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whitneyfi 's review for:
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams
I finished reading my chosen series of 2023: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
I feel like these are books that everyone knows, or at least knows of. I read the first around 1995 or so, but didn’t have the energy for the whole of it at the time.
If you’re unfamiliar, HHG2G is the story of Arthur Dent, a very average sort of man, who is saved by his neighbor Ford Prefect, from Earth being blown to bits to make way for a galactic superhighway. Ford Prefect being an alien living amongst us, researching Earth for an entry in the acclaimed travel guide: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
After they escape Earth’s destruction, the story gets weird, then proceeds to get much, much weirder.
For clarification, I’m counting the series as being this “trilogy” of 5 + a short story. Technically, there are two other books in orbit of this anthology: And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer (currently reading) & Salmon of Doubt, written by Douglas Adams, but a combination of HHG2G and Dirk Gently.
Maybe one day I’ll get around to reading those Dirk Gently books and fusing the whole Douglas Adams universe, but much like I was in 1995, my soul just isn’t in it this year.
Maybe in another 28 years.
In the whole sort of general mish mash (WSOGMM) of things, I loved the series. Even the parts I was told I wouldn’t love, I did.
It’s campy absurdist humor, but says so much about expectations and the navigation of our own lives. In a funny way, and sometimes a tender way.
For a radio program, turned television show, turned book series, conceived by Douglas Adams while lying drunk in a field, it’s impressive how well written these are. For all their cleverness, there is a strong sense of storytelling and charm that I’m finding lost with Colfer’s 6th book.
I am just a bit sad that It’s over.
To quote Book 5, Mostly Harmless: “Life will be a very great deal less weird without you!”
I feel like these are books that everyone knows, or at least knows of. I read the first around 1995 or so, but didn’t have the energy for the whole of it at the time.
If you’re unfamiliar, HHG2G is the story of Arthur Dent, a very average sort of man, who is saved by his neighbor Ford Prefect, from Earth being blown to bits to make way for a galactic superhighway. Ford Prefect being an alien living amongst us, researching Earth for an entry in the acclaimed travel guide: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
After they escape Earth’s destruction, the story gets weird, then proceeds to get much, much weirder.
For clarification, I’m counting the series as being this “trilogy” of 5 + a short story. Technically, there are two other books in orbit of this anthology: And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer (currently reading) & Salmon of Doubt, written by Douglas Adams, but a combination of HHG2G and Dirk Gently.
Maybe one day I’ll get around to reading those Dirk Gently books and fusing the whole Douglas Adams universe, but much like I was in 1995, my soul just isn’t in it this year.
Maybe in another 28 years.
In the whole sort of general mish mash (WSOGMM) of things, I loved the series. Even the parts I was told I wouldn’t love, I did.
It’s campy absurdist humor, but says so much about expectations and the navigation of our own lives. In a funny way, and sometimes a tender way.
For a radio program, turned television show, turned book series, conceived by Douglas Adams while lying drunk in a field, it’s impressive how well written these are. For all their cleverness, there is a strong sense of storytelling and charm that I’m finding lost with Colfer’s 6th book.
I am just a bit sad that It’s over.
To quote Book 5, Mostly Harmless: “Life will be a very great deal less weird without you!”