Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
Seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.
Together, this dynamic pair began a journey through space aided by a galaxyful of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox—the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian (formerly Tricia McMillan), Zaphod’s girlfriend, whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; and Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he’s bought over the years.
Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? For all the answers, stick your thumb to the stars!
Editorial Reviews
“Extremely funny...inspired lunacy...[and] over much too soon.” —The Washington Post Book World
"The feckless protagonist, Arthur Dent, is reminiscent of Vonnegut heroes, and his travels afford a wild satire of present institutions." —Chicago Tribune
"Very simply, the book is one of the funniest SF spoofs ever written, with hyperbolic ideas folding in on themselves." —School Library Journal
“[A] whimsical odyssey . . . Characters frolic through the galaxy with infectious joy.” —Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Douglas Adams was born in Cambridge in March 1952 and was educated at Brentwood School, Essex, before attending St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he received a B.A. and later an M.A. in English literature. A writer for radio, television, and theater, he was the creator of all the various manifestations of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy, which started as a radio show and then became a series of novels, a TV show, an album, a computer game, and several stage adaptations. Adams died on May 11, 2001.
