Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I watched the series first before reading the book. I liked both.

It is probably best to not start reviewing a book when you've had a few glasses of red wine. Especially when Question Time is on in the background, you may become quite polemical.
I first came to this book via the tv series. I guess it must have been on on a Sunday night because that was the night I got to watch tv with my parents and I remember watching it with my dad. I was young then, 11 or 12.
A computer is built to discover the question that will solve the meaning of life. This computer is the Earth. The answer to the meaning of life is, famously, 42. Unfortunately, just before the computer can reveal what the question is, it is destroyed by the Vogons to make way for an inter-stella by-pass. One human is saved by his alien friend and he sets off around the universe with the book, Hitchhikers Guide to a Galaxy, for his guide.
That is the idea. Once you've had the idea you can do pretty much anything with it. Adams does.
The questions he raises are still relavent today -
We are inordinately concerned with shuffling little bits of green paper around. We think they will make us happy but they don't.
Digital watches have now been replaced by mobile phones.
Jesus has been replaced by David Beckham.
And Hello! would have been in there somewhere.
But Adams was way ahead in making us look at the Earth. When looking at the planet from a distance it is a beautiful bluey greeny thing and we could have done a much better job with it.
Somewhere we seem to have gone wrong.

And Marvin always makes me laugh. I feel like Marvin myself, 'brain the size of a planet' reduced to working in a call centre.

Oh Adams, why did you have to die? I was weaned onto the TV series before I used to settle down to a read, and I also enjoyed the radio series as well as the books. The TV series dated drastically, but the books and the radio series are still going strong.

Adams balances SF speculation with schoolboy humour, wordplay, absurdity and some fairly acute observations of human behaviour. I feel particularly for the bowl of pentunias.

Alas, i am too young to remember a version for the radio, but i do love the book - it was infact one of the first books i read and enjoyed.

Very funny on so many levels - I will never forget the lines

- "I wish I had listened to what my mother said when I was a child"
- "what did she say?"
- "I don't know, I didn't listen"

sheer genius, can't believe he is dead :(

One of the funniest storylines ever written, though the radio version was tons better than the book. Adams both knew his scifi and how to send it up; the result is a work of genius. His story of the destruction of earth to make way for an intergalactic by-pass - and the subsequent search for the meaning of life by the collection of misfits he dreamt up, is surreal, satirical, and highly knowledgeable. To which the answer is, 42.

I don't think its dated at all, the stuff about the digital watches could easily be replaced with stuff about mobile phones though.

Does it feel dated? I haven't looked at it for ages and thought it might do - a product of outlook of the late 1970s. I'd be very interested to hear what you think as a new reader - almost 30 years on!

I just started reading this book and it's absolutely genious. It only took about 3 or 4 pages to fall in love with.

The answer may be 42 but can anyone remember what the question they 'focus group' made up to explain it? Oh yes, 'how many roads must a man walk down?'.

A fantastic read - 5 books in a trilogy of four....

Adams was simply a genuis, and as a script editor was instrumental in shaping many of the best sci-fi series ever to have graced British TV and radio.

Like Mike, I never heard the radio series first time round, but was lucky enough to get the whole shebang on audio cassette, as well as listening to Adams read the first book himself. Such a pleasure to hear the author bringing the work to life via the spoken word.

And obviously one of the best openings of any book written:
"Yellow........"