RSSThe Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide
September 23rd, 2005 | View Comments
Author: Douglas Adams
Publisher: Wings
Rating: 
Buy The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide on Amazon.com
This five-book anthology follows the adventures of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian, and Zaphod Beeblebrox from that fateful moment when the Vogons show up to demolish the earth to that fateful moment when…well, you’ll see. Pay close attention as you read because even the most random plot points will come back to haunt you later. This book also includes a short story, “Young Zaphod Plays It Safe” that explores some of Zaphod’s earlier years and apparently hints at the origins of one controversial Earth figure. Douglas Adams lampoons everything from science to bureaucracy, so hang on tight!
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, apparently born of a drunken stupor, is easily the best of the bunch. It is fast, furious, and very funny. Adams’s brain is like our own earthbound version of the Infinite Improbability Drive, spewing forth a world full of absurd concepts that all somehow sort of makes sense at the end. Or at least we can pretend it makes sense at the end.
I think that The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is a noticeable step down, in large part because of the extensive foray into Zaphod’s subconscious (subconsciouses?). I find Zaphod to be one of the series’s flattest and least interesting characters (not to mention one of the ugliest, though that might be because the Zaphod that’s in the 1981 British movie version of the first and second books is truly a hideous creature thanks to its plastic prop second head). While Zaphod works great as a plot device, he’s just not a strong enough character to sustain his own plot, especially one that’s as unfocused as this one. The short story about Zaphod suffers from the same problem and gave me a giant case of I Don’t Care.
Life, the Universe and Everything is, in my opinion, the weakest book of the bunch simply because it’s boring. The attempted parallel between English cricket and intergalactic war doesn’t work (maybe it’s because I’m American) and there’s just too much blathering about saving the universe. Adams, like J. K. Rowling, is great at action and absurdity, but lousy at creating compelling drama. Plus, Bistromathics isn’t anywhere nearly as entertaining as the Infinite Improbability Drive.
Fortunately, Adams is back in top shape with So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, bringing us back to the themes that began the series so successfully. Plus, Arthur gets himself a girlfriend! Bam chicka bow wow! And you get to find out what God’s last message to His creation was.
Finally, Mostly Harmless gives us a rather poetic ending, after it makes you crave endlessly for a good sandwich.
Buy The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide on Amazon.com
Yvonne posted this on September 23rd, 2005 @ 5:57pm in Book Reviews | Permalink to "The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide"
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