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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 25th Anniversary Edition (Hardcover)
by Douglas Adams
| Category:
Science fiction, Fiction |
| Market price: ¥ 158.00
MSL price:
¥ 148.00
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| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Combining comedy with science fiction, the book is laugh out loud funny. The characters, the hilarious storytelling and dialogue, the comical, strange situations, make this a good read from start to finish |
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Author: Douglas Adams
Publisher: Harmony; 25th Anniversary edition
Pub. in: August, 2004
ISBN: 1400052920
Pages: 224
Measurements: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00566
Other information:
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- Awards & Credential -
The #1 Bestseller in England |
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- MSL Picks -
In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams illustrates a vast universe in an extremely humorous light. Much of the novel revolves around a particular book called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which, instead of a novel, is actually what its title prescribes. The book follows the life of an extremely perplexed human, who one day awakens to find the Earth being destroyed by Vogon Constructor ships. He is then carried of into one of these ships by a long time friend who happened to be an Alien all along stranded on Earth. From this point on, he is constantly making new discoveries of the universe as he hitchhikes his way through vast amounts of space. The narration throughout this novel is clever and random and often lectures on completely irrelevant but increasingly comical facts. For example, the narrator at one point in the story explains the most popular drink in the galaxy, the Pangalactic Gargle Blaster. The effects of which, are like having one's brain smashed out with a lemon wrapped around a gold brick. The narrator finds deems it worthy to bestow the reader with these tidbits.
The story is page-turning and exciting. Around every page there is a surprising new outlook on the fast developing story. Though there is a sharp lack of visual details, the dialogue paints a very visual image of the chemistry between the main characters. Some of which include a manically depressed robot and a two-headed galactic president. Each character has something excellently amusing to offer, and each have drastically distinguishing characteristics that make for an excellent combination of conflicting personalities. There is even a character named Slartibartfast.
Adams takes on a very innovative tactic in this novel by making the narrator extremely personable and pointedly witty. The narration is what really makes this book such an entertaining read. Several times the narrator will read excerpts from the real Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Many of which are seemingly educational but are of course only relevant to one traversing the galaxy with nothing but a towel. According to the novel, a hitchhiker's towel is his most important possession. This is because when someone picks up a hitchhiker and they have a towel, it is automatically assumed that they also have a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit., etc.
Adams' approach to antagonists in this novel is more than likely supposed to be the mice. According to the novel, humans are third most intelligent beings on Earth behind mice and dolphins. The mice are pandimensional beings that commissioned, paid for, and ran Earth. Ultimately they were seeking the ultimate question to the ultimate answer of forty-two, and earth was a 10 million year project to compute this question. The entire plot is comically sinister and complex and creative to boot. Adams did a fantastic job in illustrating an imaginary universe and concocting a very interesting tale for the human imagination. (From quoting Chrales Briggs, USA)
Target readers:
General readers
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Douglas Adams is the author of five books in the Hitchhiker's Trilogy including The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe and Everything; So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish; and Mostly Harmless. He lives in London.
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From the Publisher:
How shall we begin?
This is the story of a book called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - not an Earth book, never published on Earth and, until the terrible catastrophe occurred, never seen or even heard of by any Earthman. Nevertheless, a wholly remarkable book.
Or
This is the story of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a #1 bestseller in England, a weekly radio series with millions of fanatic listeners, and soon to be a television spectacle on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
Or
This is the story of Arthur Dent, who, seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, is plucked off the planet by his friend, Ford Prefect, who has been posing as an out-of-work actor for the last fifteen years but is really a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Together they begin a journey through the galaxy aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with the words don't panic written on the front. ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.")
In their travels they meet:
- Zaphod-Beeblebrox - the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch President of the Galaxy.
- Trillian - Aphod's girlfriend, formerly Tricia McMillan, whom Arthur once tried to pick up at a cocktail party.
- Marvin - a paranoid android, a brilliant but chronically depressed robot.
- Veet Voojagig - former graduate student obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.
To find the answers to these burning questions: Why are we born? Why do we die? And why do we spend so much time in between wearing digital watches? read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But remember… don't panic, and don't forget to bring a towel.
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| View all 16 comments |
The New York Times (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-29 00:00>
It's science fiction and it's extremely funny... inspired lunacy that leaves hardly a science fiction cliché alive. |
Washington Post (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-29 00:00>
The feckless protagonist, Arthur Dent, is reminiscent of Vonnegut heroes, and his travels afford a wild satire of present institutions. |
Chicago Tribune (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-29 00:00>
Very simply, the book is one of the funniest SF spoofs ever written, with hyperbolic ideas folding in on themselves. |
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-29 00:00>
Douglas Adams takes the reader to the end of the universe and back in this hilarious science fiction novel. Arthur Dent is an earthling who has had everything goes wrong with him. His house is about to get torn down when he sees his old friend Ford Prefect, an alien that has lived on earth for fifteen years doing research on his revised Hitchiker’s Guide. Prefect comes at no better time because the world is about to end in eleven minutes. Just before the world comes to total alienation, the are picked up and travel around the universe. They arrive in Magrathea, which is just a factory planet for building planets for rich people. The people of Magrathea were woken up to build another earth because the previous earth, our earth, was a giant computer that's program was to find the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everthing. Magrathea was going to build another earth because our earth was destroyed just minutes before the answer was questioned. Since everyone wanted to know the question, they decided to re-build another earth to find it out. Once the mice, the secret rulers of earth, find out that there is an earthling alive, they wanted his brain. Arthur runs away and the mice are stuck with nothing. They make up a question and everybody is happy, or are they? This book opens your thoughts to many different questions we have about the universe and that we would like to know. If you want to broaden your horizons and open your mind, then read this book to be thoroughly entertained. |
View all 16 comments |
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