Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Oliver Riegle

“There was a terrible ghastly silence.

There was a terrible ghastly noise.

There was a terrible ghastly silence.”

 

Seconds before the Earth was demolished to make way for a hyperspace express freeway, Arthur Dent was plucked up by his friend, (who was in fact, not an out-of-work actor, but turned out to be from a planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse) Ford Prefect, and became the final human being from Earth in the entire Galaxy.  Or so he thought.  The two then “hitched a ride” onto the central command ship of the Vogon Constructor Fleet, the fleet of ships that demolished the Earth.  (A Vogon is an unpleasant, bad-tempered slug-like humanoid.)  After being sucked into the vacuum of space and nearly freezing to death, the Heart of Gold, a starship with the all-new Infinite Improbability Drive,  (the hottest tech in hyperspace travel) picked them up of the ship’s own accord (by an improbably factor of “Two to the power of one hundred-thousand to one against”).  

As it turns out, Arthur Dent was not the final human form Earth, but one of the two.  The other was Tricia McMillian (now Trillian), someone who Arthur met at a party about six months before.  The last living inhabitant on the Heart of Gold was Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed recently former President of the Galaxy, whom Arthur had also met at that very same party, under the name of Phil.  Along with Marvin, a test-subject, paranoid robot who suffers from crippling depression, the four life-forms voyage across the galaxy in search of Magrathea, a planet that disappeared into legend over 5 million years ago due to the Galactic Stock crashing.  Will the travelers rediscover the mythical planet and survive the Vogons’ wrath, and find the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything?

 

Filled to the brim with suspense and humor, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, has one of the most interesting and hilarious plots that I have ever encountered.  Douglas Adams’ writing style is both entertaining and unique, filled with exciting plot twists, appearing on a moment’s notice.  Furthermore, the characters all have distinctive
personalities, and are one of the best aspects of the book in my opinion, each one having its own backstory.  The whole book is written in third person omniscient, with all characters’ thoughts, as well as other events in the Galaxy, all known to the reader.  Additionally, the extreme improbability of each of the four main (living) characters having met each other at some point of their lives is just another humorous aspect of the book.  I would recommend this book to practically anyone in middle school or older, who would like a series (five books total) to stick with, even non-Sci Fi readers are sure to enjoy this book.  As possibly the most random and entertaining books I have ever read, this book is a definite page-turner with an outstanding plot and sprawl of characters.