The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

1979

comic science fiction
vogons
humorous fiction
imaginary voyages
wit and humour
science fiction
interstellar travel
fiction
interplanetary voyages
life on other planets

The story

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the first of six books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction "hexalogy" by Douglas Adams. The novel is an adaptation of the first four parts of Adams's radio series of the same name. The novel was first published in London on 12 October 1979. It sold 250,000 copies in the first three months. The namesake of the novel is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a fictional guide book for hitchhikers (inspired by the Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe) written in the form of an encyclopaedia. --- Also contained in: - [The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Four Parts](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2163692W) - [The More than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2163713W) - [Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2163706W)

What it’s like

Brisk, deadpan sentences that trot along like a well-meaning guidebook, with footnote-sized asides and sudden absurd turns that make you laugh out loud on a train. The sensory world is sparse and quick: a dusty English village, a battered spaceship's bright corridors, an endless cosmos rendered in a few exact comic images rather than lush description. The voice is the pleasure, dry and warmly exasperated, with the odd sincere moment of wonder slipped in between jokes. Pacing is loose and episodic, hopping planets and digressions without much urgency, so it suits a long-haul flight, a lazy weekend, or reading aloud to someone who loves silliness. The intensity is mild: some slapstick peril and cheerful bureaucratic cruelty, with the occasional planetary destruction handled so casually it reads as a joke rather than horror; no gore, no sexual content. The emotional register is wry affection for a bumbling, decent everyman who is more bewildered than heroic, and the arc is mostly him drifting through absurdity while keeping his good humour. It is for readers who want witty, irreverent science fiction that rewards a chuckle per page and asks nothing heavier than a sense of humour.

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