The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

paperback, 325 pages

English language

Published Aug. 9, 2005 by Pan Books.

ISBN:
978-0-330-43798-1
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
819677330

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (65 reviews)

One Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that moring, this seems already to be more that he can cope with. Sadly, however, the weekend has only just begun, and the galaxy is a very strange and startling place.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is now a major motion picture from Touchstone Pictures, starring Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Mos Def as Ford Prefect, Zooey Deschanel as Trillian, Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent and Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast. John Malkovich and Anna Chancellor play new characters developed especially for the film by Adams himself. This film tie-in edition of Douglas Adams perennially popular novel includes an Afterword by Robbie Stamp, Executive Producer on the movie and a close friend of Douglas Adams. He explains how after twenty-five years the film …

87 editions

Comedy classic

4 stars

One of the most quotable books of all time, and the beginning of one of the few series that can out-do Discworld in terms of lunacy. It's no surprise that Douglas Adams was a writer for Doctor Who and Monty Python's Flying Circus, as parts of this novel feel like either a Monty Python sketch in space, or one of Doctor Who's most openly silly episodes.

Strangely enough, the only parts of this book that haven't become an inescapable part of popular culture are its plot and characters. Sure, everyone knows about 42, and Marvin the Paranoid Android, but that's just a flashback and a side character - Arthur Dent, and the Magratheans who built Earth for hyperintelligent mice, are not as well remembered, even though they're somewhat bigger parts of the plot. The plot is very interesting - enough to make me want to read The Restaurant at …

This was a radio play first?!?

5 stars

I had no idea! I’ve read the Hitchhiker’s books before, and I knew it was performed for radio, but I always thought the book came first.

As for the radio version, the Primary Phase is a delight. The voice actors are all top notch, especially Stephen Moore as Marvin the Paranoid Android, and the writing was so ahead of its time for the 70s (and the 80s and 90s, for that matter). I would easily pay 30 Alterian dollars a day to listen to this again and again.

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