's Final Message to His Creation:
'We apologize for the inconvenience.”



“And as he drove on, the rainclouds dragged down the sky after him, for, though he did not know it, Rob McKenna was a Rain God. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him, and to water him.”


“No. No games. He wanted her and didn't care who knew it. He definitely and absolutely wanted her, longed for her, wanted to do more things than there were names for with her.”


“You can't possibly be a scientist if you mind people thinking that you're a fool.”