The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (4)

The fifth and final volume in the humorous SF series that began with THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY is somewhat darker than its predecessors. The Earthman Arthur Dent spends years selling genetic material in exchange for travel to various parallel universes in search of somewhere vaguely resembling his home planet. When he finally settles (actually, crash lands) on a backwater planet, his pleasant new career as tribal sandwich-maker is interrupted by the arrival of his daughter, Random–the result of those many, many sales of his DNA. Meanwhile, Arthur's friend Ford Prefect discovers that the happy-go-lucky executives of his employer, the publishers of THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, have been replaced by a frighteningly grim and worryingly familiar new management team. His plot to disturb their business plan puts him once again into Arthur's path...with devastating results.

The quest continues in the fourth volume in the ever-popular series. Against all odds, at the eleventh hour, and in the unlikeliest place of all, the intrepid Arthur Dent finds the girl of his dreams. After eight years and about 100,000 lightyears of intergalactic travel, he is looking a little down-at-the-heels himself, and she is heavily sedated because she thinks she is a hedgehog. She is also in the company of a brother that Arthur wouldn’t wish on a Vogon. But they are both in search of God’s Final Message to His Creation, and hey, this time they might actually find it.

This international bestseller is the third installment (of five) in the zany space opera known as the Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent have been stranded for five years on prehistoric Earth. They escape from this predicament via a Chesterfield sofa and arrive at a cricket match, where they are immediately faced with their next challenge: preventing the release of an imprisoned race of xenophobic aliens bent on exterminating all other life forms in the universe. Fans of the BBC TV show will be interested to note that the novel is a reworked treatment for a proposed film based on the series. And more detail-oriented types may want to know that the American version of the book has some additional text concerning the galactic rudeness of the word Belgium, which allows Belgium to be used throughout as profanity instead of a four-letter word beginning with F that's used in the British edition.

Join Douglas Adams’s hapless hero Arthur Dent as he travels the galaxy with his intrepid pal Ford Prefect, getting into horrible messes and generally wreaking hilarious havoc. Dent is grabbed from Earth moments before a cosmic construction team obliterates the planet to build a freeway. You’ll never read funnier science fiction; Adams is a master of intelligent satire, barbed wit, and comedic dialogue. The Hitchhiker’s Guide is rich in comedic detail and thought-provoking situations and stands up to multiple reads. Required reading for science fiction fans, this book (and its follow-ups) is also sure to please fans of Monty Python, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, and British sitcoms.