mass market paperback, 227 pages
English language
Published Oct. 19, 1983 by Pocket Books.
Pow! Freeeeoooooo! Pop! Pop Pop! Previous Best Score...Seven million five hundred and ninety-five thousand, two hundred and...
Now join the end-of-the-world party, bring your pink towel and your jogging shoes and find out if potatoes are the answer.
Life, the Universe and Everything
Join Arthur Dent, earthling, "jerk," kneebiter and time-traveler; sexy space cadet Trillian; mad alien Ford Prefect; unflappable Slatifbartfast; two-headed, three-armed, ex-head Honcho of the Universe Zaphod Beeblebrox...you'll learn to fly.
Is it the end? Or just the beginning, again.
--back cover
I do have a strong sense of the series starting to lose its way with this novel. It certainly has its moments, but really doesn't come close to the standard set by the first two books.
Another fun and quick read, with the reappearance of Slartybartfast we are all assured that nothing is going to make sense ever again and can proceed from there.
Incidentally, I vividly remember reading this (not for the first time) with a headache the night before I was due to go on holiday. During this reread, the phrase “The past,” they say, “is now truly
like a foreign country. They do things exactly the same there” stuck out at me especially, which seems to be a very worldly (and of course worryingly accurate) interpretation of things. I also had this sort of feeling in one of the earlier books when Adams' mentions population growth or climate change or something, the sort of issue that had not hit mainstream media during his publication of the series; the very type of occurrence to pass me by those years ago.
I'm not sure I …
Another fun and quick read, with the reappearance of Slartybartfast we are all assured that nothing is going to make sense ever again and can proceed from there.
Incidentally, I vividly remember reading this (not for the first time) with a headache the night before I was due to go on holiday. During this reread, the phrase “The past,” they say, “is now truly
like a foreign country. They do things exactly the same there” stuck out at me especially, which seems to be a very worldly (and of course worryingly accurate) interpretation of things. I also had this sort of feeling in one of the earlier books when Adams' mentions population growth or climate change or something, the sort of issue that had not hit mainstream media during his publication of the series; the very type of occurrence to pass me by those years ago.
I'm not sure I quite approve of Xafod helping save the universe, it really goes against character. Still, the "it", whatever it is that makes this a part of Hitchhikers, is certainly there.
