The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.43 You Save: $14.57 (73%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Book Review: Hilarious - you will love it or hate it
Summary: 5 Stars
Silliness abounds in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which as it turns out is not a guide book for hitchhikers beyond the general advice and rational behind always bringing a towel. Frequently the silliness is true to life in that it is tied to burocracy (The sequel to the Hithchhiker's Guide computer game was titled Burocracy.) and the oddities in modern life. The story starts as Arthur Dent, a normal English man, wakes up one morning to find bulldozers outside his house. His house had been scheduled for demolition for several months and he hadn't realized since the plans were posted at the county office. A few chapters later we find that the entire Earth has similarly been scheduled for demolition by aliens who wish to install an interstellar expressway. So Arthur with no house and soon no planet is taken to outer space by his friend Ford Prefect, who it turns out was an alien. What follows is travel through outer space which turns out to be as absurd as earth. Irony abounds.
The book was adapted from a radio show and this yields some awkward results. The pacing is very ADD. Seasons of radio went into the book, so originally this would have been spread out over a longer period of time. However the going stays coherent and jokes are fit to plot not the other way round as can happen.
This particular edition contains the original books in the series (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life the Universe and Everything, and So Long and Thanks for All the Fish) short story Young Zaphod Plays it Safe and Mostly Harmless, a sequel that many fans don't like so much.
This is something that you will love or hate. I loved it and I think it would be worth trying out. In this case though, if you have never read any of these books before, it is better to buy just The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This way you can see if they are your thing and then decide. Of course if you are a fan then this is a good deal because you have all you books in the series plus the short story.
Book Review: Life, The Universe, And Everything
Summary: 5 Stars
There's really good reviews further down (and possibly up) that gives good summaries of the story, so I'll just stick to what I thought of it all.
This book... these books... hmm, this book series is by far the best I have had the pleasure of reading, no kidding. I have from years back on numerous occasions been told about the book and advised to read it, but had blatantly pushed it way back in the dark dimly lit and damp part of my mind marked "Things to do", but did (just for the heck of it, really) add a "- Urgent!" to it.
Well, I finally got around to it, and despite what I already knew of the story... let's just say that either my friends really suck at telling stories, or they intentionally didn't want to ruin anything... I've been totally gone hitchhiking for the better part of two weeks now.
To cut this review short; books 1 thru 3 are just incredible. I've caught myself on several times snapped out of the story by the bus driver announcing my stop with much the same feeling you have waking up in a public place sure that you've been snoring out loud, except I had the sneaking feeling I've been doing a lot of giggling and snorting (you can't really ROTFLYAO on a bus, there simply isn't room, otherwise I'm sure I would have found myself recollect having done that too).
Book 4 was kind of a drag for me compared to what I'd gotten accustomed to. It's not bad, but it isn't as hilarious as the first three, and I also found it a bit hard to follow the story at the end. Book 5 pitches things up a bit again and I contently ROTFLMAO (I've had time of work the last few days) again through the last 150 pages of this incredible adventure.
So who would I recommend this too? Easy, anyone with a trace of sci-fi / adventure interest and / or anyone that finds British humor the least bit funny (think of Monty Pyton, Mr. Bean, Black Adder, Shaun of the Dead... yeah, you like those don't you).
Besides, like the guy below said, the book is really, really, amazingly light-weight!
Book Review: A book to come back to again and again
Summary: 5 Stars
There's probably not much more to be said about this book and it's hard to imagine that there are many literate people over the age of about 25 who won't have encountered this story, the first in Douglas Adams's 'trilogy' (in five parts) of books, in one form or other - it's generally accepted to be a classic, of course.
I received a slightly abridged audio version of this book when I was about 12 or 13 and absolutely loved it and I still love it now. I've since read it in full and, whilst the book is short and easy to read, it just works wonderfully on many different levels because it simply overflows not only with wit and memorable dialogue but, most importantly, with ideas - ideas of all kinds - including numerous allusions to some of the things that we know Douglas Adams was interested in (i.e. science and religion) and one just can't help but keep coming back to it again and again.
There are so many memorable bits to this book, bits of which I'm regularly reminded as I go through life; indeed, the vivid description, of Ford - "The sweat stood out cold on Ford Prefect's brow..." - immediately prior to his and Arthur's close encounter with 'the third worst poetry in the universe', is inevitably brought to my mind whenever a Meatloaf song comes onto the radio. Other episodes that are always available for rapid recall include Arthur's account of his visit to the display department of the local planning office, the descriptions (as provided by the 'Hitchhiker's Guide') of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, and of why it's important to carry a towel with you, as you 'hitchhike' round the galaxy, to the curious last words of a bowl of Petunias and, of course, the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.
This book is now practically a cornerstone of popular culture, certainly in the UK, and every child should read it as soon as they're old enough to comprehend it. Long may it continue to be read and loved and reread, the world over.
Book Review: A rare and wonderful book.
Summary: 5 Stars
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a rare and wonderful book. A member of an elite club of books that manage to combine adventure, mystery, humor, and romance in to one package, giving the reader a sense of excitement that will render them unable to put the book down until they have sped through the very last page.
The plot is utterly thrilling and wholly original, and it made me wish that I was out there roaming the vastness of the universe with Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect. It begins when the Earth is thoroughly demolished by the narrow minded Vogons to make way for a new Hyperspace expressway. Arthur Dent, the clueless protagonist that we are paired with in this journey, is fortunately whisked away in Earth's final moments by his friend Ford Prefect, an alien reporter for the Guide that Arthur had believed to be an out of work actor. Their adventure begins there and it is a grand one at that.
Douglas Adams combines an unrelenting attention to detail with a lightning fast wit, to give The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy a unique flavor that I have yet to find in another book. Along the way we are wrapped up in thrilling tales that whisk us away to fantastic worlds. We encounter colorful characters that combine in a sometime chaotic society that give us a fascinating, yet sometimes skewed view of a future universe.
Yet, Adams still manages to include some witty and thought provoking answers to questions we all face today, specifically the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
All together, the Guide is a spectacular book that will suck you in and grip you tightly between its pages, grabbing you in a death-hold of humor, adventure, and excitement. At the very least the book is a tiny glimpse in to a wonderful man's imagination, a man who sadly had to leave this world for another, and we can only hope that it was a world of his own design, as that would truly be a wonderful place to finally rest.
Book Review: Exuberant fun
Summary: 5 Stars
The universe that Douglas Adams creates for us gives the impression of being absurdly vast, yet there is a sense of familiarity throughout most of Arthur Dent's encounters, almost as though he's done it all before. In fact, time loops and wormholes are peppered throughout the five books. Arthur's world is turned on its head in the very first pages of the first book, and he never really recovers. He has no business being off Earth, and he always seems to be off on somebody else's adventure. Even when he returns to Earth, he's a foreigner. Homesickness pervades the five books and adds a unique dimension. Its counterpoint is the comedy, which is at times very sharp, very absurd, and almost always hilarious, particularly the idea of the restaurant at the end of the universe, where people go for a nice evening's apocalypse. Also there is the history of the Earth and its purpose, which constitutes the basic plot, although Adams is very digressive. Best of all are the two great Borgesian touches--the Heart of Gold, a spaceship which--much like Borges' Aleph--allows its crew to pass through every point in the universe simultaenously. And the Hitchhiker's Guide itself, for which agents are dispatched across the galaxy to gather information on every subject, imaginable and unimaginable. Like the world wide web it foreshadows, the Guide is sometimes indispensible, and sometimes highly unreliable.And the characters--Could there be a greater comic invention in science fiction than a two-headed egomaniac who helps concoct a plan so secret that he must erase it out of his conscious memory and trust that his subconscious will somehow manifest it?
This is great storytelling, particularly the first two books, but it's great to have all of them in one volume.