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The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $14.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Look...
Review: This is quite a simple matter, really.. You either buy this book or be scant of soul for the rest of your miserable life. Should you decide to read the book you will, by Bob, be richer for it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: the art of flying is to forget that you're falling
Review: I started reading sci-fi when i was in elementary school starting with Isaac Asimov..moving on to Heinlein and then I discovered Douglas Adams. Hysterically but intelligently funny. His books are always entertaining and mostly confusing. He has somewhat of a "cult" following on the internet. Definetly read any of his works.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fourty-two!?!
Review: I Will keep this short and simple! This is the best sci-fi books I have ever read! This is funniest book i have ever read! This book is a must! It raises questions about life, the universe and everything(And gives you the answer). It makes you think. And most important; It makes you take yourself a little less seriously. BUY IT! READ IT! You will never regret it!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Thumbing through The Universe/ Have Towel will Travel
Review: Grab your favorite towel and stick your pet Goldfish in your ear, boys 'n girls...it's time to jump on the Mothership and take a tour of The Universe. Besides, your house is going to be bull-dozed into the ground, anway. Why stick-around to watch? Just press the magick button and beam yourself up to the ultimate joyride through space...the final frontier...of lunacy. If Earth just isn't nutty-enough for you, anymore, escape to exotic locations in the heavens where all bets are off and robots have feelings, too. If your Earth friends aren't weird-enough, make new friends on Planets far-away. Have a wonderful journey....but, don't lose your towel! This is the series of books that spawned thousands of interesting sayings, book titles and references that only the Initiated comprehend. Understand the secret language of eggheads...and open new worlds of conversation. If you are confused in the breakroom, this series will reveal the ludicrous statements your coworkers are so casually tossing-about. Douglas Adams is a master of comical, fun-loving adventure and wordplay. Truly, he has been an inspiration to many, many people. Relax with the Hitch Hiker's Guide and go to sleep giggling....but, don't forget to take the fish out of your ear.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Blood, blood, blood
Review: *warning* You cannot understand the complete genius of this book until you've read all in the trilogy (and there are more than three books in this trilogy)

I remember looking at this book in 5th grade and passing it by. Oh well i got to enjoy it this summer. If you genuinly want to laugh and at the same time go 'hummmm I never thought of it this way',then read this book. If not don't. That simple. And don't read it on the train 'cause there is way too much laughing for that.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Don't Panic! A long review means much good things to say...
Review: This collection deserves to be read in one continuous read. It refers to itself backwards and forwards, sideways and down, so it's a real treat (and quite a convenience) to have the whole tangled mess between two covers. However, each of the six sections deserves its own sub-review.

'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' is the name of both the most popular portable comprehensive galactic encyclopedia, and the book that begins Douglas Adams hilarious space saga. It neatly sets up the tale by giving away the answer to the meaning of life! Don't panic, it's not all it's cracked up to be, because they don't have the question! We meet a great cast of eccentric characters, get to fly around on the 'Heart of Gold' (powered by the ludicrously simplistic Improbability Drive), and discover that planet Earth will be destroyed to make way for an interstellar roadway.

'The Restaurant at the End of the Universe' builds on the logic of the first book, and tweaks it enough to keep things really interesting. Milliways (the aforementioned restaurant) is a great comic creation, walking a grossly absurd existential tightrope to become a fascinating setpiece. There's a great moment about how Zaphod Beeblebrox's great-grandfather is named 'Zaphod the fourth' while he's 'Zaphod the first' ("An accident involving a contraceptive and a time machine"). The whole gang narrowly escapes flying into the sun, and are saved by a piece of specious bureaucracy. The whole mess ends with Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent landing on a familiar planet, and discover that evolution ain't all it's cracked up to be.

The strength of the first two books is that when Adams goes off on these incredible leaps in logic and flights of fancy (two of my favourite modes of transportation) they always seem to follow some kind of narrative thrust. In 'Life, the Universe, and Everything', they seem like non-sequiters, or at most just interesting tangents. I enjoyed the concept of the poem that was never written due to a reckless time travel expedition, and the guy who was injected with too much truth serum and now told The Truth. But they seemed more ornamental than consequential to me. Maybe I just didn't understand the plethora of cricket references (although I did get a kick out of them). Furthermore, the installment was hurt by a serious deficiency in Zaphod Beeblebrox.

A grand comeback is made in 'So Long and Thanks for all the Fish'. This manages to be a really touching love story, interlaced with grand questions about the nature of existence and what happened to all the dolphins. Arthur Dent and Fenchurch (don't call her Fenny) slowly but surely realize that the universe has a higher purpose for them, and they have no choice but to fall in love. And the scene describing their first consummation of that love is actually quite original, and very beautiful. That all being said, the story still manages to be a strong link in the overall chain of events, periodically keeping track of Ford Prefect until it becomes necessary for him to swoop in near the end (deux es machinas-style) and save the cosmic day. Adams also manages to include several more comic illogicalities (probably not a word, but whose rules am I following here?), the standout being the description of Wonko the Sane's inside-out house. A great little interlude, that.

'Young Zaphod Plays it Safe' is a confusing little mess, that I hope gains some meaning in hindsight, once the entire book is complete (**I've just finished reading 'Mostly Harmless', and I'm still in the dark over this one. Oh well.)

'Mostly Harmless' is a little less frenetic than its predecessors are, and a little more assured in its narrative structure. Its story is one of those that begins with three different plots, and as time goes on the plots slowly begin to converge into one final conclusion (kind of like an episode of Seinfeld, now that I think about it). Arthur and Ford get into some seriously mixed up situations, but they are perfectly explained through some more of that demented Douglas Adams logic. Ford actually jumps to his death, miraculously escapes, and then jumps again. And he has a perfectly good reason for doing it both times. My one complaint is that the book doesn't give each plot equal attention, so when you haven't read about one of the characters in a while, you tend to forget what they were doing when last you met them. On a positive note, the whole enterprise actually validates the mess that was 'Life, the Universe, and Everything'.

The series can be read in two ways: as comic fluff (albeit high comic fluff), or as a satire on the nature of existence. A third way, and probably the most effective, would be to read it as both. Or neither. Just read it!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Classi, but...
Review: This is a classic for anyone that can appreciate his very British humor. Dry at times, this sci-fi, is no ordinary sci-fi, it is what humor should be...Funny! It can make you roll on the ground with laughter! They don't make much better...I must point out though, the last update published in this volume doesn't live up to his individual stories...Sorry!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: a hitchhiker's guide to hilarity!
Review: I was told about this book by my future step-dad, and i'm thankful i picked it up. The characters are interesting, (especially Marvin, the robot, and Zaphod Beeblebrox) and the storyline is hilarious. At times, it can seem perplexing, almost utter nonsense. But if you just pay attention to the mainstream of the story, and don't get overloaded with the excess of bizarre info, the story actually pulls itself together into a hilarious adventure of a dimwitted Earthman, a two-headed ex-politician, a galactic hitchhiker and one disturbed robot, searching for the ultimate ... ooops, I said too much. Happy reading!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: 42
Review: This is by far the greatest set of books in the history of the Universe. It so amazingly clever and satirical that you can't help but laugh out loud. If you know someone who's read the book and says it didn't make any sense and that that made it no good to read, that just means that they are so incompetent that they don't even get the whole "trashing human kind" deal going on. It's not supposed to make sense. If it did, I don't think it would sell so good. Nonetheless, it is the greatest set of books the Universe has ever, and will ever see. If you don't read it, then Vogons will destory the Earth because of your lack of intelect. (You have to have read the book to get the Vogon thing, so many of you will now buy the book just to know what I meant by that, in which case you will end of reading the rest of the book and recommend it to everyone you know.)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Damm good
Review: This is a very entertaining series of books. Very funny. Read it.


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