"42"
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
written by Douglas Adams
One of the most widely published books in the universe is the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. With the words "don't panic" stamped on its cover, this ideal book for the many travelers in the cosmos contains a vast index of answers and information regarding the many things one has a probability of running into in the infinite expanse of space. This is the very book that Ford Prefect is revising and updating when he is stranded on a terribly boring planet called Earth, but he won't be there for much longer. Or a more accurate statement is that in a few minutes the earth won't be there any longer. The bar in which Ford and his good friend Arthur Dent, a most uninteresting earthling, are drinking in will be incinerated along with the rest of the planet when a troublesome fleet of Vogons destroys Earth to make way for an interstellar highway. This may be the end of the road for the planet Earth, but as for the experienced interplanetary explorer Ford and his friend Arthur their adventure is just beginning they'll just first need to catch a ride with a thumb aimed skyward.
Arthur will have to drastically adjust his life-style in order to even achieve at the very least the hope of coping with the adventures he will be exposed to. He will stutter the word, "What," more times than there are atoms in a star. Time an time again the threat of obliteration will be adverted with a wide variety of coincidences that will save Arthur, Ford, and the other colorful characters they interact with such as Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed President of the galaxy, and Marvin a manic-depressive robot. The hilariously wacky adventures of the group will keep the reader zooming around in space long after the book concludes at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Douglas Adams has incorporated so much randomness and improbability into this small 200 page long sci-fi that my confidence in my own capacity for randomness has been compromised. Past Presidents John Adams and Tomas Jefferson both died on the same day, the Fourth of July 1826. Meanwhile Douglas Adams will interrupt his story to hyothosize what happens to all the ball-point pens after they are lost; all used ball-point pens end up on a self-sustaining planet living happy and full lives in a pen society. I can't compete with his dedication to the unexpected.
Not only does this story entertain the reader with the fictional history of the universe, but it also provides the answer to the “ultimate question” in its pages. If you don't appreciate books with a raw display of humor at least read this one for the passage explaining how a race of highly intelligent beings dedicated their energies to creating a computer powerful enough to compute the answer to life, the universe, and everything. It took 7 1/2 million years to compute the answer, but alas the day arrived for "Deep Thought" to make its reality altering statement.
This book lacked a resounding theme and symbolism, but as far a wonderfully charming and hysterical sci-fi, Douglas Adam hit gold. It’s not a book for a typical school assignment, but one can also learn much about how towels are essential for hitchhiking, how the number 42 is more than just the solution to seven multiplied by six, and how robots with "people personalities" suck.
