Had I read this? I couldn't recall. I knew I'd seen the old tv version, but I wasn't sure I'd actually read the book, so I read it. And why not? It's a hell of a good book, and I'd do it again!

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is kind of the continuing adventures of Arthur Dent. Honestly, while he's a focal point of book one, he doesn't factor into the sequel as much. This is more about Zaphod Beeblebrox and Ford Perfect, as well as the kitchen sink's worth of whatever zany ideas Douglas Adams wanted to throw into the works.

I say "zany ideas" as if they are a haphazard, careless collection of ramblings, but Adams does actually stay on topic for much of the time. That topic is humanity's futility. We're a go-nowhere race going nowhere fast. Adams basically says we've been given two million years worth of time to do something with ourselves before it's all over, and frankly we will fuck it up. Oh well!

While not as sharp as the first book, this is a worthy successor and I plan to continue reading the remaining books in the series, which I'm pretty sure I haven't read yet.

Hitchhiker's, volume 2.

The beginning of human life on earth and the end of the universe, aided by infinite improbability.

As with the others, it's the ideas and writing that make it so good:

Marvin makes a heavily armoured tank guess what weapon he has (nothing).

"The guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate".

"How are you? Fine if you like being me, which personally, I don't".

"Everything's cool and froody".

"Little expense had been spared to give the impression that no expense had been spared".

"The terrible light that had played on his features went off to play somewhere more healthy".

Like most car parks, it "smelt mostly of impatience".

"He paused just long enough to make them feel they ought to say something, then interrupted".

Spend a year dead for tax reasons.

Meat bred to want to be eaten.

"Life. Don't talk to me about life".

The ruler of the universe doesn't know it, and doesn't believe in anything anyway.

Dump hairdressers, telephone sanitizers, management consultants and advertising execs - then die from dirty phones.

Can't invent fire without knowing what people want from fire; can't invent wheel till decide on a colour.

"We were about to do nothing at all for a while, but it can wait".


Brief summary and favourite quotes from the other four of the five books, as follows:

Hitchhiker's Guide (vol 1): http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Life, the Universe and Everything (vol 3):
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish (vol 4): http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Mostly Harmless (vol 5): http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

And Another Thing...(vol 6), by Eoin Colfer : https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I first read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe about 30 years ago, but returned to re-read it recently to fulfill a challenge prompt ("A book with a robot, cyborg, or AI character").
Douglas Adams' series has certainly stood the test of time, remaining just as zany, amusing and insightful as it did when first published.
In this instalment, Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, Trillian and Marvin continue their galactic road-trip, narrowly escaping a mercenary attack by a Vogon ship before leaping through dimensions of time and space to Ursa Minor Beta, home of Megadodo Publications and the phenomenally successful guidebook The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where Zaphod hopes to meet the mysterious Zarniwoop. Zaphod argues with a Sirus Cybernetics Corporation AI Happy Vertical People Transporter (elevator) before being captured and transported to the desolated Frogstar World B, curiously surviving the Total Perspective Vortex with his usual cool insouciance. He finally tracks down Zarniwoop, the team are reunited and visit the titular restaurant, where temporal relastatics enables diners to observe the end of the Universe, two seatings per day, caberet-style. After lunch, including several Pan-Galactic Gargleblasters, they steal an attractive all-black spacecraft from the restaurant carpark, before unwittingly becoming a part of the stage-show for Disaster Area, a plutonium rock band from the Gagrakacka Mind Zones - not only the loudest rock band in the Galaxy, but the loudest noise of any kind at all. The remote-controlled black spacecraft transports them all to Kakrafoon, where the ship plunges into the sun as the climax of Disaster Area's gig. All but Marvin manage to escape the explosion at the last moment, using a faulty matter transferrance teleport. Arthur and Ford regain consciousness, feeling somewhat hungover, finding themselves again hitchhiking, this time on a Golgafrinchan colonising ark, whose affable captain spends all his time in the bath. They share jynnan tonnyx, before crash-landing into a small and utopian blue-green planet that seems strangely familiar...
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe was a quick and enjoyable read. I also listened to some chapters via the excellent Pan McMillan 42nd anniversary re-recorded audiobook version, narrated by actor Martin Freeman, who played Arthur Dent in the 2005 adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Highly recommended for those who enjoy a light-hearted and amusing read (or listen) with plenty of thinly-veiled references to organisational politics and the human condition.

I enjoyed this book, often times laughing out loud at the quirky humor and the odd way of thinking. Do not read this book for the story because there isn't much of one, but pick it up for the journey and the entertainment of each scene.
There's humor around the fact that we as humans are just a spek on a spek on a spek of nothingness. Space and the universe humbles us. And we really don't know much about anything.
But maybe the whole meaning of everything really is just "42" and we just don't have the minds capable of understanding it lol.

A constantly intriguing, ever-evolving space adventure and all-together a very solid follow-up to the first book.

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”

I LOVE this series. I read the first few books as a teen so it's fun to go back and re-read them. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is brilliant. It's funny, well-written, and perfectly paced. My only critique is that it doesn't *quite* live up to the first book in the series. But then again, sequels rarely do.

4.5 stars (rounded up to 5).

3.5 ✨

2.5 to 3.0 stars. Decent follow up to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. While enjoyable, I did not find myself laughing as often as I did during the first one. With books like this, your mood is often an important factor in determining your level of enjoyment so it could be that I just wasn't as receptive to the story as I might otherwise have been. Good but not great.

Very entertaining sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In this book, our heroes...I don't really know how to even begin to summarize the plot. Our heroes are on a quest to get something to eat which leads to adventures through time and space and parallel dimensions and a trip to visit the man who runs the universe. I have always thought that the Hitchhiker books get progressively weirder and weirder. Bear in mind that the first book features pan-dimensional superintelligent mice, so that's saying something. If you thought that the first book was too random and disorganized for your taste you're probably not going to love the sequels.

Having just read this for the third time I do not count myself in that group, and this is my second favorite of the five Hitchhiker books. The humor is a little more uneven than in book one which is the only thing keeping this from five stars for me. But when the book is "on" it is more fun than a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster. If you thought The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was funny I highly recommend this book. 4 stars.

Reread in January, 2004 and April, 2012.

Not much to say about this. It's like the first one but not as good. It's a sequel. What do you expect?

Bir mizah, bilim kurgu ve uzay romanı. Yazar bir yandan okuru uzayın derinliklerindeki maceralara götürürken, bir yandan da bol bol güldürüyor.
Kitapla ilgili incelemem: http://kitapokurum.blogspot.com/2018/...

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