Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15176 in Books
• Published on: 1995-10-16
• Binding: Hardcover
• 784 pages

Synopsis
When Earth is destroyed to make way for a Hyperspatial express route, Arthur Dent discovers that space is big, as he is taken on a hair-raising tour of the Galaxy and its very strange inhabitants, by his friend Ford Perfect. This is a new edition which incorporates the fifth part of the trilogy.

Excerpted from The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
" 'Hey,' he said, 'what you do that for?'
Trillian was tapping her fingers on a screenful of figures.
'I've just thought of something stupid,' she said.
'Yeah? Worth interrupting a news bulletin about me for?'
'You hear enough about yourself as it is.'
'I'm very insecure. We know that.'
'Can we drop your ego for a moment? This is important.'
'If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.' Zaphod glared at her again, then laughed.
'Listen,' she said, 'we picked up those couple of guys...'
'What couple of guys?'
'The couple of guys we picked up.'
'Oh yeah,' said Zaphod, 'those couple of guys.'
'We picked them up in sector ZZ 9 Plural Z Alpha.'
'Yeah?' said Zaphod, and blinked.
Trillian said quietly, 'Does this mean anything to you?'
'Mmmm,' said Zaphod, ' ZZ 9 Plural Z Alpha. ZZ 9 Plural Z Alpha?'
'Well?' said Trillian.
'Er... What does Z mean?' said Zaphod.
'Which one?'
'Any one.'

One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he didn't actually understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was renowned for being amazingly clever and quite clearly so-but not all the time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about it."

Customer Reviews

The weirdest book ever!
I have never read any of Douglas Adams books before; I found this book strange and a bit unusual. But I still enjoyed the story based on an Earthling called Arthur Dent, who wakes up one morning to find the council preparing to demolish his home. This is also the day when the alien Vogons demolish the planet Earth to make way for a hyperspace express bypass.
I decided to watch the film which I thought was good, but the book is in much more detail than the film. So I would recommend you read the book before you watch the film.
If you are somebody that enjoys funny and unusual things then this is the book for you. I think this book would mainly be aimed towards young teenagers and older as it has some things in it, which might be a bit hard for a child to understand. When I read and watched the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy I felt like I was there, watching the Earth being demolished by the alien Vogons.

Best Books that I Have Ever Read
These are, without a doubt, the best books that I have ever read. Not because of the story , but because of the storytelling.
Douglas Adams has the uncanny ability to take any subject and make it tense, funny, or anything else that you happen to mention.
For example, he takes a perfectly ordinary metting between two people at a train station, and makes into a tense situation that has you on the edge of your seat.
Now, onto the story. The basic premise is that there is a single person, and a lot of very extraordinary things happen to him. In some books, similar things happen, and you start thinking about how improbable it is, and the chances that any of the things would actually happen. That is not the case in these stories for the plain and simple reason that it rapidly becomes apparent that Arthur Dent really is God's plaything (despite the fact that God no longer exists), and that, to quote the book "when [he] is least expecting it, the Universe will suddenly leap out from behind a corner and yell BOO at [him]".
There is one other thing that bears mentioning before I let you get on with ordering the book, and that is Mr. Adams' tendancy to shoot off on real tangents (i.e. a small leap at first but quickly become uttery unconnected). These are, in my opinion, the best parts of the book, but you will have to read it yourself and decide.

Fantastic Book
After I saw the film, I got the book, and found it much more enjoyable, and I now find the film quite dull compared with the book. Be warned, there is no sanity whatsoever in the book, just a lot of funny stuff!

Reading it again and again I still find it to be most enjoyable, a wonderful work of fiction, thoroughly recommended