DON'T PANIC!! (SAD UPDATE) (The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams)

Member Name: salgirl

Product:	The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Date:	29/03/01 (44 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: SEE OPINON

Disadvantages: ONLY 5 BOOKS IN THE TRILOGY

** I've just seen the tragic announcement that Douglas Adams has died after a heart attack at the criminally young age of 49. I love the guy's writing and this is a very real loss to the literary world. An extraordinary talent cut brutally short. God bless you, Douglas, you've given me some real laughs, fun and enjoyment with your books. May you rest in peace.**

Douglas Adams considered the idea of hopping round space whilst in a drunken stupor. Fair play to the guy. As we all know, we've had some fantastically brilliant ideas when under the influence, but very few are looked on in the same way the following morning. Thankfully for the literary world, this one was still a right corker.

The book centres around the exploits of two friends, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect. Now Ford, unbeknownst to Arthur, is a galactic hitch-hiker, while Arthur is just your ordinary sort of bloke, who lives in an ordinary sort of house, which just happens to be in the way of a proposed bypass and is therefore about to be demolished. Arthur only discovers this upon rising as usual in the morning, and after wandering about for a few minutes sees the bulldozers outside.

Rushing out he confronts, Mr. L. Prosser who is there to oversee the demolition. Horrified at learning that he is about to lose his house he throws himself down in front of the bulldozers and refuses to move. At this point, Ford makes an appearance and tries to convince Arthur that he really doesn't have anything to worry about, and to get himself down the pub as soon as possible. Drink was important.

Arthur only agrees to go after Ford manages to persuade Mr. Prosser to lie down in front of the bulldozers in Arthur's place, just while they pop to the pub.

It is down the pub that Arthur learns that house demolition is nothing compared to planet demolition, which is what is imminently proposed by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning
Council, as Earth is in the way of a hyperspatial express route that is scheduled to plough through the Earth's star system.

This all seems perfectly normal to Ford as he's pouring beer down his throat at a fantastic rate, encouraging the still pyjama clad Arthur to do the same. But Arthur's human brain could not accept what Ford's sub-etha sens-o-matic (THIS is the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the galaxy) had informed him, and was now hell bent on getting back to his house.

Running back up the lane, Arthur failed to notice the large yellow objects that were appearing in the sky, whilst Mr. Prosser and all the workmen were fixated by it. He didn't notice the wind or the rain and just runs and runs towards the screaming and wildly gesticulating Mr. Prosser. And now I'll quote from the book before I leave the actual plot alone.

"There was a terrible ghastly silence.
There was a terrible ghastly noise.
There was a terrible ghastly silence."

Now if you want to meet Marvin the Manic Depressive Robot, Zaphod Beeblebrox, the inordinately talented Babel Fish, or find out what happens if you encounter a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster then you'll just have to get the triology of five books (it's another of Douglas Adams's jokes) and have one of the most entertaining series of reads you'll ever encounter in your sad and mortal life.

This is terrifically original humour (HHGTTG was written in 1979) that still holds a unique charm. If you can't abide the thought of reading the books, then DON'T PANIC (the comforting words emblazoned on the cover of every sub-etha sens-o-matic) because you can buy the original radio series on audio cassette, or you should be able to find video tapes of the original tv series. Either that or wait for the big screen version which should be with us sometime soon, but why deprive your humour sensors for that long?

Besides. Who kn
ow's what is around the corner...

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