The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide by Douglas Adams (2005, Hardcover)

You must have this in youe collection it is great for any age 13 and up funny sad. It has it all one of the greatest collection of books for sci-fi fans go to any used book store and pick it up you won't regret it.

After reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in paperback form, I decided to purchase the entire series and read it. As to the content of the books, it tends to drop off towards the end however it is still classic Doug Adams, sarcasim at it's funniest. The book has a nice binding and can be easily read. However, it is a bit bulky, so if you are looking for something to drag around with you, it might be best to go with a different version. If you enjoyed the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I would recommend reading the entire series, if nothing else, to say you did...

This book is the perfect book for someone who doesn't want the little paperbacks! I love it! It arrived in GREAT condition! Wonderful! This was a set of books that I read when I was young and I think my kids will love them too!

I grew up reading the Hitchhiker series, as well as Dirk Gently's adventures. Probably the funniest material I've ever read. The books are so much better than the movie(which was horrible(IMO)). The minds pictures do so much better(like my disappointment with, most of, Stephen Kings movies), the written word is more powerful and makes you use your own imagination. Not enough of that today, however. I bought this to have a good shelf copy and to make sure any kids I have will be able to read it, too. If only they could produce this book into a movie with the quality of the Harry Potter movies, it's be awesome. It would have the potential of the Star Wars franchise...
It is a good read even for adults. I read it as a child, but adults will be laughing out loud so much the neighbors will come over and complain. Just let them borrow your copy and they'll know why.
It begins with a man waking up to his home about to be town down to make way for a highway bypass, and quickly escalates to the Earth being demolished for a "Hyperspace bypass". And that's all in the first few chapters. Arthur(human) and his friend Ford, who he recently found out was not human, but from a planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelguice(sp?) travel around the Universe using an "Electronic Thumb", Hitchhiking from place to place and getting into hilarious predicaments. They also do some time travelling and messing with primitive neadertals and cavemen, and playing Scrabble with them, or trying to, anyway. They travel to the end of the universe and back. They go to an Asylum where a resident refers to it as "outside" the asylum, with the rest of the world being inside of it, going so far as to decorate the inside like the exterior of a typical home. They visit the President of the Universe, who turns out to be a man who consideres his experiences to be unverifiable nerve impulses within his own mind and even postulates he is a figment of his own imagination or possibly a figment of some greater beings dreamstate. Don't worry, none of the above is giving away any major information or taking away from the experience. It's more like a trailer to a great movie. There's also the Infinite improbability drive used as a space ships engine that calculates the odds of ANYTHING happening, thus, once the odds are known, the ANYTHING can be accessed(It's difficult to explain without plagerizing the book).

Anyway, if you've read this far, you need to buy the books. You don't need to buy the leatherbound edition, the paperbacks are just as funny.

Sorry for the inconvenience...

Mikus

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Life, the Universe & Everything
Mostly Harmless. So Long, & Thanks for All the Fish. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Simple deductive reasoning dictates that if the universe is infinite then we must only inhabit an infinitesimal fraction of an infinitesimal particle of space and time. Since we cannot comprehend the vastness of the universe than we cannot comprehend our miniscule relationship to that vastness and therefore we cannot exist.

However, if we don't actually exist then there is no one to witness the vastness of the universe. Therefore it too cannot exist, ending in the ultimate paradox. Hazcon7


If you like this type of logic and universal analysis then I guarantee you will like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy! In fact, I strongly recommend reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, a compilation of all of Douglas Adams books in the Hitchhiker series.


You might recognize Douglas Adams work from old episodes of Dr. Who, an English cross between Lost in Space and Monty Python shown in the US late at night on PBS back in the 80s.

These books all tell a different story but come together, in one story line, like chapters in a book, to tell an adventure story of universal proportions.

The 2 main characters of this book are Arthur Dent a very common, boring, almost loser of a man - and Ford Prefect a questionably insane intergalactic space hitchhiker.

"Uh, Ford. There's an infinite amount of monkeys here. One of them wants to talk to you about a script he's been working on".

Arthur and Ford make a hilarious duo, as Ford is always nonchalantly getting Arthur in to some sort of zany trouble. Arthur is a consummate whiner always complaining instead of being enthralled, as he probably should. The pair trot around the Galaxy getting in to adventurous danger and escaping, narrowly, yet unscathed.

Although the writing style is very British, the book is extremely easy to read. It is chock full of sidesplitting humor that only partial insanity can help write. Twisting plots will keep you glued to the book and the un-reality of it all will bring you back to read it again.

All of this unfolds into a bizarre adventure as Adams begins to ask intriguing universal questions and even answer a few. What is the most powerful force in the universe? Infinite improbability of course! Other than being an intelligent sci-fi comedy, this book has an underlying theme of social criticism at every level.