The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is one of the books I heard about, but never read for myself. It is the science fiction story of a man who escapes Earth while it is being destroyed by Vogons. He accompanies an alien who has been on Earth gathering material for the hitchhiker’s guide. We follow the pair through many adventures across time and space.
This is actually a series of books, not just one. Douglas Adams wrote the first three books as a trilogy, but decided to add two more books semi-arbitrarily due to the popularity of the trilogy and demand for more. This is why it is still called a trilogy instead of a series. Very silly, I know.
I was pleasantly surprised by the silliness in this series. In my very limited experience with science fiction I did not expect this renown novel to make me laugh so often. The surprise of frivolity was great to keep me invested in this story.
The premise of other worlds outside the Milky Way allows for endless adventure and displays of creativity. We follow Arthur Dent, the human, into space with his buddy, Ford Prefect, whom he previously believed to also be a human, only to find out that Ford is in fact from Betelgeuse Five, not Earth. Arthur and Ford get picked up by Zaphod Beeblebrox and Trillian McMillan to round out our four main characters. Oh, and I guess I shouldn’t leave out Martin, the depressed robot, even though he wouldn’t be surprised to be left out, but that’s another story. We follow this group all throughout space and time trying to find the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.
Adams plays with time travel in the most absurd way by the end of the series. In the first book, travel is strictly just through space. In the second book we discover that the Restaurant at the End of the Universe is actually a place in time, not space at all. The restaurant serves dinner to customers who enjoy a spectacular view of the destruction of the entire universe before skipping off to their regular time in space. It is quite a fascinating idea that this restaurant only exists in a time of thirty minutes somehow suspended in a time warp. Don’t think about it too long! The third book doesn’t deal too much with time travel, more with trying to save the universe from destruction. So the original trilogy focuses on space and not time travel, as expected. The fourth book depicts a weird glitch in reality that isn’t quite time travel, but creates some interesting ramifications for the future. It is the fifth book where everything goes haywire. The characters travel through both time and space willy-nilly and are simultaneously living in an alternate reality with another version of only one character, but no mention of other characters’ alternate reality versions.
Now, you can guess that the last two books follow the same rhythm of chaos in other aspects. The fourth book is a fun romance set in a funky, alternate, but this is current, reality with no explanation of how this is reality. It continues the frivolous path in a sweet manner that I can excuse the inconsistencies as a fun addition to the trilogy.
The fifth book is just crazy, in a bad way. It was a nice try, but it makes no sense. I don’t believe these characters would continue on in the way Adams suddenly presents them. The writing is clever, and ties lots of loops through moments in other books, but it is not a worthy addition to the series. In fact, it actually takes away from the original trilogy and the only redeeming moment in this book is the ending where everyone dies and you know there is no chance of any more frivolous books being added to the series. It is the most unrealistic (for the world Adams has already created) nonsense. I don’t believe the time travel, I don’t believe Arthur’s fate, I don’t believe Trillian’s occupation or offspring, I don’t remember what ever happened to Zaphod, and I don’t believe that Vogons have some ultimate plan for destruction when the Earth no longer needed to be destroyed.
Altogether I can recommend reading the original trilogy and stopping right there. The last two books are annoying and unnecessary. I would also warn readers that the last two books develop more adult content that is uncharacteristic of the first 3, which is certainly a factor of the books getting worse and the addition of adult content is not believable with the characters we know and love.
There are some delightful moments and quotes, but the toughest part of the trilogy of five is the utter despair throughout. It is obviously written by someone without any clear understanding of God or his place in the universe. There are so many moments of derision toward God and confusion about the world and any kind of purpose. This is where we see Adams’ worldview overtake this fiction story time and time again in his writing. The whole premise of each book is riddled in hopelessness; pointlessness. Adams is more direct in some scenes and vague in others, but he clearly has no hope or understanding of life, much less the joy of a life united in Christ.
Sonya was here 