The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts

by Douglas Adams

Paperback, 2017

Status

Available

Call number

FIC H Ada

Publication

Pan Books

Pages

732

Description

Don't Panic: collected together in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Boxset are the five novels comprising Douglas Adams' hilarious "Triology in Five Parts." Wildly popular and wholly unique, this bestselling series needs no introduction and is indispensable for would-be galactic travellers and Douglas Adams fans, old and new.The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyOne Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that morning, this seems already to be rather a lot to cope with. Sadly, however, the weekend has only just begun. The Galaxy may offer a mind-boggling variety of ways to be blown up and/or insulted, but it's very hard to get a cup of tea.The Restaurant at the End of the UniverseWhen all questions of space, time, matter and the nature of being have been resolved, only one question remains - 'Where shall we have dinner?' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe provides the ultimate gastronomic experience, and for once there is no morning after to worry about.Life, the Universe and EverythingFollowing a number of stunning catastrophes, Arthur Dent is surprised to find himself living in a hideously miserable cave on prehistoric Earth. However, just as he thinks that things cannot get possibly worse, they suddenly do. An eddy in the space-time continuum lands him, Ford Prefect, and their flying sofa in the middle of the cricket ground at Lord's, just two days before the world is due to be destroyed by the Vogons. Escaping the end of the world for a second time, Arthur, Ford, and their old friend Slartibartfast embark (reluctantly) on a mission to save the whole galaxy from fanatical robots. Not bad for a man in his dressing gown... So Long, and Thanks for All the FishThere is a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. It's not an easy thing to do, and Arthur Dent thinks he's the only human who's been able to master this nifty little trick - until he meets Fenchurch, the woman of his dreams. Fenchurch once realised how the world could be made a good and happy place. Unfortunately, she's forgotten. Convinced that the secret lies within God's Final Message to His Creation, they go in search of it. And, in a dramatic break with tradition, actually find it... Mostly HarmlessArthur Dent has settled down on the small planet Lamuella and has embraced his role as a Sandwich Maker. However, his plans for a quiet life are thrown awry by the unexpected arrival of his daughter. There's nothing worse than a frustrated teenager with a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in their hands. When she runs away, Arthur goes after her determined to save her from the horrors of the universe. After all - he's encountered most of them before... Share and enjoy Douglas Adams' mega-selling trilogy in five parts in this retro paperback boxset - charting the whole of Arthur Dent's hilariously strange odyssey through space and time!… (more)

Collection

Barcode

1165

Language

Original language

English

Physical description

732 p.; 7.75 inches

ISBN

9781509852796

Lexile

1000L

User reviews

LibraryThing member JollyContrarian
Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series will, for certain readers, represent an epiphany of the sort caused elsewhere (but in the same sorts of people) only by Monty Python and Pink Floyd. Generally speaking, if you know all the lyrics to Animals, can quote the dead parrot sketch and can hum David
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Gilmour's guitar solos, you will be able to recite the titles of all Oolon Colluphid's groundbreaking metaphysical tracts about God, too. Yes, you. You know who you are.
I have a few complaints about the way it all ends up, but I better get in the bouquets while the going is good: all my quibbling below is not to detract from the fact that the original instalment, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, is one of the wittiest books ever written - the combination of a solid science fiction grounding (Adams scriptwrote for Doctor Who) and dead-eye observations about the collision of the British way of life with the Nineteen Seventies, make this little book one of the genuine cultural artefacts of the past century.

Nevertheless, and rather as it has for Floyd and Python, universal admiration for Adams (recently deceased) and the first book has tended to cloud the collective judgment as far as the rest of the series is concerned. While Adams is clearly a master of the dead-ball, the entire package is a pretty tiring affair, as if it were a good idea which ran out of steam about halfway through. Which, according to Adams himself, it was.

If you read even the first three stories back to back a few things begin to emerge. Firstly, the original (and undeniably brilliant) premise has completely evaporated by the end of the second book. Until this point the story drifts from set piece to set piece, but is guided fairly firmly by the central quest. When this runs out of gas, the linear narrative disappears, and the characters drift pointlessly between scenes with no apparent connection. What starts out as a clever concept album ends up as a sketch show. As long as the sketches are funny this is ok, if not necessarily ideal. But they too begin to run out of steam.

Whenever Adams needs to restore a semblance of continuity, he reintroduces Marvin the Paranoid Android, who turns up having been stuck somewhere for millions of years (waiting to save the author's bacon?): no bad thing, as Marvin is the most enjoyable character of the lot. Adams obviously realised the mess he'd created by the end of Life, The Universe and Everything: So Long and Thanks For All The Fish is an attempt to pull everything back together. Alas, it's wholly unsuccessful. So unsuccessful, in fact, that Adams felt obliged to have another go at the same job in Mostly Harmless, and was equally unsuccessful second time round.

After a time you also begin to realise that Adams' famously brilliant writing style consists largely of taking figures of speech and deliberately subverting them - a technique which after a while, to paraphrase it, more or less exactly fails to please the eye. By So Long..., Adams is rather arch about the whole affair - consciously introducing "the chronicler" into proceedings and on one occasion (not a little arrogantly) telling readers to re-read a seemingly incomprehensible sentence, until it is understood.

The series certainly gave him the chance to work on his storytelling, and the results are plain to see from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, which is a superbly plotted, focussed and realised story. But, rather like his characters, for the most part in this Series Adams flounders around with the Answer, but never really gets to grips with the Question.

Mostly Harmless.
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LibraryThing member BookMarkMe
This review is based only on the first of the five parts.

As a carbon based bipedal life form I guess humour is like art, everyone has their own likes and as a first time reader of 'The Hitcher Hikers Guide' I guess it is not to my taste. A few amusing paragraphs were not worth for me the slog of
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the rest of it.
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LibraryThing member isabelx
1) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (5 stars)

'If I asked you where the hell we were,' said Arthur weakly, 'would I regret it?'
Ford stood up. 'We're safe,' he said.
'Oh good,' said Arthur.
'We're in a small galley cabin,'said Ford, 'in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.'
'Ah,
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said Arthur, 'this is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of.'

I've been a fan of HHGG ever since listening to the original radio series on BBC Radio 4. It has been one of my favourite books ever since, and although I chose a quotation from early in the book, it is equally funny all the way through.

2) The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

3) Life, the Universe and Everything

4) So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

5) Mostly Harmless
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LibraryThing member kirstiecat
A couple of days ago, I just finished getting through these nearly 800 pages of The Hitchhikers Guide Series. I think it's sort of remarkable in that is has a little something for everyone. In many ways, it reminds me of the Choose Your Own Adventure Books from when I was a kid only Douglas Adams
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makes the choices, of course, and usually the characters get themselves into the worst predicaments. That said, in some ways, I was thinking I should change my review to 4/5 stars because there are just some things Douglas doesn't explain very well...and also, I felt like he needed to put more into the final ending in the fifth book. But these books are just such classics and the writing is so witty I have a really soft spot for them. I think if you read them at times, depending on where you are in your life and what you're looking for in a book, they are not enough. At other times, they are just what you need.
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LibraryThing member smurfwreck
My 2 Cents: What can I write that no one else has? Not much. what I can say that is I am overjoyed that my copy of this tome, coincidentally/unintentially, has a foam stuffed leather cover, so it can and has been used as a pillow for this weary traveler and would make a great addotion to the "book"
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in the story.
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LibraryThing member maxsumillion
i thouroughly reccomend anyone to get this book as the way douglas adams writes is like no other and i guarantee it will have you rolling off your seat with laughter!
LibraryThing member Frozeninside
It's the first book in his trilogy of 5 and it was apsolutly amazing. I can't believe I've wait this long to read these books. If you haven't read this book you must. I can't remember the last time I've laughed out this much while reading a book. My fiance has read them, as they are his books, so
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when ever he hears crack up he wants to know what part I'm at. It is such a refreshing read.
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LibraryThing member twig_tea
These books are so crazy that they're sane. Or maybe so sane that they're completely crazy. In any case they mess with my mind and they make me scream with laughter and so I love them.
LibraryThing member Jasignature
A comedic genius up there with Robin Williams when it comes to imagination run wild. Would you believe that, having worked in BackPacker Hostels here in Australia, the amount of 'Western Europeans (Celts in the old days)' that travel with a 'towel' is amazing! I remember watching one Pom flap out
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his towel next to a Muslim upon his prayer rug at Bondi and say (holding up the HHGTTG) "this is my Religion...hows it going?". Simply awesome. I hear that Douglas Adams is alive an well and travelling around Oz in a Wicked Camper.
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LibraryThing member collinmaessen
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy has to be one of the most memorable science fictions books I've ever read. The story gives the most outlandish, and funny, explanations for phenomenon or technology used in the book (bistromathematics comes to mind). And thus you are guided through a bizarre
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universe with even more bizarre things happening to our main characters. And the main characters of the book are dragged all over space and time, more often than not reluctantly or completely against their wishes.

A book filled with memorable and well written characters. I recommend this book to anyone who likes science fiction and likes to be surprised with a lot of nonsensical silliness and humour.
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LibraryThing member Tcubed
I have actually read this 'trilogy' before - absolutely LOVED it - and unfortunately no longer have it - going to get it again sooner or later.

It's been some time since reading it so will re-review when I have had the chance to re-read
LibraryThing member NadineM
Just finished part 3 of 5. Still funny :-)
LibraryThing member geniemagik
Very funny. The story is very honest view of how governments work. Like a long public works poem. Very clever and never what you would expect. So long and thanks for all the fish.
LibraryThing member MatNastos
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a life-changing read for me in high school. It would affect how I looked at writing for the next 22 years and will probably continue to do so for the rest of my life. The book was incredibly funny, the dialogue was great and it was all absolutely ridiculous.
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However, it was never a parody of itself and Adams made sure you cared about what happened to the characters and the story.

Great book. A must-read for any sci-fi fan.

Oh, and the rest of the books are pretty darn excellent, as well. :)
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LibraryThing member SimoneA
Love this series! It's one of the few books that has made me laugh out loud in public. I especially love the first book, and of course God's Final Message to his Creation. I have read the series three times now, and plan to reread it many times more!
LibraryThing member miketroll
Amusing but overrated cult sci-fi.
LibraryThing member John5918
Superb humour - a real classic.
LibraryThing member antiquary
At the time it was published (1985) this was the complete collection of the book version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, consisting of the original book versions of The Hitchhiker's Guide, followed by The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, followed by Life, the Universe and Everything.
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Even when this omnibus was published, more material was in the works, and eventually there were additional volumes. Also, as Douglas Adams explains in a very helpful introduction, these books were only loosely based on the original scripts of the wonderful BBC radio shows, and by the time this collection came out there was also a TV version which followed the framework of the radio shows but incorporated material from the books Things only got more complicated after that. However, the key point is that all the various forms of the story were wildly funny, though occasionally bittersweet. The beginning involves a man named Arthur Dent trying to stop his house being bulldozed for a bypass, only to be told by his neighbor Ford Prefect (who happens to be an alien) that the entire planet Earth is to be demolished to make way for an interstellar bypass. The two of them just manage to escape and are off on a series of bizarre adventures, sometimes illuminated by the Guide, for which Prefect is a researcher for a potential updated edition..
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LibraryThing member tenamouse67
yup... it's a five book trilogy!
LibraryThing member antao
The way I (probably mistakenly) see it, the answer 42 represents a view of cheery perfection. It's almost as though it is trying to be as divisible as possible simply to be helpful. Even its name is annoyingly perky. It is the number which represents what the established order (notably religion)
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has told us represents the universe. It is the number of order, sense and reason. Neither 6 nor 9 nor 54 are particularly welcoming numbers. Douglas Adams seems to like this view of the world. Just like Sirius Cybernetics, we're sold the idea of something being perfect and flawless whereas we all know (even if we are reluctant to truly accept it) that the reality does not match it.

I also wrote the “perfect sonnet”:

Sonnet 42

That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:
Thou dost love her, because thou knowst I love her;
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.
If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,
And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
And both for my sake lay on me this cross:
But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;
Sweet flattery! Then she loves but me alone.

By MySelfie, the Flatulent Shakespeare

(Bought in 1994)

NB: At the risk of being jumped on and beaten up by everyone who hates such things being mentioned, there is another lovely coincidence here to do with the number 42, and that is that in cultures all over the world 42 is the number of Creation. The Jews believe 42 is the number of permutations of the letters of the name of God with which the Universe was brought into being and in China, both the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching discuss the creation of the Universe in their 42nd chapters. In ancient Egypt, 42 was the number linked to the Goddess Maat (Wisdom) who was the personification of the idea of balance and harmony the Egyptians thought upheld the Cosmos. I offer this up as a piece of anthropological information which makes a nice coincidence for Douglas Adams, whose books I have loved since a child, and not as something which suggests we should all bow to the Pope, become orthodox Jews or take up Taoism, in case anyone starts frothing at the mouth. I just thought it was fun that Adams, in thinking he had come up with a joke comment on the futility of trying to come up with an answer to the question of the meaning of the Universe landed upon the one number which traditionally has been all about the meaning of the Universe! I had always believed that Douglas Adams chose "42" since it was (but no longer is) the Hubble constant. If the number was below 42 then the universe ends in big crunch, greater than 42 we expand into infinite nothingness, but at 42 the universe will reach a state of equilibrium. However the number has been subject to revision and is steadily crawling closer to 43 which (imho) is the ultimate number ....
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LibraryThing member expatscot
CLASSIC
CLASSIC
Classic
Fine
OK

But the somewhat weak ending can never ever take away from books 1 & 2, they're so many stars that the average still comes out way above 5.
LibraryThing member Eric_the_Hamster
I first discovered the Hitchhiker series through BBC radio 4, and I never looked back. The books are hilarious and completely off the wall. Ships which travel using "improbability drives" and cause improbable things to happen (naturally), like picking up 2 humanoids from deep space and certain
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death. To be a hitch hiker in the universe all you need is a towel, an electronic thumb and the eponymous guide. Read it, and you will discover, amongst other things, the rudest word in the universe, the answer to life the universe and everything (but not the question), and that mobile phone ringtones are not as cool as homo sapiens seems to think... a great antidote to modern life.
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LibraryThing member INeilC
All five of Douglas Adam's HItch Hiker's series in one volume. The earlier books are excellent, but the later ones not so entertaining.

Rating

(956 ratings; 4.4)

Call number

FIC H Ada
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