The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (historical fiction)

Douglas Adams (1979)

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THE A5 BOOK REVIEW

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a British comedy science fiction novel and multimedia phenomenon starring Arthur Dent, who was plucked by his human-like alien friend Ford Prefect to escape to travel throughout the galaxy right before the Earth is destroyed. Prefect is a writer for the ultimate travel guide, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, described as “the standard repository for all knowledge and wisdom”, rich both in content, irony, sarcasm, and insights on life. Arthur and Ford are then thrown into a succession of adventures, circling around a quest to find the ultimate answer to the meaning of life (which by the way, is 42). Some readers will just not like it at all, as the tone of the story is sarcastic and silly, but it is a very popular book. The story started as a BBC comedy radio series in 1978, quickly winning awards and expanding across to the United States and Canada.

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ABOUT DOUGLAS ADAMS

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) was an English author and humorist, best known for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. Adams actually published five novels in the deliberately misnamed “trilogy”, also including The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), Life, the Universe and Everything (1982), So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984), and Mostly Harmless (1992). Over 15 million copies were sold in Adams’ lifetime. (Eoin Colfer, somewhat controversially although supported by Adams’ widow, wrote a sixth book entitled And Another Thing in 2009, on the 30th anniversary of the original book.) A posthumous collection of Adams' works called The Salmon of Doubt was published in 2002.

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GREAT QUOTES FROM THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."

INTERESTING FACTS AND LINKS:

image of the fictional guide to the galaxy