The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy door Douglas Adams

About the book:

Title:The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
Author:Douglas Noel Adams
Edition:The ultimate hitchhiker’s guide complete & unabridged
Number of pages: 143

Explain the title:

The title of the book is also a book in the story, in the story the book

Summary:
Arthur Dent’s about to have his house demolished because they want to build a bypass. While he is lying in front of the to make sure that they can’t demolish his house, his friend, Ford Prefect (Arthurs friend) asks him to come to the pub with him. There Ford announces that the earth is going to be destroyed to make way for an interstellar bypass. Also ford tells that he is an alien form a planet called Betelgeuse and that he hitchhikes all over the galaxy, but that now he was stuck on earth. When the Vogon construction ships approach Earth, Ford decides to hitchhike onto them and he takes Arthur with him. The Vogons themselves hate hitchhikers and throw them in too deep space straight away. But then something very improbable happened. They would have died in a matter of seconds if it wasn’t for a ship that just passed at that very time in that specific part of the galaxy, which is enormous. It picked them up and before they knew it, they were sitting on a beach which looked a lot like a beach back in England. Suddenly it vanished and they were in a normal spaceship. That thing that caused the beach effect was called the Improbability Drive, but only one space ship has the improbability drive that space ship is the hard of gold. Ford and Arthur were picked up by Marvin the depressed robot, also known as Paranoid Android! Marvin led them to the bridge where Zaphod Beeblebrox (President of the Galaxy, 2 heads and three arms) and Trillian (a woman from earth who was picked up earlier by Zaphod) were. Ford knew Zaphod because they were cousins. And Arthur knew Trillian from a party back on eart,; There they had a thing for each other. But Trillian goes with Zaphod into deep space. So the four of them went on their way and try to find a planet which Zaphod knew as Magrathea. Zaphod wants to go to Magrathea because he seeks the answer to the ultimate question (what the answer to life the universe and everything) an millions of years ago the Magratheans build a computer to find that answer. Ford and Trillian didn’t believe it because no one knew the exact coordinates of Magrathea, because the planet was pronounced dead and now it was just a myth. Arthur had no idea what they were talking about. The planet was dead, but they still had a very old defense mechanism and it fired missiles at them. They had no way of escaping and were sure that they were going to die until Arthur managed to turn the Improbability Drive on and the missiles turned into a bowl of petunias and a whale. They landed on the planet and went to look around. Where the whale had crashed Zaphod found tunnels. He, Ford and Trillian went into them. Arthur and Marvin stayed on the lookout. Arthur walked around a bit and ran into an old man who was called Startiblartfast. He told Arthur that the Magratheans (people who lived on Magrethea) made planets and had just had a three million year sleep to avoid the crisis in the stock market. He told Arthur the Earth was a big computer made by the other computer that’s only answer to the ultimate question was 42. So that computer designed another computer, this one was also build by the Magratheans. But it was destroyed because they build a interstellar bypass trough it. The earth was the compute, and that mice were the most intelligent beings on it. Second were dolphins. Just before the computer finished it had been destroyed. The mice, though, had come to Magrathea, so that the Magratheans could build a new Earth. Slartiblartfast took Arthur to the mice and Arthur saw that Zaphod, Ford and Trillian were already there. The mice wanted Arthur’s brain because they said it contained information on the answer to the Ultimate Question and they thought they could find it by looking at Arthur’s brain as he was the only human alive. They wanted to give him an electronic brain but they all escaped and were immediately shot at by policemen who were looking for Zaphod because he had stolen the space ship. And the policemen had found it parked on the planet. They had a heated conversation with the policemen who suddenly dropped dead. It looked as if someone had turned their breathing masks off. That could only have happened from within the police ship – of course – Marvin. They had left him behind and he had found the police ship. They returned to the Heart of Gold and took off …

Description of main characters:

Arthur is a really simple guy, content with his little life and not very concerned with anything else. When Ford takes Arthur with him to outer space and shows him all kind of weird stuff it all becomes a little too much for him and he all let it kind of pass him by and sometimes he even freaks out. He just tries to stay out of harm's way and he does not understand much of what is going on around him. He is a pretty boring fellow, if he could he would like just to go back to earth and go on with his simple life, forgetting about all that had passed. But he is in love with Trillian

Zaphod is described as having two heads and three arms, the third arm having been attached "to improve his ski-boxing." As the President of the Imperial Galactic Government, Zaphod was presiding over a ceremony unveiling the Heart of Gold, which was the first ship to run on Infinite Improbability Drive, when, on impulse, he paralyzed all of the onlookers and stole the ship. Zaphod is not a really smart guy, and he doesn’t think things over. He is desperate to find the answer to the ultimate question.

Trillian is a woman from earth who was picked up by Zaphod, She was going out with him until Arthur got back in the picture. She is really smart and has a hunger for excitement and adventure.

Ford works for the hitchhiker’s guide as an researcher. He thing humans are weird because they say thing that are really obvious, like the weather is good and you are on fire. He is a guy who got his head clear and stays calm in emergency situations. He is from the planet Betelgeuse. And was stranded on earth.

Place:
From earth to space to Magrethea

Time (when + how long):

There isn’t a clear time. It does not take place in the future, but now. Also it is not clear how long the story is, I guess a couple of days.

Style:

The book is a since fiction comedy.

Own opinion:

I really like this book, because it has a lot of bleary humor in it. Tough, it was kind of hard to read, because Douglas uses a lot of weird terms. I am going to read the other book in the trilogy that exists of four books (quote from Douglas Adams)