3rd in the series and the first one that was written as a book as opposed to being adapted from the radio scripts. Zaphod, Trillian, Ford, Arthur and the hilariously named Slartibartfast reunite, at Lords Cricket ground (don’t ask) to save the universe.
Even 30 years on this is still a fresh and funny series of stories, whether you read them or listen to the original BBC radio shows. The anarchic, or ‘random’ to use modern parlance, plot, place settings and characters makes them more appealing than a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster!
In Life, the Universe and Everything, the third title in Douglas Adams' blockbusting sci-fi comedy series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent finds himself enlisted to prevent a galactic war.
Following a number of stunning catastrophes, which have involved him being alternately blown up and insulted in ever stranger regions of the Galaxy, Arthur Dent is surprised to find himself living in a cave on prehistoric Earth. However, just as he thinks that things cannot get possibly worse, they suddenly do. An eddy in the space-time continuum lands him, Ford Prefect, and their flying sofa in the middle of the cricket ground at Lord's, just two days before the world is due to be destroyed by the Vogons.
Escaping the end of the world for a second time, Arthur, Ford, and their old friend Slartibartfast embark (reluctantly) on a mission to save the whole galaxy from fanatical robots. Not bad for a man in his dressing gown . . .
Follow Arthur Dent's galactic (mis)adventures in the rest of the trilogy with five parts: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, and Mostly Harmless.
Douglas Adams was born in 1952 and created all the various and contradictory
manifestations of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: radio, novels, TV,
computer game, stage adaptation, comic book and bath towel. The Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy was published thirty years ago......on 12 October 1979 and its phenomenal success sent the
book straight to number one in the UK bestseller list. In 1984 Douglas Adams
became the youngest author to be awarded a Golden Pan. His series has sold over
15 million books in the UK, the US and Australia and was also a bestseller in
German and many other languages. The feature film starring Martin Freeman and
Zooey Deschanel with Stephen Fry as the Guide was released in 2005 using much of
Douglas’s original script and ideas. Douglas lived with his wife and daughter in
Islington, North London, and briefly in California, where he died in 2001.
