DOUGLAS ADAMS
1 Characters dissapointing.
With Adams' whimsical interpretation of space, time, probability and parallel universes; it's really silly to assume that the 'Mostly Harmless' will fit in with the plots of the four previous books cohesively. The fans of the series know that lack-of-coherency is one of the more charming aspects of the trilogy. Actually, this is one of the few redeeming literary points of the book... Adams seems to enjoy playing with the kind of ridiculous corner he has painted himself into with all the traveling across time and parallel universes.
Anyway, my real disappointment with this book comes from the characters. I could deal with Fenchurch and Zaphod disappearing... but really no character rises to fill their place. Yes, we know Arthur is not a 'take charge' guy; but really his character doesn't change at all in this book... and after all he's been through, it is frustrating that he is still 90% reactionary. He worked in the first three books because of strong supporting characters, and he was a more dominant character in the fourth book than he was in this one. Trillian was never really a well developed character in the series (IMHO); and in this book, it's hard not to really dislike her. Tricia McMillian is pretty well developed in the story but her presence plays more a part in the story than her character does. As for Random, the angry teenager cliche I thought was a bit below Adams' creative abilities; it really felt like she was forced into the story to bring everyone together at the end. That being said, I like Ford and Colin; unfortunately, they aren't enough to make up for the other characters though.
I think the major appeal of these stories lies in the attachment the reader feels to the characters. In the original three books, the main characters were a good mix of personalities and played well off of one another. You cared for them, the attachment you had to them made their antics seem more funny, etc. In this book the characters have become monotonous and/or cliche. Taking this with a weak ending and a not particularly strong plot arch... well, this was a dissapointment to me.
Yes Adams may have wanted to make these characters be a little more 'real' but since when has reality had anything to do with the Hitchhiker Universe? In the end, it feels like this book was written more like a tragic final episode to a sitcom rather than an end to one of the best sci-fi trilogies written.
2 Short of Magical
There was a connection that Arthur Dent made with his readers that carried one seamlessly through the first four books. The state of temporary immortality that he reaches in this book simply makes him less interesting.
The appeal of the Hitchhiker series was always the conflict of normalcy and the extraordinary (like trying to get a spaceship to synthesize tea). This book just didn't find the right balance and the writing in this book gave off the general feeling that you might get from an unsatisfied sexual partner - that they are simply doing what they can to make the event end without hurting your feelings. This is the feeling I got from Adams' novel and it was all the more terrible because I always loved Adams.
This book is not a fit end to the man's career. If you feel as though you have to read this to finish the series then please read the Dirk Gently books afterwards (even if you've already read them).
3 I think we have different value systems...
I notice that most reviewers don't seem to like Mostly Harmless that much. They complain about the unhappy ending and the lack of outright funny jokes.
I, on the other hand, love Mostly Harmless. It's my favorite book of the 'trilogy.' It has the most cohesive plot; everything builds to a well foreshadowed conclusion. Yeah, it's a bit of a downer, but I prefer morose and deeply satisfying to upbeat and meaningless. All these disparate threads finally tie together (and nicely at that). The Agrajag thread concludes. The Vogon thread concludes. The Trillian thread really emerges and concludes. We get a decent amount of good stuff on Earth (like in So Long...), but we also get lots of strange planet stuff (as in the first three books). Plus, we get Ford's adventure at the Guide office and the Sandwichmaker episode (probably my favorite piece of storytelling). "There is an art to making sandwiches..." How can you not give it 5 stars for that alone?
Anyway, I suppose it's like Arthur says to Ford: "I think we have different value systems." And, like Ford, my reply to you naysayers is "Well mine's better."
4 He meant for there to be a 6th book...
This fifth and unfortunate final installment of the series is the longest of them all. It feels like a 2 1/2 hour film where right in the middle of it, you start to scratch your head and say "When is this going to end?" and then all of a sudden it gets really interesting (right aroung page 147, if you're interested). Yes, as readers have pointed out, the character of Fenchurch (who was introduced in the fourth book) has disappeared in this one, and all matter of things making the whole fabric of the Hitchiker's universe unstable make it hard to get used to. As one of the hidden characters in the book says, "Let it go." There are interesting places in this one, and Arthur, lost and adrift in the universe, has gotten quite weary of them. When the climax of the book finally appears, we are left with an abrupt feeling that Adams himself attributes to "having a lousy year" and that he meant to write a sixth book, but unfortunately had a heartattack at age 49. This is too bad, as the book ends with a bang, and you can almost hear the old theme music from the show coming on with the feel of "I can't wait to see how they got out of this one!" but that will never happen. Still, read it with the knowledge that it wasn't meant to be the end!
5 Fantastically funny, but not a thrilling and grand finale
This book is quite different from the other four in the Universe's only five-part "trilogy". Once again, you need to have read the whole series to appreciate it, but there's a lot that's not there in this supposed final book.
More like a set of short stories about Arthur Dent, Trillian and Ford Prefect, the greater part of the book is hugely entertaining and wonderfully witty, but for the first time, all the ends aren't tied up in the last chapter or so.
Unsatisfactorily sucked into the black hole of oblivion are Zaphod and Fenchurch, but the story is saved largely by the misadventures of our heroes, and the introduction of the perpetually happy robot, Colin.
It's full of knee-slapping slapstick, Mission Impossible type espionage, DNA donations and dandy sandwich making, but as a thrilling and grand finale it's a complete failure.
Refreshingly funny, but not satisfyingly wrapped-up.
Amanda Richards, March 28, 2005
6 Nihilist and Awful
Don't believe any of the positive reviews (wish I could give it a zero). They are afterglows of the wonderful first 2.5 books in the series. This is Adams' (someone who suffered from conginital writer's bloc) need to angrily challenge the publishing industry over its interest to make money from earlier best sellers, no matter how bad the new product may be.
7 Mostly Entertaining
It's quite possibly even more confusing and harder to follow than the previous four books in the series. This time Adams lingers more on some of his wacky anecdotes and punch lines. I enjoyed Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect's strange and absurd encounters with a galaxy that is now all muddled up due to time travel and reverse engineering, among other things. Through some very bizarre twists of fate, Arthur now has a daughter. Ford Prefect has incredible luck with jumping out of office windows, and a new Guide has been developed which has the potential to really screw up all of space/time...
Call me crazy, but I have been very entertained by this series. The first three books were a little more coherent in my opinion, but I would still recommend So Long... and Mostly Harmless to all readers who find themselves amused by Adams' particular brand of humor.
8 Adams scores again!
Adams aptly named "hitchhiker's trilogy" continues on in this all too short book. The author's focus is on three and a half characters, Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Tricia McMillan....and Arthur and Tricia's daughter Random.
We learn that Arthur is welcomed as a master sandwich maker on a planet similar in make up to Earth. He has also sold his DNA for quick cash to what appears to be the future of sperm banks!
Tricia is Trillian is Tricia.
Ford becomes completely disillusioned due to his employeer selling out to a large corporation. It would appear that even space and time are not safe from capitalism.
Random wants to fit in--and finds solace in Arthur's watch, before she broke it that is...er was.
Everthing, from an Adamsian perspective, is completely normal, as is exemplified by the appearance of the "perfectly normal beasts" that migrate through time and space allowing Arthur to make sandwiches of them after a successful hunt.
As the story shapes and is molded by the storyteller, the one character that is most missed is Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed cosmic leader and pirate. Also, Martin, the manic depressant robot is sorely missed.
It is a shame that Adams is no longer of this Earth to share more about the trials and tribulations of our favorite characters! However, I will re-read this series occassionally as I do my other favorite reads.
9 The way not to end a terrific series..
"Mostly Harmless" is the last of the "Hitchhiker" books, and I do wish that it wasn't. The ending did tie off a lot of loose ends, but it did the readers a terrible disservice. Frankly, I hope this was a dream concocted by the dolphins of "So Long...". Anyway, Arthur Dent, the Everyman, and Ford Perfect, the flaky Alien, are at it again. Not a lot of humour in this one. Trillian having a daughter by artifical insemination didn't work at all, and this really set up one of the wrost endings I've ever read. Thanks for nothing, Douglas Adams. You are missed, however.
10 Action, humour, SF satire and post-modern philosophy
Always a lovely read - Adams is very user friendly. He seems to almost have his own genre of which he and Pratchett are the leading exponents. I can't say I laughed out loud too often (although the picture of a drunken Zaphod sticking a birdcage over his second head and badly pretending to be a pirate is hilarious), but it was a very pleasant ride - even if the conclusion is surprisingly bleak for what feels like a light comedy. Like Pratchett (and there are so many `like Pratchett's, although that's probably in the wrong comparative order) Adams throws in some agnostic themes with his humour, although here the ultimate meaninglessness of life is treated a little less whimsically.
It's an interesting hotchpotch of action (and cutting between various cliff-hanger scenes), philosophy, stand-up comic perspectives of the everyday, domestic sit-com, satirical SF, and Douglas' own pleasure in blithely hurling his characters through six impossible things before breakfast. The plot is surprisingly coherent although occasionally incidental.
I still would almost be surprised if Adams didn't cite Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49 as a thematic and stylistic influence. Here he lets his sensible and considerate astrologer state the theme that it doesn't matter so much what you believe in (`truth' is irrelevant), but you need something as a structure, a lens, to enable you to live satisfactorily. Adams unsurprisingly explains this much better:
"I know that astrology isn't a science ... of course it isn't. It's just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or tennis ... The rules just kind of got there. They don't make any kind of sense except in terms of themselves. But when you start to exercise those rules, all sorts of processes start to happen and you start to find out all sorts of stuff about people. In astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the difference it would make. It's just a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of that problem begin to emerge. The more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are, the better. It's like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see where the hidden indentations are. It lets you see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that's now been taken away and hidden. The graphite's not important. It's just the means of revealing the indentations. So you see, astrology's nothing to do with astronomy. It's just to do with people thinking about people."
`Discuss', huh.
Yet another author struggles to reconcile loss of faith in major, particularly religious, concepts of truth with the inner conviction that there are important, good and beautiful things all around - that it's not all just meaningless.
And it is a struggle, as in the climax (spoiler warning) Trillian explains to her traumatised daughter who desperately wants to know who she is, where her home is, where she `fits':
This is not your home ... You don't have one. We none of us have one. Hardly anyone has one anymore. The missing ship I was just talking about. The people of that ship don't have a home. They don't know where they are from. The don't even have any memory of who they are or what they are for. The are very lost and very confused and very frightened.
Yeah, ha ha, good one Douglas - hardly Wodehouse light humour. Human condition anyone? I wonder if Adams and Pratchett self-consciously have wanted to be taken `seriously'? I could see that it could be frustrating for them to be dismissed as merely lightweight because they're so popular. They often contain more articulate thought than works by more academic writers, and shouldn't be seen as lesser merely because they happen to also be very good at amusing and entertaining (quite the opposite). That being said, their books should also come with a flyleaf caveat: "Warning - strong post-modern agenda permeates the following jokes".
11 good
okay so the ending wasn't all that great, but i still thorougly enjoyed the rest of the book and thought the writing style douglas adams used was quite different from the rest of the hitchhiker books. and anyone who criticises this book for the ending is an idiot because none of them seem to realise that the characters aren't dead at the end, otherwise how would adams make the sixth book that he was planning to write before he was so untimely taken from the world.
12 HHGTTU
*WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS!!*
I loved all of the books,thought the ending to mostly harmless certainly hurt (when I read books, I imagine them to be alive. In addition, I seem to have developed some sort of curse that makes certain that each and every favourite character I ever decide on will die by the end of the book/series/whatever. So Ford dying in the end certainly didn't help my opinion of this book).
A lot of people have brought up questions regarding continuity and loopholes with regards to the ending, and I think that this was intentional - My GUESS, is the Douglas Adams purposely ended the book the way he did to be finished and done with it, but to also give people who couldn't deal with the death a simple way out of having to.
I cannot deal with the death ( ;) ) so I am pretending in my mind that Ford and the others simply hitch-hiked their way out of the situation, and continued on their way, while sorting out Fenchurch, Zaphod, Trillian/Tricia, and Random along the way, and, everyone did indeed live happily ever after.
It could happen.
13 Mostly Harmful
When describing The Hitchhiker books to friends, I say that you can pick up any one, open it to a random page, start reading, and get as much from story as you would if you read the entire series start to finish. Now, this is either a sign of Douglas Adams' sheer brilliance, or a sign of his well executed, serial lampoonery. I choose the latter for "Mostly Harmless" and for the rest of the Hitchhiker series in general. After all, brilliant is as brilliant ends.
No doubt, the Hitchhiker books are perhaps the most entertaining sci-fi comedy I've ever read. Moreover, at one happy moment ("So Long and Thanks for the Fish") the story rises above episodic, laugh-out-loud comedy, and becomes a tale that one can take a human interest in. Of course, whatever humanity developed there is squished to smithereens in "Mostly Harmless", and that is no surprise. The careful reader should have noted that if there is a single prominent theme in Adams' writing, it is that the human viewpoint is irrelevant, simply a few blips on the probability axis, mostly harmless and dispensable enough to be eradicated from all possibility by single-minded space slugs and zero-minded alien astrologers. But perhaps the most disappointing parts of "Mostly Harmless" are the shallow and painful exchages between Arthur and Random. Therein was much potential for Adams to let us again dare to care about Arthur, above and beyond him being the biggest loser in the universe. Maybe if Arthur had strapped Random and Trillian to a Perfectly Normal Beast and sent them off without alimony or child support, things would have been a lot more interesting. Oh well.
Mr. Adams was a self proclaimed "radical atheist", so perhaps the lackadaisy nihilism of "Mostly Harmless", and the Hitchhiker series as a whole, was his answer to the ultimate question. Regardless, the irony is that "Mostly Harmless" is mostly harmful to Adams' magnum opus, which, I think most will agree, is an otherwise uniquely entertaining sci-fi experience this side of the Milky Way.
14 Well.... not exactly MOSTLY
So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish was, in my opinion, essentially worthless. Therefore, I was much delighted to find that Mostly Harmless does a fair job of rekindling the over-the-top, elaborate zaniness of the original trilogy. Yes, a lot of it won't make sense, but oddly enough, Mostly Harmless seems to make more sense than the rest of the bunch. It isn't quite as inspired as The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, though, nor is it as innocent. Adams' liberal use of the F-word only deters from the likeability of the main characters, though. I didn't like that at all. Perhaps the biggest dividing issue of this book, though, is its ending. I won't spoil it for you, but I'm sure you already know it can't be good. Well.... it is, by no means, a good ending, but it's the only ending that would perfectly conclude the Hitchhiker's "trilogy." A good, solid read that comes close, but not equal to, what Adams initially created.
15 A Good Ending For A Series That Had A Great Ending
Most of the reviews of "Mostly Harmless" have centered on the fact that "So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish" had such a perfect ending. That is a valid point, but one that should not detract from the fact that the fifth book does have a very clever ending that is very provocative and keeping with the offbeat humor of the series. If there had never been a fourth book, fans of the series like myself would be perfectly happy with "Harmless." The real problem here is that Adams has torn apart a perfectly contained entity to establish the jumping-off point for this book. This upsets people who have invested emotional energy. They may tolerate the universe yanking Arthur around, but they get iritated at the author yanking him around for no good reason. But if "Fish" did not exist, it would play like Adams' trademark absurdity.
16 4 Stars - Qualified...
I've had
Mostly Harmless on my shelf for many years. I can't remember when I got it, nor could I remember reading it. A couple of weeks ago, I started with
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and read through the series.
Mostly Harmless ostensibly the 5th book in the trilogy (this
is Douglas Adams, RIP).
The book is fast paced...leading you to an ending that closes the series for good (although you could argue that there's certainly an opening after the So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish shenanigans.
Anyway, if you've read the other four books in the trilogy, you'll enjoy this last one, until the very end, much like Mr. Adams' life.
17 For the love of Zarquon....
This book was a decent read, but shy's in comparison to the first four of the series. The wacky zany and highly entertaining universe Adams created is somewhat unsettled by this book. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth for the dedicated fan. I am honestly lead to believe, after having read all of Adams' work, that another book was to follow this one. The issues of Fenchurch as well as there being two Trillian's in the end, plus the lack of Zaphod (with the Heart of Gold) just leaves the door open for a loop hole out of the disturbingly final tone to this book. A loophole I don't Adams was overlooking. While I can appreciate the ideas this book presented, I have to agree with some of the other reviewers here that the previous books filled you with a sort of hope that things would work out for poor and miserable Arthur Dent, as well as, finding it hard to believe that Ford Prefect couldn't find himself out of any difficult situation. While I don't know if I personally could ever get enough of the hitchhiker series, I'm indecisive as which book I would rather have as a finale......
18 Mostly Harmless - A deeply satisfying conclusion
'Mostly Harmless' is certainly a close rival with 'Restaurant at the End of the Universe' for being the best of the Hitchhiker's series, and indeed of Adams' entire body of work. As he moved away from the radio-script material into fresh territory, Adams gradually dropped the lighter, more trivial and bubbly style of the first novel, and it is in `Mostly Harmless' that his deftness in deploying his unique brand of logical illogicalities, observations on the absurdity of certain behaviour (final disaster occurs as a result of someone acting on his horoscope), and skilled play with language reaches its greatest density and elegance.
Most brilliant is the challengingly dark ending (too challenging for some, resulting in negative reactions from some when 'Mostly Harmless' was first published), towards which the entire story builds with intricate layers of foreshadowing only noticeable on a second reading, demonstrating the growth in the writer's talent that had taken place by that time. Very few readers seem to notice that the boghog which bites Arthur at the beginning is Agrajag.
Adams was planning to write a sixth Hitchhiker's book at the time of his death, having decided to convert his ideas for 'The Salmon of Doubt' into a Hitchhiker's novel. It is a great pity that we cannot now witness the stroke of genius with which he intended to resurrect his characters (though I suspect that Fenchurch, whom the Vogons apparently left out of their calculations, would have been involved).
A magnificent book and a deeply satisfying conclusion to the series.
19 If you are a fan, DON'T read this book
I tore through the first four books, and couldn't wait to read the fith and final book. Afterwords, I kinda with I hadn't. It seems tacked on, almost as if it was written without regard for the story up to that point. It lacks much of the humor and sensitivity of the first four. I'll just say it: I did not like this book one bit.
For one thing, it was written in such a manner that it was hard to follow. And yes, I do like happy endings, and this book does not have one. Plus, it doesn't follow with the other books. We all already know that Earthers did not evolve on the planet, and that the Earth was replaced. So why would the HHGTG still say "Mostly harmless", instead of Ford's long-winded review of the planet? Lots of things in this book might make you think that it was written out of a desperate need for money, or by somebody else.
If you love the series as much as I do, just skip this book. It is a disappointing end to a wonderful "trilogy."
20 Mostly funny, but rather grim in the end
It is impossible not to have some mixed feelings about this novel. It does stand as a return to the wild frivolity and cuttingly biting humor of the first three books, yet it is certainly less than upbeat, all things considered. Despite all kinds of evidence to the contrary, I always had the feeling that things would work out, even for poor Arthur Dent-the universe might not make a bit of sense, of course, but these characters I love so much would ultimately at least find a sense of peace if not happiness in some forgotten corner of the cosmos. It's something of a downer to find out this is not really the case. Two characters who very much made up the heart of the series for me, Marvin and Zaphod, are not even present in these pages. Then you have Fenchurch from the fourth book, a character I really came to love, thrown out of the saga like so much spoiled Perfectly Normal Beast meat. It's nice to have Trillian back, albeit in a couple of transdimensional forms, as well as Ford and Arthur, but it's hard to say who the story is really about. Arthur's new life as a Sandwich Maker on a remote planet his ship crashed on is rather pitiful but totally Dent-like. Ford's attempts to undo the tragic consequences of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy company having been taken over by unscrupulous business men is interesting. The introduction of a Tricia McMillan who did not leave the party with Zaphod because she decided to go back for her handbag ends up just muddying the waters of the fictional time stream. Then there is Random, the biological daughter of Arthur Dent by Trillian; she is even more mixed up and generally confused about life than the father she only meets as a teenager dumped by her too-busy mother. It might be said that this is Random's story, but all she really does is provide the means by which the principal actors Ford, Arthur, and Trillian are eventually brought together for the final conclusion.
Adams did do an impressive job of bringing things together in the end-characters and situations not only from this novel itself but from the start of the whole Hitchhiker's saga (think Vogons). Why a pesky number of loose threads were allowed to hang out, though, while so much work went into resolving other looming storylines, is beyond me and did much to mar the satisfaction I got from the rather abrupt, unfortunate conclusion. I am particularly bothered by the fact that Fenchurch, a character important enough for Adams to have written the entire fourth novel about, is summarily dismissed with little thought and even little grief from Arthur Dent himself. I should not complain about the way Adams chose to end this delightful series of novels of his own imaginative creation, yet I cannot help feeling disappointed if not a little cheated by the way in which everything ended. All in all, while I did enjoy parts of this book immensely, I would rather have ended things with the happy note of So Long, and Thanks For all the Fish, and be left free to imagine what kinds of messes Ford and Arthur might be getting themselves into somewhere in the universe and wondering what really ever happened to Trillian and Zaphod.
21 By now the series is tired...
This fifth book in the five-book trilogy from great author Douglas Adams doesn't have the silly charm or comic punch of the first three, and instead has the confusing, incoherent narrative of the boring fourth, "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish." The plot is difficult to explain, since this book has virtually no direction or any kind of solid narrative. Not only is it ridiculous, but it's confusing. While the original three were splendid comedy gems, this one is a forced whimper that doesn't hold up and has no memorable qualities. I guess it was time for the series to end.
22 the King, the Sandwich Maker and the Restaurant Critic...
After the grand final act of "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish," I had a foreboding about even picking up the new finale--"Mostly Harmless." My foreboding served me well.
Do not think for a second that I would wish to have even one less sentence from the hand of the late Douglas Adams...heavens no. I only wish this had been another Dirk Gently book instead of a sometimes hilariously funny, yet all-too serious demolition of the happy ending of "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish."
Alas.
Gone are Marvin (who dies at the end of the fourth book) and Fenchurch. In their stead we gain another Trilian (Patricia Macmillan actually), her daughter--Random Dent, and an unshakably happy robot named Colin. While I like Colin quite a bit, I could do without the other two.
In fact, I love the whole Ford Prefect storyline. Anything to do with Random is weighed down by too much maddened grimness (I think I just invented a word there...no matter).
The King, The Sandwich Maker,the Restaurant Critic and the credit card almost make this story bearable. They do not, however, make for a fitting conclusion to the Hitchhiker's trilogy.
23 Strong Conclusion to an Excellent Series
What do you get when you combine interstellar space travel, romance, action, mindless astronauts, parallel universes, religion, and sandwiches all into the same book? Why, you get Mostly Harmless, the fifth book in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams.
Mostly Harmless takes you through the life of Arthur Dent, a man whose house and world have been demolished by the Vogons, a race of evil space aliens that evolution has literally given up on. After losing the love of his life, Fenchurch (she literally vanishes into thin air), he begins to search for a new planet to reside upon. After residing briefly on the planet Bartledan, a world in which no one has wants or desires he takes up shop as a Sandwich Maker on the planet of Lamuella. Everything is going fine, until the day his ex-girlfriend, Trillian, shows up on his front door with a little surprise•À?a daughter. Random (his appropriately named daughter), was conceived by artificial fertilization from a random specimen, which was donated by Arthur. This complicates the already complicated life of Arthur Dent even more, and this is just the beginning. Adams also brings back old favorites from the previous books in Ford Prefect and of course, the aptly named Hitchhiker•À?s Guide itself.
Mostly Harmless is an great finale for an excellent series. Adams does a good job in tying up the story line while still adding his randomness and humor to the novel. If you love a good science fiction story, or just a good humorous read, Mostly Harmless and the rest of the Hitchhiker•À?s Guide series is definitely something you•À?ll enjoy.
24 Strong Conclusion to an Excellent Series
What do you get when you combine interstellar space travel, romance, action, mindless astronauts, parallel universes, religion, and sandwiches all into the same book? Why, you get Mostly Harmless, the fifth book in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams.
Mostly Harmless takes you through the life of Arthur Dent, a man whose house and world have been demolished by the Vogons, a race of evil space aliens that evolution has literally given up on. After losing the love of his life, Fenchurch (she literally vanishes into thin air), he begins to search for a new planet to reside upon... Adams also brings back old favorites from the previous books in Ford Prefect and of course, the aptly named Hitchhiker's Guide itself.
Mostly Harmless is an great finale for an excellent series. Adams does a good job in tying up the story line while still adding his randomness and humor to the novel. If you love a good science fiction story, or just a good humorous read, Mostly Harmless and the rest of the Hitchhiker's Guide series is definitely something you'll enjoy.
25 With Love To DNA, This Book Is Mostly Unnecessary
Don't let my 2-star rating for "Mostly Harmless" fool you---I miss Douglas Adams very much. He was a brilliantly funny author, and I'm a huge fan of his first four "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" books, his pair of "Dirk Gently" books, and his writing for the "Doctor Who" TV series. But sadly, I must confess, I'm not a fan of Adams' final "Hitchhiker's" book, "Mostly Harmless." The reason is simple: the fifth book, in my opinion, is totally unnecessary. Adams originally intended for the fourth book, "So Long And Thanks For All The Fish," to be the definitive final book in the "Hitchhiker's" saga. There's a *reason* why the fourth book has a farewell title to it, folks! And, like the three books that came before it, I totally loved it---I read the entire "So Long And Thanks..." book in a single day, and I thought that it was a marvelous "conclusion" to the adventures of Arthur Dent & company.Then along came "Mostly Harmless," which, by Adams' own admission, he only wrote on a whim---just for fun, in other words. He came up with a way to extend the series for one more book, which I'm sure delighted some "Hitchhiker's" fans, but I, personally, was so disappointed with the direction of it. Arthur's ladylove, Fenchurch, is gone, and now it turns out that he & Trillian had a daughter (though not by natural means), and that's just for starters. Oh, Adams' writing is still sharp, but despite a very humourous adventure with Ford Prefect & a companion robot toward the beginning, the fifth book, to my dismay, turns surprisingly serious. What can I say---this is simply not how I wanted the "Hitchhiker's" saga to end.I have on my bookshelf a "complete" hardcover edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" that only goes up through "So Long And Thanks For All The Fish." That's fine with me. To me, "So Long" IS the definitive ending of the series. I just don't feel it was necessary for Douglas Adams to extend the story any further. Don't get me wrong, I greatly mourn the man, and I will always treasure his other works of genius, but "Mostly Harmless," for me, came up short. My advice: read the "Hitchhiker's" series through book four ONLY, and you will get a much more satisfying conclusion. But the misstep that is "Mostly Harmless" takes nothing away from the man's great literary gifts---and great laughs---that he gave us throughout his incredible writing career. So long, Douglas, and thanks for all the fish.
26 A Review of the book that DOES give the question(spoilers)
In "Life, the Universe, and Everything" plays heavily into this book for several reasons. The most obvious is Agrajag, which I thought was very clever of Arthur to remember and allowed him to have a rarely seen sense of arrogance in him. But there's another reference that's incredibly subtle and I don't know if Adams even realized it(or maybe I'm just out to lunch and am dead wrong): Arthur had some interestings views in "L,tU,aE," one of which was that the farther things move in space the more they stay in the same place. After Arthur's fantastic journeys throughout the galaxy, he ends up where he came from: Earth. I know many people disliked this book because it didn't have the happy, "they all lived happily ever after," Hollywood-esque ending. I say that this series wasn't meant to be a cute little tale. It was meant to be ridiculously silly and humorous. And that's exactly the way the book ends the series. Imagine! After all these people have gone through it comes to an end because some confused aliens want to change their horoscope! I thoroughly enjoyed Arthur being a "sandwich maker." I found it very quaint and I was glad Arthur was happy(however momentarily). I like the way of ending the tale of these people with a new, ultimate nemesis: A new Guide. An all-powerful Guide. That's what got Arthur and Ford into all the original trouble into the first(or did it save them?) and now it's back and horribly evil. I liked Ford casually breaking into the headquarters and being confused that the floor was 3 centimeters lower than usual from the vent. It gives you a good perspective of Ford. I admit that I did not enjoy Trillian/Tricia McMillan very much in this story, but she(they) were necessary. I thought Random was somewhat funny, but not as much as Ford and Arthur. I liked Ford's ridiculous overspending with his new found credit card and his notions to throw himself out windows. And I absolutely loved Colin. A beautiful contrast to Marvin(although the doors and Eddie from previous books also served the same purpose). I especially enjoyed his "I gurgle with pleasure" line said right after Ford gives him some sternly horrible words. I was not disappointed that Fenchurch was left out or that Arthur wasn't overly depressed about it. He was already at the near peak of depression before meeting her. In this he's depressed that he's lost his love, his planet, his life, any sense of normalcy, and has gained a completely unstable daughter. It took me a while to understand why Elvis was put into this book so much, but after a while, I finally understood. I hope you all understand it too. Because it represents the true closure to the story that this book puts forth. ... It's a good book(despite the fact that Zaphod Beeblebrox is left out, I liked his wonderfully confusing personality.)
27 A strong conclusion to a brilliant series
Despite owning the least auspicious title in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, Mostly Harmless follows in the footsteps of its four predecessors, providing outrageous sci-fi comedy as well as a perfect conclusion to the series.
With Adams, and specifically with the Hitchhiker trilogy, one almost begins to expect the unexpected. So, after four always amusing books following the travels of two Earthlings and a few of their alien friends, what would be a more unexpected, and therefore fitting, conclusion to the series than a novel with dark overtones and a tragic ending?
The premise of the trilogy is this: Arthur Dent is the reluctant main character of the entire series, and one of only two remaining Earthlings. The Earth is actually a giant supercomputer created to find the ultimate question to the ultimate answer of the meaning of life (this answer was previously found to be 42), but was destroyed by Vogons to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Dent escaped moments before Earth's destruction with Ford Prefect, a human-like alien and employee of The Guide. Trillian (short for Tricia McMillian, an English news reporter) managed to escape with Zaphod Beeblebrox, a two-headed alien who was once president of the galaxy, whom she conveniently met at a party on Earth's final night. They then proceed to have a host of wild and crazy times in space, constantly getting into and out of trouble.
This group has since split, however, and Mostly Harmless finds Arthur alone and happy on an isolated planet. He was marooned there when his spaceship crashed, and, upon finding a primitive civilization, settled in and set out to bring high technology to the natives. After some time, Arthur found that the only part of modern civilization he actually understood well enough to impart to these people was the art of sandwich making. And he did so, all the while carving out a pleasant niche for himself.
The plot begins to thicken when Trillian arrives with their daughter, Random, whom Arthur knew nothing about. It turns out that the teenage girl is actually the product of Arthur's donation to a sperm bank, but he is forced to take her in and attempt to raise her when the career-minded Trillian demands that he take responsibility.
After some time, Arthur receives a package addressed to Ford Prefect, which Random opens to reveal a brand new, strangely interactive version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This new Guide, though generally unbeknownst to its user, caters to the beck and call of whomever possesses it. Random uses it to travel to another dimension, one in which the Earth still exists, so she can go home. Ford comes for his package, and he and Arthur are forced to flee the planet in pursuit of Random. The chaotic conclusion that occurs when they find her brings the entire series to a complete, if not altogether cheery, conclusion.
The ultimate strength of Mostly Harmless is in the writing. Every bit of the story is worded perfectly in flowing, complex sentences, and Adams' ability to twist a phrase is the book's finest feature.
"As the Guide folded itself back into a smooth dark dish, Ford realized some pretty hectic stuff. Or at least he tried to realize it, but it was too hectic to take in all in one go. His head was hammering, his ankle was hurting, and though he didn't like to be a wimp about his ankle, he always found that intense multidimensional logic was something he understood best in the bath. He needed some time to think about this. Time, a tall drink, and some sort of rich, foamy oil."
The strange occupants of alien planets and the strange events that the group encounters give the book its depth and its unmatched humor. Arthur's planet of Lamuella, for example, features a strange group of cow/buffalo-like creatures which come out of nowhere, stampede across a few miles, and then vanishing into thin air once again. These animals are known only as Perfectly Normal Beasts, so dubbed because Old Thrashbarg, the village's leader, wanted to convey that image to the people.
" `[Old Thrashbarg] says that they come from where they come from and they go to where they go to and that it's Bob's will and that's all there is to it,'" Arthur explains to Trillian at one point before going on to touch on the Lamuellans' belief in the Almighty Bob.
It is also revealed at one point, in a brilliantly subtle sequence of events, the Elvis really was kidnapped by aliens.
Though every bit as zany as its predecessors, and with a confusing but captivating story involving layers of different dimensions of time and space, Mostly Harmless brings the five-part series to a definite end, and clearly has a much more sobering tone. Almost everything goes wrong for the main characters in this novel, and the final culmination highlights this dark theme.
If you have never read any of Douglas Adams' previous work, Mostly Harmless is not the place to start. Its plot is hard enough to follow even with a thorough knowledge of the characters, and attempting to dive in without such information would make Mostly Harmless confusing at least to the point of no longer being humorous. However, Mostly Harmless is a perfect conclusion to a masterful five-part series, and while it might not provide the ultimate question to the ultimate answer of life, the universe and everything, it is definitely more exciting, more hilarious, and more intense than its ironically cautious title might advertise.
28 The end of the series.
This book was written to provoke those who wanted Adams to continue the trilogy but I loved it. Aurthor setteled down on a bob fearing planet where he has aquired the prestigous job of "sandwitch maker" and couldn't be happier when Trillian drops his unknown psycho-daughter Random on his doorstep. Aurthor fumbles around differant planet earths chasing Random and the threat to the HGTTG with Ford Prefect. It has all the same Adams humor as the rest of the series even though its not as spectacular as the first 3 books there are still some great moments. Inevidably the joke is on us after we read this book and we choose to laugh it off or get angry for its existance.. I can understand why people get angry, but I thought it was funny.
29 Mostly Harmless is Underrated
I think most of the reviews for this book downplay it seriously. While the ending is kind of disappointing, the book overall is wonderful. It gets a little confusing at times, but Ford's scenes and the Ford/Arthur dialogues are some of the best in the series. So, if you can stand a little confusion and a lot of Trillian, this is a great book.
30 Please pretend this book was never written.
I have long been a fan of the Hitchhikers series as they are comic genius. The book Mostly Harmless, however, should never have come about. It is frustration at its peak. After reading this book I vowed to never read another Douglas Adams book again (not as though he got around to writing any more). This book contains nothing that resembles a story line and never gets past the character development stage. I happened to go to a talk he gave at the University of Texas a few years ago and he was asked about the ending of the Mostly Harmless and his excuse was that the hardest part of writing a new book is getting everyone back together after you scatter them to the ends of the universe in the previous book so this was his answer. If you ask me he wrote this book to pay off his new Porsche and cheat his fans. Go ahead and read the first 4 as they make up a great story by themselves but don't waste your time reading this drivel.
31 Kinda like horror movies...
...in that the last one usually isn't all that appealing. I liked it fine, with some of Adams's wit, but it was a bit disappointing. While I was a bit let down with Fenchurch's complete disappearance (I preferred her over Trillian), I was glad when, mercifully, Marvin was not present. Probably the only reason I read it was because it was included in my copy of the Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, and also just to know that I read them all.
32 A Terrible End to A Great Series
The ending for this books was so bad that I vowed never to read another Douglas Adams book. Adams was obviously sick and tired of the series and used this book to kill it off with absolutley no chance of its ever returning (as a matter of fact, its probability function is null). If you liked the other books, don't go anywhere near this one.
33 Just playing out the thread
Not much I can add to most of the other reviews. It seems pretty clear in reading Mostly Harmless than Adams was just playing out the thread, either tying up loose ends, dipping his hand one last time into the till because he knew any continuation of the Hitchhiker series, however mediocre, would sell well, or whatever. And mediocre it is. Adams is an astonishingly funny writer, and his wit is enough to make the book a pleasant read (thus the three stars). But it's clearly lacking the energy that made earlier books in the series such a delight.
34 What the heck was that?
As there are 110 other reviews at this point, I'll skip any summary.
Instead, I have to say that this book was obviously written to tie up loose ends. Fenchurch just disappears with no emotional reaction, Arthur is just a carboard cut-out that the other characters react around, not react to, and Ford is... well, he's not himself.
Some elements of this book were terrific. Some kept me laughing inside for days. But on the whole, this book was a bit of a let-down. The series went out, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
It seems like this book was Douglas' way of saying "Okay, this Hitchhiker's stuff is done. Will you please let me get down to business and write something else?"
Unfortunately, we'll never have the chance to read the great books that were still inside his head, as he is gone. We'll miss you, Douglas.
35 Mostly Harmless is mostly pointless.
This is a book only for rabid fans of the Trilogy. Adams was obviously tired of the whole feckless Hitchhiker gang and used this last opus to unceremoniously dispose of them. While flashes of the old wit crop up here and there most of the book makes no sense until the end. And at the end you see the whole purpose of the plot line was contrived to vaporize the protagonists. It can best be compared to the second book, which ended on a dark note also. The second book at least had the saving grace of a lighter sense of humor. The fifth book's end is unremittingly black and will leave most fans enraged.
36 disappointing
Mostly Harmless was the most disappointing conclusion to a series since Sienfeld. Adam's seemed to have lost his empathy for the characters. Fans who enjoyed Marvin's grim outlook on life will be pleased to see that it has infected the rest of the group. (kind of like the cyberminds of the cabin robots infected the squirrels on Lamuella)
Too bad it had to end like this...
37 beautifully written. too bad it didn't need to be.
"so long, and thanks for all the fish" ended on a delightfully final note. arthur had returned to earth (never mind how), found true love, and cheered up marvin (however briefly). everything was going just peachy.
then came "mostly harmless".
if any book has ever been a wickedly spiteful middle finger to its readers, it's this. "so long..." would've been a perfect ending to the series--a happy ending, in which loose ends are tied up, and arthur finally finds satifaction with his life. "mostly harmless" demolishes "so long...", and puts arthur in a predicament so awful, so obviously _contrived_ to be awful, that there is absolutely no joy in his resulting adventures.
is it well written? yes. is it intelligent? yes. is it fun? oh, god, no.
there does exist a delicious bit of symbolism, one that seems to sum up the entire book. ford prefect discovers that the guide has been perverted, transformed into a hideously deformed and downright evil version of itself. its purposes are its own, its goal devestation.
with "mostly harmless", the hitchhiker's series has been perverted, transformed into a hideously deformed and downright evil version of itself. adams obviously didn't want to write this book, but the clamoring of the fans drove him to it. they should have been careful what they wished for.
mean-spirited as a vogon, depressing as a paranoid android, and unneccessary as a credit card receipt to ford prefect, "mostly harmless" is a bitter, brutal end to a trilogy that only needed four books to be complete.
38 Actually Very Good
I've seen a couple of negative reviews concerning this book, but it's actually very good. No, it's not the best book in the series, but it's not the worst, either. OK, let's face it: Adams probably didn't really want to write this book. It was probably written as a finality to series so fans would stop clamoring for more sequels. A lot of people are apparently turned off by this fact, but... I don't give a damn! A good book is a good book, period. Mostly Harmless is funnier than the two previous books in the series were. Some of the many humorous elements present are Arthur's stint as "master sandwich maker", the return of Ajragag, and, of course, more of Ford's zany antics (particularly hilarous is his stint with a credit card), and even the King. Yes, THE King! hehe The tone is a bit dark, granted, and the ending is even a bit depressing after having been with the series for so long, but, face it, all good things must come to an end. We begged for another sequel, and Adams gave it to us... but it's over! Get over it, get on with your life. At least the series went out with a bang (no pun intended.)
39 Not much of a conclusion...
I loved the Hitchhiker's Guide--great combination of irreverent sci-fi humor and Monty-Python-esque quirkiness. I found myself laughing aloud as I read. Restaurant was similarly rollicking humor. But as the series progressed (and the books got thinner page-wise), it feels like Mr. Adams ran out of material or energy. "Mostly Harmless" is amusing at times, and there are flashes of the previous humor, where seeming tangential or trivial events are woven together with great imagination. But overall, this piece is disjointed and meandering. Those "laugh out loud" moments came less and less often. Even the villains are neither menacing nor silly, and the conclusion is totally unsatisfying. Unless you're someone who has a compelling need need to finish a literary series (see Frank Herbert's Dune series), I would recommend sticking with the first few books. You'll be left with better memories of Mr. Adams's wit and perspicacity.
40 Mostly Harmless is great
THis book is great. It deals wiht the theory of the multi-dimensional universe and time-space distortion in the most comical way possible. Douglas Adams himself has no degrees in science, yet uses it in his writings surprisingly well. All your favorite characters from the other four books in the trilogy are in this one, but in an entirly different dimentional universe. And of cource, the characters from one universe meet the ones from the other and........ well, just read the book, k?
41 acceptable ending...
I agree, tone and ending of this book are a little dark, but so what? I like my comedy and humor a little black anyway.
This book is still funny despite being somewhat morose and depressing...it is a fine Coda to the series, no matter what other reviewers here have said.
I bought this book while vacationing in the UK, it went on sale in Great Britain before the release of the American edition (of course), so I was quite lucky to get it ahead of everyone back home in the USA.
Besides, though this is probably the final book of this series, there's always the "Dirk Gently" series to turn to, which has its own rewards.
Despite the finality apparent in this book, never say never when it comes to Douglas Adams...there are plenty of ways he could still "deus ex machina" the series anew...if he wanted to. I'm sure he doesn't, but you never know. The workings of the infinite improbability drive should well have taught us that!
Speaking of, looking back, so much of Adams's work, including this novel, seems to have later inspired so much of the British series "Red Dwarf". Maybe there actually is a more concrete connection that I don't know about, since I'm not a UK citizen...but anyway...I wonder if Adams ever did any writing or consulting for "Red Dwarf"? If not, he should have...does anyone know what Adams is up to these days at the Dawn of the 21st Century?
42 Wonderfully warped mind
This book had me laughing out loud in several chapters. The way the characters matured from the earlier books makes you believe they really exist. The ending was a bit depressing but so is life. On a whole it was a wonderful adventure. Doug Adams mind is truly strange.
43 It's the end... but the moment has been prepared for
This book is unquestionably the definitive END of the Hitchhikers series. And because the end is so sudden, it's bound to upset many long-time Hitchhiker fans. The best part about this book is that even though it has such a down ending, it doesn't lack the humor or sardonic tone of the previous books. In fact, if anything else, it increases the sense of irony of its predescessors by driving home the underlying message of the previous books with its finality. If anything, it's too short, and the plot threads that were introduced could have been better developed, but given the ending, it's not surprising that they're not.
In many ways, Adams's writing skills have matured over the past 4 volumes of the series. In this book, we see very little of the minor flaws of the early installments, such as pointless dialogue and digressions. His characterization is better here, and the plot elements are interwoven more intricately. Throughout the book, several seemingly unrelated storylines wind along to converge at the end where Adams can put a big CLOSED stamp on the whole story. I thought there were quite a number of laugh-out-loud funny parts to it.
One of the best parts of this story is the sudden and pointless ending. Throughout the whole series, there has been the quest to discover the meaning of a meaningless universe. Each time the characters find a lead to the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything, it turns out to be a disappointment. So what better ending for a series about the fruitless search for meaning than the one Adams gave to this book?
If no one else did, at least Ford Prefect saw the humor of it.
44 oh my...
This fifth and final installment in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy is simply amazing. While it seems that a lot of people weren't satisfied with it, I am quite the exception. The tone of the humor in this book (as with SLATFATF) is much darker than the earlier books, but that's just fine by me. I prefer a little darkness.
While this book returns somewhat more to the zaniness of the first three books (at least in comparison to the fourth book), it is not entirely wacky. It seems that this book is, in many ways, quite "fannish," there to please fans of the series with cheap thrills and tips of the hat (one example would be the return of the Vogons, which I don't exactly think anybody was clammoring for). However, in the midst of all this, Adams tells a wonderfully adventurous story that ties together in an ending that will leave you stunned and breathless (I'll try not to spoil it, but it's reminiscent of something that happenned in the first book, HG2G).
The worst part of the book is that Fenchurch just disappears... literally! And we never see Arthur deal with it! Still, Adams provides us with yet another wonderful character to help reveal the human side of Arthur....
I think it is a wonderful, if unexpected and somewhat unnecessary, end to the series. Trillian returns (although thankfully Zaphod doesn't), but Marvin is depressingly absent. Oh and remember Agrajag, from LTUAE? Well, there's a wonderful tie to that whole thing that you just can't miss. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, go read LTUAE and then read this and laugh along with me. Read it. You'll be blown away.
45 i love humor ,,,,,adams you complete me
this book had me laughing all the way through, being 16 humor is good for the soul you know.
for some reason i read htis book before any other of the 5 in the hitchhikers series, but i still understood most of it....and it was funny. the best parts in this book include descriptions of ford perfects adventures to the hitchhiker's guide publishing building, and the introduction of random to her father....trust me when you read it you will understand....so douglas adams i salute you with the greatest respect...because your far better than this one author named joshua harris that writes books about being gay
46 "Hitchhiker" fans can't afford to read this book
If you're a fan of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series, this is a book you can't afford to read. It will ruin what would otherwise be fond memories of a wonderful series.
"Hitchhiker" is one of the most tightly-woven stories ever written. Sometimes you'll only get a joke when you read the next book. The thought and love Douglas Adams put into the series are quite evident.
With this travesty, however, one gets the feeling that his heart just wasn't in it. Like someone else said, you can almost hear him saying, "there, here's your damn book, now leave me alone".
The whole tone of the series, of British melancholy humour, is simply absent. It's just depressing.
47 Mostly Disappointing
The fifth book in the Hitchhiker's Trilogy was definitely not living up to the standards of the first three (or four). That is not to say that it wasn't funny. I don't know that I've read an Adams book that wasn't funny. Nor is it to say that Adams isn't a wonderful, brilliant writer. But I do think that well enough should have been let alone. Arthur has been looking for Earth or a reasonable facsimile, but no matter where he looks it goes from bad to worse, the "worse" being NowWhat, where the only indigenous species on the planet is a boghog that communicates by biting... hard. Arthur eventually finds himself on an out of the way planet that he landed on when his spacecraft wrecks on it. There he becomes the SandwichMaker sent to the people by Bob. Later, Trillian finds Arthur to leave something with him. Or someone. Random, their daughter. Which, needless to say, is quite a surprise to Arthur since he didn't know he had a daughter, nor had any opportunity to create one. Well, eventually all hell breaks loose and it goes downhill from there. Fenchurch just vanished without a trace and Zaphod... well, who knows what happened to Zaphod. Like I said, this wasn't a horrible book, but you may just want to leave it alone. If you liked the ending in So Long then skip Mostly Harmless.
48 There are only four books in the Hitchiker saga.
Reality, friends, is what you and I make of it. So I'm going to make a solemn declaration: This book does not exist. The Hitchiker series ended with "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish," a bright, funny, well-written book.
It did not end with "Mostly Harmless," which is the literary equivalent of an old man shouting "Here! Here's your darn book! Now leave me alone!" Adams is obviously tired of the series, and this book amounts to a middle finger to fans who begged for more. It's not funny, it's not smart, it's not that much fun to read. It doesn't take the series in any new directions; it exists only to finally shut up people who want another chapter in a finished series.
It's not, all in all, a horrible book, just a monstrously disappointing one. Believe it with me, and we can make it so: SLATFATF was the last. There are only four. There are only four.
49 The Thrill is Gone
Poor Arthur Dent, all he wanted was a seat upgrade and to find a world where people look something like him (what he really wanted was to go back to his home planet that had been destroyed to create a hyperspace highway and live out his life with the woman he loved who had disappeared in a space-time anomaly). Instead he discovers he has a teenage daughter that he had no prior knowledge of and receives an ominous package from Ford Prefect, so he has to leave his new-found home where his sandwich making skills are greatly appreciated. This is as close to a plot that one can get in Mostly Harmless, the 5th book in the Hitchikers Triology. (If you have trouble with that concept, then this book is definitely not for you!)
This book is rather slow in getting started, and some of the early chapters of the book are almost tedious. I don't know whether I've just gotten so used to Douglas Adams' tangential storytelling, that it just doesn't seem as fresh anymore, or whether they really are ho-hum. I miss the constant snippets from the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, that were liberally sprinkled throughout the previous 4 books of the trilogy. However since there seems to be a problem with the guide and it seems to have been taken over by some nasty characters, I suppose that could explain why there aren't excerpts throughout this book.
However, once Ford Prefect starts to figure out that something is going on with the guide, or perhaps once Douglas Adams figured out what to do with the story, things really perk up. The last 1/3 of the book is what actually allowed me to give the book as high a rating as I did. If I had rated it on the first 2/3, it would have received a 2 or 3. As it is, the book really deserves a 3.5 rating.
I actually bought this book in hard-back when it originally was released in 1992, but have only gotten around to reading it now. (The reason being is that I read Mr. Adams works infinitely faster than he can write them, so I try to wait so that I'll have more than one of his books to read.) I even went to a book-signing/reading by Douglas Adams at Cal State Long Beach Fall 1992. I believe that he read an excerpt from Mostly Harmless, one of the very amusing bits with Ford Prefect I believe. However, I do recall that he seemed to spend much more time reading from Last Chance to See, and this was supposed to be a book tour event for Mostly Harmless. I guess I should have figured out that even the author wasn't that happy about the book, at the time I just figured that he was taking the opportunity to drum up some business for an excellent but over-looked book.
Anyway, to sum up the book was good, but definitely not up to the other four books of the trilogy. If you can muddle your way through the first 2/3 of the book, you're home free. If you haven't read the other Hitchiker books, stay away from this one, it's not the place to start.
Finally, Mr. Adams I enjoy your work even if I do take awhile to getting around to reading them (see previous comment). I have to admit that while I thoroughly enjoy the Hitchiker books, I would love for you to write another Dirk Gently book. Having said that, I just want you to write books that you are proud to have written. Thanks
50 Looks pretty harmfull to me...
It all started so great, sigh.... The original Hitchhicker's guide was awesome. My mom hates Sci-Fi and even she picked that one up. "Mostly Harmless", though, is something entirely different. I guess that Adams should have stopped with the series after "So long and thanks for all the fish". The first parts with Ford Prefect and his exploits with Collin the security robot were rather good, but after he met up with Arthur Dent again things took a turn for the worst, although things had alread gone bad after Trillian and Arthurs daughter showed up. In the main part of the book the great, typical Adams sense of humor is replaced by a weak attempt to write a semi-serious(family) drama with random outburst of rather corny jokes.
In short: this novel is a greater disaster than the final destrucion of planet/supercomputer Earth woul be. Do yourself a favor and don't buy this book. If you have already bought it, burn it and burry it.
51 Truly brilliant. you'll hate it.
This has slowly become my favorite book of the series. But then, i also think "The Cable Guy" was one of Jim Carrey's better flicks. The whole madcap insane story generates enough superficiality and disconnectedness to really shock your system when something truly serious and sad happens, with real repurcussions -- as in, Random.
and another thing -- what with all the "axes of probability" and whatnot, who's to say Adams couldn't continue the series with Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, and hell even Marvin, just incarnations of them along a very slightly modified probability axis? (or whatever)
of course, only if he wanted to. i, for one, would welcome another tale with open arms. why not?
52 Not Harmless At All
Alright, so the HHGTTG saga was over two books ago; heck, I have to admit I didn't think all too much of SLATFATF, except for poor Marvin (my all-time favorite of the characters, of course). Mostly Harmless struck me almost like it was written by someone other than Adams... you could almost say it wasn't quite funny enough. But people shouldn't complain about the ending; I thought it was fitting in an odd sort of way. The entire series was one long string of insane humor and nonsensical happenings, and this fit in pretty well, even if the rest of the book was actually starting to make some sense (which, of course, was it's main problem). In the forward to The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide (a HUGE book which is a collection of all five Guides plus a short story), Adams noted how a lot of his stories ended with the destruction of Earth. The Guide series is really little different, and he couldn't have thought up a crazier and more interesting way of doing it. People like me who like ridiculous scientific gobbleteygook dove straight into that Guide Mark ][ with all it's talk about probability axes and whatnot. And that's part of the ending too. Overall, the book is worthwhile, if complicated for the first-time reader. (Don't ask me about Random; she just gives me the shudders...)
53 Mostly harmless is mostly useless
It always has to happen eventually. An author gets tired of being pestered about the next sequel and finishes everyone off. Arther Conan Doyle did it to Holmes, and now Douglas Adams does it to the Hitchhikers bunch. While the impulse to pick up his marbles and go home might be easily understandable ("They're my characters and I shall do with them as I like") it does rather ruin the good effect of a solid conclusion, such as "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" was. This is an awful anticlimax to a wonderful series.
That said, there are a few glimmers of classic Douglas Adams fare. The bit about the sandwiches is arguably the funniest sketch in the series. Unfortunately it is itself sandwiched in among the worst story in the series. if you've read the first four novels in the trilogy, stop there.
54 Mostly disappointing
I guess it had to end this way. The original radio version of "Hitchhiker" was the high-water mark. The television version wasn't as good. The books have gotten worse and worse. There really weren't many jokes here and the miserable ending was so totally lacking in imagination that I was really angry at myself for having read this book. It's as if Mr. Adams was tired of the story and characters but not the revenue stream.
55 Well, it was mostly harmless
I agree that this was the most disappointing in the Hitchhiker series. Compared to the hillarious antics in the first volumes, I barely chuckled with this one. It really seems rather pointless, and when you finally figure out where Adams was going with the story, it was all over. I'm not even sure he knew where he was going to begin with.
56 Always philosophical, but rarely upbeat. Beware...
People seem to have mixed opinions about the character "Random", Arthur and Trillian's (biological) daughter. Her presence in the story constitutes more of a Statement than a character as such, I think. She is Douglas Adams' way of saying "hey, we all feel lost, alone, helpless, overwhelmed, uncertain where we belong, etc etc etc" Even so, she probably could have been a little more fleshed out...
The "Guide Mark 2" is really pretty creepy. It makes you think about some of the big questions, unsurprisingly, if you have read any of Douglas Adams' other stuff... Also, although the plot just goes hogwild for 95% of the book, it really does all pull together at the end. The book is relatively self-contained, compared to some of the others in the series. In general this book is less wacky, and generally a bit darker, than the other books in the "trilogy". Reading this is a little like going to "The Cable Guy", when you are expecting a usual Jim Carey movie. It does make you laugh, but also makes you think, and not always in very comforting ways.
57 He writes well for a tall guy?
I thoroughly recommend "Mostly Harmless"... Douglas Adams takes great delight in driving each carefully crafted nail in to the coffin of the hitch hiker series. My only complaint was that it was too short. Enjoy Arthur one last time, as I don't think your going to get another chance.
58 To all of you who can't recognize genius...
I'd read this book long before any of these reviews were around, but even if I had seen such negative reviews, I have to stick to my original opinion: Douglas Adams is still as much a genius as he ever was! My only regret is that, yes, the end of it all has come...But it's the best 5-book trilogy I've ever read and this one was just as amazing as the preceding four!
59 An unworthy end for a grat series.
I'm bitterly disappointed.Drearily dismal,dull,depressingly despairing doomed drivel!It do deserves damnatiomemoriae!
60 douglas adams
is one of my favorite authors and he has done it again in this book. the "hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" saga is truly his epic. if you have read the books in the "trilogy" you can pick up at any point in any book. even people i know who can't re-read books, can read his books over and over. they are exceedingly funny and very easy reading. you do need to be able to laugh at british humor, though.
61 A not-so-fond farewell to a classic series
The Hitchhiker's "Trilogy" (as Adams wryly likes to put it) comes to an end in this fifth installment in the adventures of earthman Arthur Dent. Although not as thin on laughs as its predecessor, "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish," this book doesn't have the nonstop hilarity that made Adams a bestselling author. My favorite gag in the book centered on the Grebulons, a group of aliens that illustrates the evils of excessive television viewing. Still, I felt that the book mostly limped along, finally reaching a dreary end. I would have expected a series that has given readers so many laughs over the years to have either a funny or a poignant conclusion, but this tale has neither. It felt as though Adams was too tired of writing about his band of interstellar hitchhikers to give them the denouement that they deserved.
62 note to A Reader from California:
Three words: welcome to existentialism. :-) As with the rest of the series, in fact....
A clever and surprising book, but it has more in common with Adams' "Dirk Gently" books than with the rest of the "Hitchiker's" series. Read the one with your brain on, and don't think for a second that you'll be able to guess what happens next.
63 Just as you said "You're Welcome"...
There is another big last joke besides God's Final Message to His Creation. It's in Mostly Harmless. About all I can say about it is that you must read the other four books first. Then read through this final volume for a joke that may have you laughing for 10 minutes solid. However, if you read this first and then go through the rest (why anyone would do that, I don't know), the joke will be a completely pointless a-ha as you go through the first four books of the trilogy.
64 Mr. Adams, I am disappointed!
What happened? The book was superb all of the way through. I read this book in one day and loved every minute, until the end that is. Everyone dies! What is going on here? All the great characters we have come to know and love are just finished off. It saddens me greatly that Douglas Adams has decided to quit writing Hitchhikers' Guide books. This kind of thing is terrible to do to science fiction fans. Just imagine if Gene Roddenberry had decided to say, "Forget it!" in the middle of his Star Trek career. Is this any way to treat your fans?
65 Mostly Harmless...to the end.
Well I just finished this book and must say that, though I caught myself laughing aloud many times (thanks to Adams satiristic writing abilities), this book had only two things going for it...1)the closure that we avid Hitchhikers fans wanted and b) Adams satiristic writting abilities. This book is reminisent of the first books in its hummor but gets a liittle bogged down in the storyline, aside from that there is a totaly new way to look - oh just read the book for all I bloody well care, and decide for yourself!
66 Over and Out
Adams certainly didn't need any more money or acclaim. He wanted the series put to rest, permanently, and that's what he did. Any questions?
67 I Liked It Better Than The Last Two
I made the mistake of reading other people's online reviews for this book after I had bought it but before I started reading it. I almost put it aside for fear that it would be as disappointing as so many readers have said it is. However, I have to disagree. This is a pretty darn good book. I LOVED the first two books in the series and really think that Adams should have just stopped there. The third and fourth books were, in my humble opinion, alright but not nearly as good. The whole thing with cricket in the third book just got on my nerves and the fourth book just didn't bring the closure that I craved. I thought that this book came much closer to to the flavor of the first two books and I personally did find the closure to the story in this book that I longed for. Recommended by me....as if you care.
68 Mortly Harmless not so harmless after all.
After reading all the reviews of other people and reading the book I think that some of you might have a little misjudged the book. It does have its' problems such as not as many characters and I also noticed that the book is not as adventurous as some of the others. If you're not a real fan of these boooks you probably will be better off not buying Mortly Harmless but if you're the kind of person that likes The hitchhiker's books then i would strongly recommend to read this one also. It's plot can sometimes be lost but it still is fun to read.
69 Very good
I don't agree with the other reviewers. This book is far better than So Long and Thanks For All the Fish, yet maybe not as good as the first two in the trilogy. I have a lot of fun reading it. I encourage you to buy this book and see for yourself.
70 A book where even the author seems to have lost the plot.
I am a huge fan of the other four Hitch Hiker books and was first in line to buy this book when it first came on sale. However I soon discovered that the origional books were very far removed from Mostly Harmless both by syle and humour. Occasionally during the origional series, most notably in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the story would meander from the plot following what appeared to be the whim of the author. In Mostly Harmless the entire plot seems to be an ill thought out whim, a weak idea extended far beyond its humour or its point. It cashes in on the popularity of the series without giving any of its fans credit for being able to spot bad writing when they see it. Extremely disappointing.
71 Revenge.
I definitely agree that Adams was writing this as revenge. How can anyone read the description of what the Guide project has become and still not see that Adams is talking about his own series? You think it was an accident? Compare Ford's memories of the way it used to be with the way it is. Also, look at Ford as he runs up "expenses" on his new assignment. Adams is writing about himself. Its amazing that there are people who read this book who didn't see this.
72 What character development?
It's really quite simple: with "Mostly Harmless," Mr. Adams took all the charcater development in the first 4 novels (if you think there wasn't any, read them more carefully) and threw it out the window. This book reads like a tired Hollywood movie sequel (Police Academy XX). Sad, but what can one do? Enjoy all his other books. Avoid this one like 3-day old salmon mousse.
73 Probably the most disappointing book I've ever read
I read the trilogy, and I loved it. ÈThe Hitchhiker's GuideÇ was the first book I read in English, after already enjoying the German translation, and finished even that one within a day. Then I read the fourth book, which I though boring. But still I desperately waited for No. 5 to be published. I'm cured now. If Adams should write a sixth book, I'll take this as a reason to re-read the trilogy, but I won't read any new books from this serial (not that there could by any, after THIS ending ...). I intended to have fun with ÈMostly HarmlessÇ. I didn't. I hoped for cynism and philosophy. There wasn't any, save some hints on the connection between air conditioners and suicide rates. Marvin (who perished tragically in vol.4) is replaced by an enthusiastic android named Kevin, the rest of the cast is who they used to be, plus Arthur's daughter, who doesn't need to have been invented. Finally, we learn about Stavromula Beta. But this would better have reamained a secret. If you are looking for adivse: Take the Hitchhiker's Trilogy. And Enjoy it. But don't read on.
74 Second only to "Restaurant"
I can't believe that so many people didn't like this. The ending was brilliant, and some of the part's with Ford had me in stitches. Read it!
75 THIS IS REAL DOUGLAS ADAMS
This is defenetly one of the best out of the HHGTTG books it is a real upper after 'So Long and Thanks For All The Fish' It is Hillarious
76 a perfect conclusion
I absolutely love the ending of the five-book "trilogy". It is a down note, yes, but satisfying in that the characters themselves are tired and I am glad to se Arthur and Ford finally find their peace in the whole mess. This beek really helped me understand the concept of finality (in every sense and dimension). Truly brilliant.
77 A disappointing coda
This, the fifth Hitchhiker's book, is something of a let-down. It's not bad, per se, and there are some really funny moments in it. But on the whole, it's a much darker and more serious book than the rest of the Hitchhiker novels. It seems like Adams wrote it just to shut up the people clamoring for another Hitchhiker book; an impression that's definitely furthered by the ending (which, not to give too much away, makes a sequel nearly impossible). Read it, but don't expect it to measure up to the first four books.
78 not very good
I'm amazed my the number of people who either love this book blindly because it's Douglas Adams or hate it because of the downer ending. I have no problem with downer endings. Unfortunately the book was simply not very good. Douglas Adams is past his prime. He should take up painting or golf.
79 HELP!
Please help! I have The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide, which I think is out of print now. It has The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe, and Everything; So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish; and one called Young Zaphod Plays It Safe, which i cannot find anywhere! Here on amazon.com it says Mostly Harmless, which I have never heard of, is the 5th book, but here I have Young Zaphod Plays It Safe as the 5th. Can someone please email me at: beatlefool@hotmail.com and clear this up for me? thanks. Peace, love, and 42 to you all.
80 Don't listen to the naysayers; Brilliant and hilarious
An unbelievably awesome book. The ending may have been shocking, but when you lift your eyes from the last page, you will come to realize that it was perfectly fitting. After all, the same thing happened in the first chapter of the first book, and no one complained _then_. Unfortunately, Adams had "second thoughts" with So Long And Thanks For All The Fish, and that was part of the reason I found that book so originally unsatisfying (it's grown on me since, though). Though this book isn't as inherently wacky as the previous ones, there are still plenty of laughs, and of course the final scene(s) are the biggest gag he ever set up. Basically, this book thumbs its nose righteously at all those who have taken the exploits of Arthur and Co. far too seriously. It's a JOKE, folks, and a dang funny one at that.
81 DONT READ
After reading all the others, this book was really disappointing. not enough about the charactors you wanna hear about, too much aout others. Ocasionaly funny, but not very. Still leaves you hanging at the end. I you read the others, DONT READ THIS! it will leave you with a bad taste in your mouth!!!
82 it is a silly book
This book was as brilliant as all the rest. I never expected him to give the ending it got. I see some of the reviews are bitter at the fact that he finally ended the trilogy but I got as many laughs out of this one as I did when I first picked my copy of the HGTTG. I especially liked the little overjoyed robot Colin.. although he could never replace Marvin. Its a hilarious book, with a beautiful ending. so give it some credit.
83 really harmless
Even though The Hitchhiker's storylines caracterize themselves for not being too coherent, which is probably one of its strong points, Mostly Harmless fails to achieve a "proportionate" incoherence with the other Hitchhiker's books. This novel is too far detached from the earlier books. Arthur Dent seems like Charlie Brown in the sense that he always loses on this one, and the one time that he wins (Stavromula Beta) its in the end, and the ending of this book is by far the worst of all of the series' endings.
84 Hey, I loved it!
If Douglas Adams writes a book then he writes a book, who are we to say it's bad or wrong he is the God of the world known as the HHGTTG. He makes the future just accept it. I loved reading this book! I gave it five big stars!! Yeah!
85 mind boggling, great stories, Adams as usual
I loved to read the book. It contains great parabels , eg the one about astrology, which I copied and mailed to friends, because I thought they contained some wisdom stuff -- but maybe this is all non-sense of course... do you care??
86 The end is at hand - fortunately!
I recall when this book came out that it was indicated by Mr. Adams that it was written in response to repeated demands for yet another story in the series. The fact that he was of the opinion that no more books should have been written and that this was undeniably the last one is clear through every page of the book. I personally own first editions of every one of his books, and I enjoyed them all. If you are completely insatiable and want to read more of his work, go ahead. If you think that "So Long and Thanks For All the Fish" was a great ending to the series and leaves all the characters where you want them, don't even look at this one! This is perhaps the most disappointing sequel since "Scarlett."
87 Stavromula Beta...
Why do people knock this ending? I absolutely loved it, and this is from someone who loved "So Long..." It was a bit of a kick in the pants, but an absolutely lovely and well-executed one.
88 The Third "Final" Book in This Series is the Worst
I'm tired of people saying things like, "It was the only fitting end" or "How did you think he would end it?" Hello, people! The series was over! Both LTUAE and SLATFATF are final chapters- this book was entirely unnecessary. Adams didn't need to finish the series, he already had... twice!
Read this novel carefully, try to understand what is being done here. This book is a jab at all of you out there who would not let well enough alone. Adams was upset at the reaction to SLATFATF, and people would not cease begging for yet another installment. So you got what you asked for, and now you're ticked off.
Listen, I would have no problem with the ending, had it been done well and entertainingly. Some of my favorite novels and movies are very dark and feature bad ends for the heros (the Dune books, 12 Monkeys). I have no problem with a change of tone (I personally love SLATFATF), so long as there is a quality story to be told.
I hate wasted characters- If you liked Fenchurch, tough. She is dispatched retro-actively in a space-time accident and doesn't even appear once. Random, Arthur and Trillian's daughter (don't ask), is an entirely pointless character who is best at being annoying. The only thing she is capable of bringing out in other characters is irritation.
Here and there, there are little sparks of brilliance, as if for a brief moment Adams allowed himself to actually enjoy writing about this group of characters that he's obviously grown to resent. However, they quickly give way to the relentless mean-spiritedness of this book.
I wish you knew, Douglas, that there are those of us who were (and are) very grateful for what you had given to us and would have been content had you never written about these characters again.
Douglas Adams is now writing the screenplay for the film version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I only hope he doesn't decide to infect it with the derision and spite that run rampant through this joyless volume.
89 Not his best, but still worth reading.
I was going to give this book 3 stars, but I just couldn't bring myself to give Douglas Adams anything less than four. In fact, I quite liked most of this book, esp. the part about The King, and the pink and chrome ship. What I hated about it was the end; not so much the loss of some of my favorite literary characters, but the abrupt finish of the book. I got the feeling that Mr. Adams just got tired of writing the book, or maybe the series, and ended it. Or maybe it's just that I'm disappointed that there won't be anymore. Still, definitely worth reading if you're a Douglas Adams fan.
90 Not his best, but still worth reading.
I was going to give this book 3 stars, but I just couldn't bring myself to give Douglas Adams anything less than four. In fact, I quite liked most of this book, esp. the part about The King, and the pink and chrome ship. What I hated about it was the end; not so much the loss of some of my favorite literary characters, but the abrupt finish of the book. I got the feeling that Mr. Adams just got tired of writing the book, or maybe the series, and ended it. Or maybe it's just that I'm disappointed that there won't be anymore. Still, definitely worth reading if you're a Douglas Adams fan.
91 Well, what did you expect?
I loved Mostly Harmless. I thought it was a five star just like 'Hitchhiker's, 'Restaurant,' and 'Life,' as opposed to 'So Long,' which was only a four star. In my opinion, this is the only way the series could possibly end. I found the ending fitting and satisfying, even if it was depressing. Come on, Hitchhiker fans, you knew this was coming all along! Personally, I thought the end of 'So Long' was more depressing, b/c I love Marvin. (I don't miss Zaphod that much, and the disappearance of Fenchurch only bothered me for Arthur's sake.) If you loved 'So Long,' you probably won't like 'Harmless.' If you liked the darker parts of the past novels (the sperm whale joke, the fact that Earth is populated by rejects), 'Harmless is for you. In short, if you can accept a horrible fate for your favourite characters, read 'Harmless.' If it will depress you, don't read it and imagine that Arthur is still flying around with Fenchurch in front of God's Final Message to His Creation (well, in the London sky, at least, if you don't want to see Marvin die either).
92 A horrific catastrophic experience
If there were some laser device I could use to eradicate the memory of this entire novel from my brain, I would use it. I, too, love all of the previous books in the series. When the fact that I loved _So Long and Thanks For All the Fish_ the most is taken into consideration, anyone who's read this will understand why I HATED this one! I have no problem with miserable, defeatist endings (and that's a bit of an exaggeration when applied to this book) but when compared to the whimsical, light-hearted, good-humored satirical tone of the first four this just doesn't fit. It seemed uneccesary to me. I think there should be a warning on the cover...a sort of anti-DON'T PANIC label that lets people who are expecting what the series seemed to be leading to that this is not at all what they were expecting! My advice is, if you loved _So Long...._ for the same reasons I mentioned above, don't bother with this one. Pretend the series ended with number four. And anyone who has read it and feels as bereft as I do, any leads on that memory eradification device?
93 Thank you again Mr. Adams.
It would seem that you either like this book or you hate it. I fall into the 'like it' category. I found plenty of humor, fun and all around general silliness. Which is why I read Mr. Adams works. It wasn't the best in the series, but you have to take into consideration that it was the last in the series and it's not an epic drama. I am thoroughly happy with the book. Very glad I spent the time and money on it. I had to force myself to put it down a couple of times. And Mr. Adams, if your out there, please, please, please get on your duff and do some writing. The universe could use some more of your books to lighten the WSGMM. Thank you. P.S. Vogons bite.
94 okay, let me explain this...
I have been looking through the reviews, and if you're reading this, you are too. Many people love this book, and many hate it. How can you tell which you will be? Let me offer the one thing that could very well decide it; if you thought that 'So Long and Thanks For All The Fish' was the best of the series, then you probably won't like 'Mostly Harmless'. "MH" is a bit less joyous than the rest, but still has it's redeeming qualities (the "King" thing was absolutely hilarious)
95 And now, a moment of rationality...
People throw 5 stars around like it was nothing! This wasn't great but it wasn't terrible, it was often mildly amusing and occasionally funny. Let's face it, only the 1st 2 books in the series were excellent. 10 years later...
Some folks wanted to see Dent, Prefect et al go on and on forever into happily-ever-after land. They don't. Get over it. Now maybe Adams can write something different! Something fresh! I'm looking forward to his next book.
So long, Hitchhiker's Guide, and thanks for all the laughs!
96 Aigrettes, Agglomorates and Archimandrites
Dirk Gently, The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul, and this book Mostly Harmless, are in Douglas Adams' "late" style. I like these books a lot.
The chief feature distinguishing these three books from the earlier Hitch Hiker books is their infernal complexity. It is almost as if these books are "puzzle books" where at the end the reader wins a prize for guessing the true meaning of what happened. In order to do so, one has really to read between the lines.
One can't really call it "deep" in the artistic sense (although they are superbly written), but this aspect of Adams' writing style makes these books unusually resilient to re-reading. The disadvantage, now that Adams has made his exit, is that some of these bizarre questions may never be solved. Ever.
When I was in high school I puzzled over the scene where a hologram of the Earth turns into a sausage, and then into a string of sausages. One of my friends suggested that it represented the distortion of the Earth as one of its avatars was destroyed in a parallel dimension and the gap filled by a distortion of its neighbours.
Another puzzle was whether there is any significance to the fact that the Vogons are grey, not green, in this book. It is remarked on more than once. I recalled a passage in "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" in which Zarniwoop's artificial universe, which is entered by leaving his office by the window, shows green spaceships as grey. Notice that Ford Prefect only sees grey Vogons after jumping out of the window of the same office.
In which case, Ford is in a parallel universe during the following portions of the novel.,It is established that arthur goes into a parallel universe every time he jumps into hyperspace. Therefore the meeting with Ford on the sandwich planet takes place when only one possible Arthur happens to bump into the Ford who happens to be in the same universe at the same moment.
It doesn't help the Earth, since the Earth is destroyed at the end along every plane of existence.
Some mysteries are more recondite, and may only be private jokes.
An example: in Mostly Harmless, Arthur Dent lands on a planet called Bartledan where all the books are precisely 100,000 words long. Acting on a hunch, I did a quick calculator check on the probably number of words in the book, and came up with something like 100,240. Obviously a private joke aimed at Adam's frustrated publisher, who probably forced Adams to reach the 100,000 word limit.
Of course, simply understanding the ending is dificult. Are we to understand that the Vogons have simply been manipulating Megadodo Publications, to get them (under the name InfiniDim) to produce a device to allow them access to all parallel universes in every possible dimension, simply in order to destroy the Earth along every plane of existence, and make sure Arthur and Trillian are there too? Seems so.
97 You'll either love it or you'll hate it, it seems. I...
...loved it. I don't think this was a cop-out on Adams' part at all, and far from being the worst in the series, I think this very well might be one of the best, if not *the* best. Hitchhiker's fans especially, do yourself a favor and get a copy of this book
98 Douglas Adams at it again
While not being the best book in the trilogy, it captivated for for the entire time it took to read it. I've read all five books more times than I can count and will never get sick of any of the. I don't see why people didn't like this book. It's classic Douglas Adams. All of the characters are at their best. Ford is at his zaniest since LTUAE, and Arthur is at his placidist since the "trilogy" began.
99 My rating is one, because there is no zero rating.
This book is the most mindnumbing, hackneyed, putrescent piece of garbage I have ever read. I read this book with an expectation that Douglas Adams at his worst is merely wildly entertaining. This book has actual negative value. Not only was the time spent reading it wasted, but it retroactively wiped out all of my enjoyment of the other books in the series. I don't know why he wrote this book. He took a wonderful quirky set of stories and turned them into a moral that no one wants to here: "The evil, stupid bureaucrats always win." If you love the Hitchhiker's stories, avoid this book at all costs.
100 Should've stopped the trilogy at 4
It's a long fall when something so anticipated turns out to be so disappointing. After a very charming and wonderful ending to the series (So, Long and Thanks ...) Adams seems to just suddenly grab his characters and put them through an adventure that neither he nor they want very much to go through. The whimsy is forced and the humor is tired. Read the 1st four. Then, read Mostly Harmless at your own peril.
