(I would have rated this book a 6 out of 5, but the kind people at amazon.com would not let me, even though it deserved an A++)

So, in book one, the Earth is destroyed to build a hyperspace bypass and Arthur barely escapes both this and having his brain diced by mice who want to know why "42" is the answer. In book two, he gets hungry and refuses to eat a cow that wants to be eaten. In book three, he nearly destroys the universe with a bad cricket play. In book four, he finds true love but loses all the dolphins. In book five, he makes a name for himself as a maker of sandwiches.

The volume contains all 5 Hitchhiker's books:
-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
-Mostly Harmless

Another important reason to get this book is that it includes the hard-to-find short story, Zaphod Plays It Safe. This story takes place between books 4 and 5, and is located there accordingly (this short story also appears in Adams's more recent book, The Salmon of Doubt).

This is an excellent collection, and if you have never read the Hitchhiker's series, or you just like the convenience of 5-in-1 books in one volume, this humorous book is one of the classics of the science fiction genre, and a definate must-read!

This book should be read by everyone!

However...

My favorite novel of the five is The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. The plot is more cohesive and the story hangs together without as many contradictions. Mostly Harmless, unfortunately, seems tacked on. So Long and Thanks for All the Fish would have been a more than suitable ending point. The additional story, Young Zaphod Plays it Safe, is good enough, but I feel it would have been better in a different anthology.

With all that, I still enjoy the series. It is at turns silly, sarcastic, droll, completely outrageous and in-credible as it chronicles the adventures of one Arthur Dent and his journeys through space, time, and encounters with beings from Betelgeuse.

Join our grand group of space hikers(arthur dent the earthling, marvin the robot, fernchurch the earthling, zaphod beetlebrox president of the galaxy, and his cousin Ford Prefect)
as they ecounter anwers to the life the universe and everything.

This book is a collection of the works of Douglas Adams written originally for BBC radio.

Many things that are answered in this volume of work include

Why 42 is the most important number you need to know.
Milliways and what kind of shows they offer with dinner.
Where the dolphins went
How you can fly(not in an airplane or space craft that is)
Improbablity drives
Kritkrit and they're problem
Who really controls the universe
and many many more things that will keep you spell bound for years to come.

Join a select group of people that have experienced
The hitch hikers guide to the galaxy.

This is the kind of clever stuff you will find all throughout this enormous volume which you will not be able to put down. You don't have to be a sci-fi fan to love this book.

This is the kind of clever stuff you will find all throughout this enormous volume which you will not be able to put down. You don't have to be a sci-fi fan to love this book.

This is the kind of clever stuff you will find all throughout this enormous volume which you will not be able to put down. You don't have to be a sci-fi fan to love this book.

However, if you want to own the books, then I suggest that you don't buy this omnibus edition. The extra features aren't all that fantastic and it's printed on low-quality paper. Have a look around for the other editions that are available and buy one of them, or buy each book individually. On the other hand, you might end up like me: lending out all your copies to friends because it's fantastic and eventually losing them all. Oh well, the only thing nicer than a brand new book without a single crease is a dog-eared relic that's been read by tens of people 20 times over.

Enjoy.

Yes this book is strange and it makes you wonder about reality. Science fiction without the ussual batles and wars. Not that the universe is peacefull, but you just happen to stumble past all the big problems and live with the huge problems a person can have.....

I have a few complaints about the way it all ends up, but I better get in the bouquets while the going is good: all my quibbling below is not to detract from the fact that the original instalment, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, is one of the wittiest books ever written - the combination of a solid science fiction grounding (Adams scriptwrote for Doctor Who) and dead-eye observations about the collision of the British way of life with the Nineteen Seventies, make this little book one of the genuine cultural artefacts of the past century.

Nevertheless, and rather as it has for Floyd and Python, universal admiration for Adams (recently deceased) and the first book has tended to cloud the collective judgment as far as the rest of the series is concerned. While Adams is clearly a master of the dead-ball, the entire package is a pretty tiring affair, as if it were a good idea which ran out of steam about halfway through. Which, according to Adams himself, it was.

If you read even the first three stories back to back a few things begin to emerge. Firstly, the original (and undeniably brilliant) premise has completely evaporated by the end of the second book. Until this point the story drifts from set piece to set piece, but is guided fairly firmly by the central quest. When this runs out of gas, the linear narrative disappears, and the characters drift pointlessly between scenes with no apparent connection. What starts out as a clever concept album ends up as a sketch show. As long as the sketches are funny this is ok, if not necessarily ideal. But they too begin to run out of steam.

Whenever Adams needs to restore a semblance of continuity, he reintroduces Marvin the Paranoid Android, who turns up having been stuck somewhere for millions of years (waiting to save the author's bacon?): no bad thing, as Marvin is the most enjoyable character of the lot. Adams obviously realised the mess he'd created by the end of Life, The Universe and Everything: So Long and Thanks For All The Fish is an attempt to pull everything back together. Alas, it's wholly unsuccessful. So unsuccessful, in fact, that Adams felt obliged to have another go at the same job in Mostly Harmless, and was equally unsuccessful second time round.

After a time you also begin to realise that Adams' famously brilliant writing style consists largely of taking figures of speech and deliberately subverting them - a technique which after a while, to paraphrase it, more or less exactly fails to please the eye. By So Long..., Adams is rather arch about the whole affair - consciously introducing "the chronicler" into proceedings and on one occasion (not a little arrogantly) telling readers to re-read a seemingly incomprehensible sentence, until it is understood.

The series certainly gave him the chance to work on his storytelling, and the results are plain to see from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, which is a superbly plotted, focussed and realised story. But, rather like his characters, for the most part in this Series Adams flounders around with the Answer, but never really gets to grips with the Question. Mostly Harmless.

Adams writes well, has a fertile and sometimes bizarre imagination, peoples his stories with self-absorbed characters and isn't afraid to make the central hero a pessimistic boor. There has been science fiction comedy before this but Adams has earned the crown for the best Sci-Fi satirist, in my opinion at least.

This five-book trilogy revolves around Arthur Dent, supposedly a typical English loser. Poor Arthur gets thrown into one difficult situation after another, not because he is in any way special, but because his best friend, Ford Prefect, happens to be an alien reporter for the most popular book in the history of the universe, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Ford saves Arthur from Earth's immanent destruction, thus derailing Arthur's equilibrium. He doesn't regain his balance until four books later when he falls in love.

Adams is the modern day Oscar Wilde or P. G. Woodhouse. His dialogue is so witty and surprising, that when I first read these books it was impossible to hold in my laughter. And it's not just the occasional quip, sprinkled into an otherwise standard tale; the whole thing tends to build into a crescendo that is almost too funny to bear. I've read this series so many times I've almost memorised each word. Don't miss out on some of the funniest writing to be seen in the last 50 years.

Overall: Spectacular fun. A plot that makes up for its lack of believability / lack of development with the sheer volume of its ideas and its droll British humor. We follow along with the persistently boggled Arthur Dent and along the way find out how to mix a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything, and the true purpose of both little white mice and the Earth. What more can you ask for?

As a cult classic, it falls firmly into the "you love it or you hate it" category. This first book in the series presents an easy way to spend a few hours with a quick paperback and determine which category you fall into. If you love it, there's 4 more books and a few other Adams works to explore; if you fall into the "hate it" category you've only lost a few hours (though apparently at some previous point in time you lost your soul, but oh well).

Buy it!!! 42 on you!

Just when you think you you got it, it turns out that AD is allready one step ahead.

when you say "it funny", it's you he's laughing at.
when you say "it's absolutely brilliant", it's still you he's laughing at.
when you say "it's yesterday", it's always tomorrow.
when you say "it's the smartest book i've read", he says "just kidding".

what else can i say - a Picasso in literature.

I really enjoyed the story. It's very creative and comical in an atheistic, random, careless sort of way, which I like. I'm just not sure I like Douglas' writing style. He writes with little elegance. Its almost as if he could care less, which may actually be his point.

The best stories are with out a doubt the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy and Mostly Harmless. Mostly Harmless, however, comes to an abrupt end. Kind of a let down after the roller coaster this series takes you on.

My advice for someone that is reading this series is to take good long breaks between each book. The tedium of the storiy line and the carelessness of Douglas' writing style will wear on you if you read these books marathon style like I did. Of course the stories grab you which will make you want to read on, so its a little difficult. You'll see. Get the book its worth several days of entertainment if nothing else.

For the most part.

This book contains the five "Guide" books, those being:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The beginning of this whole kooky thing. Just incredible.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: In my opinion, the best book of the five.

Life, the Universe and Everything: The hilarity continues.

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish: Umm, the closing line says it all: "There was a point to this, but at the moment it has escaped the chronicler's mind."

Mostly Harmless: The final conclusion to the series. Wraps it up in a neat, hilarious little package.

And then the side story, Young Zaphod Plays it Safe. A neat little add-on.

My only possible complaint is that this edition is rather large, meaning that carrying it around, and you WILL want to carry it around, trust me, becomes difficult.

All in all, a welcome edition to the bookshelf of any sci-fi or comedy aficionado.

"There is a theory which states that if anyone discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable."

"There is another which states that this has already happened."
~ Douglas Adams, "The Restaurant at the end of the Universe"

The six books in the Hitchhiker's trilogy are classics not only in sci-fi, but in comedy as well. This is British humor; so if you don't get that flavor of humor, skip this.

This franchise is wildly popular, first starting out as a BBS radio program, and then turning into books, and finally a BBS miniseries. There is something enduring about this humor, but I think the key to understand "The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy" is that the main character isn't Arthur Dent, or Ford Prefect, but rather the Galaxy itself. Adams satirizes reality itself in these books.

These books are for anyone has had to put up with the absurdities of existence. Consequently, in these books, Adams satirizes just about everything, but focuses his acid pen mainly on the politicians, philosophers and religionist since this unholy trinity is the primary gatekeeper of meaning in society.

Adams has a good eye not only for the absurd, but the wickedly fraudulent. The main driving MacGuffen of the franchise is a quest for meaning, especially finding the answer to "Life, The Universe, and Everything," and when that proves incoherent, the quest for the original question. This humor is quite serious, since, as Joseph Smith observed, "if we start right, it is easy to go right all the time; but if we start wrong, we may go wrong, and it will be a hard matter to get right."

Sadly the franchise slowly lost steam. I think Adam "jumped the shark" with "So long and Thanks for all the Fish," since he recreates the destroyed earth and introduces Fenchurch, and then abandons all of these in "Mostly Harmless." I think he had made his point in the first three books, but had an incredible franchise, so was encouraged to keep writing.

The first three books trace the quest for the answer and the question to "Life, the Universe and Everything," and they come to the conclusion that both the question and the answer are mutually exclusive (Life, the Universe, and Everything, ch.34), which really settles the question and settles the quest. But for whatever reason, Adams kept on writing-probably as the insistence of the editors Adams so acidly satirizes in "Mostly Harmless."

These books originally were a radio series, so the first two books are adaptations of the radio, so they are quick reads, but since you'll laugh your head off, it will take a little bit longer. "Life, the Universe and Everything" is Adams first novel, so it has a different feel. CAUTION: If you don't understand the British sport cricket, just plow ahead-it isn't really that relevant to the story.

"So long and Thanks for all the Fish" is the shark-jump. It was billed as book four of a trilogy, but the slick marketing didn't help the book out. I think the problem was recreating the earth, which had been killed off. Didn't Dallas do that? "It's just a dream!" The center of gravity of the franchise shifted from Arthur and the others being lost in the cosmos, but a relationship between Arthur and Fenchurch, with the Rain God doing precious little. This story is an aberration, and anomaly. Adam's recognized it, and dropped the thread in "Mostly Harmless." Don't let this deter you: even Shakespeare wrote bad plays.

"Yong Zaphod" isn't a story really, but more of a fragment. I wish that there were some explination about what it was, and where it was supposed to go.

"Mostly Harmless" is a very dark and gritty story, and reminds me of Mark Twain's later works such as "Connecticut Yankee." It is always a sad thing to a comedian go sour and bitter. We actually see the logical out workings of an absurd universe. The fun soon fades, and absurdity brings despair. Adventure, excitement, and really wild things will eventually bore.

Three symbols in the story reflect this. First, the electronic "Hitchhiker's Guide" stops working. A Freudian slip, or a projection of Adams subconscious into the story? I think the franchise and the fans got out of control. The second symbol is the name of Arthur's and Trillian's quasi-daughter (Arthur donated to a sperm bank)-Random. She is a symbol of the mainspring of the universe, but she is lost in the cosmos, as we all are. The third symbol is "Random's Watch," which should be the title of the story. Random does a reverse Paley's Watch argument inferring meaning from the watch. (Ch. 15) The watch is useless on planet Lamuella, with a different orbit, but the watch works perfectly on earth, where it was designed. We are designed to function somewhere, and the trick is to find out where we are suited.

I recommend this series, even though it slowly looses steam, it has its very high moments!

Join Arthur Dent on his travels through the galaxy. Only a GREAT mind could have come up with this.

Great humour. Great adventure. Great book.

Although the story starts to get a little distracting and off the wall (even compared to the first book of the series), it is still full of great theories and topics of discussion that can give life to an otherwise dull evening.

-42

The humour is dry and zany, following the adventures of Arthur Dent and friends. The action starts with Arthur's house being destroyed, and the entire earth shortly thereafter. In reading this series you'll learn a lot about why towels are entirely useful, the significance of the number 42, and lots more.

Mr. Adams always leaves me laughing and I'm very happy he managed to write these books before his passing. If you love sci-fi and a good laugh, you will LOVE this series. Conveniently compiled in this terrific edition.

"The spaceships hung in the air in exactly the same way that bricks don't." "The fact that the phrase, 'As pretty as an airport' does not exist in any language is no coincidence." "There is a theory that once the meaning of life has been discovered, the entire universe will cease to exist and will be replace by something even more ludicrous. There is another theory that states that this has already happened."

As the novel progresses, it becomes evident that despite the superficial whimsical tone, Adams is dealing with deeper themes relating to the meaning and existence of human life. The absurdity created by his imagination is not just a matter of light-hearted sci-fi entertainment, but is a cloak which Adams uses to convey his philosophy of human life and his personal worldview.

One needs to recall that this novel was born in the late 1970s, in the hey-day of technology and space travel, a time when there was a great deal of optimism and faith in science as the saviour of mankind. Adams mocks this human arrogance. The arrogance of Bent's fellow-humans in destroying his home, becomes a microcosm for the arrogance of humankind, and when it is applied to man's own home earth, results in man's own destruction. Adams' scorn for scientific arrogance is especially manifest when it appears that the rulers of earth are not scientists, but their own laboratory mice, who were secretly conducting large-scale experiments on their captors all along.

Yet this novel achieves much more than a scoffing of scientific arrogance. It becomes painfully evident that something essential is missing from the universe described in the Hitchhiker's Guide: God. When questioned by man about his existence, God "promptly vanishes in a puff of logic." God's absence from Adams' fictional universe corresponds to God's absence in Adams' personal worldview. The worldview which Adams believes in and portrays is a galaxy without a Creator. Adams is in fact a self-confessed "radical atheist", and holds this position very seriously.

But if Adam's universe is a world without God, this leads to an inevitable question: In such a universe, what is the meaning and purpose of life? Adams toys with this question when he describes the "The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything." After seven and a half million years of calculation, the super computer "Deep Thought" announces that the answer is "Forty-two." This meaningless answer is incomprehensible, and is apparently so because we don't understand the question properly! Here Adams whimsically propounds his purpose for planet earth: earth is a gigantic experiment, because it is on earth that the question about the meaning and purpose of life is voiced, but never answered! The purpose of earth is to raise the question about its purpose.

In Adams' atheistic worldview, the question about the purpose of life cannot be answered, because the existence of the very creator of the universe is denied. Such a question can only be asked, answered, and understood in a Christian worldview where the existence of the Creator is maintained, because apart from Him, creation is indeed purposeless. In this respect, the message of Adams' classic is the same as that of the Bible book of Ecclesiastes: there is no purpose and meaning in a world that rejects God. However, it is eternally unfortunate that Adams does not have the same conclusion as Ecclesiastes, where the premise of practical atheism is reversed, God's existence once again affirmed, and purpose discovered by serving and obeying God the Creator. Present day adherents of practical atheism who share Adams' empty worldview will discover that they will spend their life in the same way as Adams - in life whimsically hitchhiking an empty earth without God, and in death discovering that God was always there, but that by their rejection of Him in the past, they will spend eternity without Him in the future. But then it will be too late. Because unlike the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, eternity without God has no room for frivolous laughter, but only for sorrow and regret.

In endorsing an atheistic worldview, Adams is to be most pitied. In portraying the emptiness of an atheistic worldview, Adams is outstanding, his book a classic.

The only reason i read it because i was sitting at work bored as usual and i saw it on the counter so i picked it up and started reading it. well lets just put it this way i couldn't put it down. the humor is one of a kind and it keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time wondering what's going to happen next. so to keep this short and sweet if your looking for a good laugh buy this book and it won't let you down.

If you read this book, be careful, it has a way of altering the way you look at things (for the better), and if you're a person who even remotely enjoys it, you end up being a better person for having read it.

The entire collection of Douglas Adams books, but especially The Hitchikers Guide Series, are quite possibly the purest forms of comedy that there are, have been, or ever will be. And though mostly science fiction based, no real love of science fiction is needed to thourougly enjoy this book, nor for that matter is a deeply rooted love of comedy, or even the ability to read needed. Though I admit they all contribute to the enjoyment of the books immensly

If it does turn out that you can read, (and if not stop looking at this because you don't understand any of it!) your enjoyment of the book need not end when you finish reading. This book has been published in many formats and thusly it's various sizes and shapes lend it to being a useful device around the house. If you open it to 90degrees, you can set things on top of it. My hardback will hold up an entire tea tray full of tea and drinks, whereas the paperback will only hold up a can of soda.

Actually I own about 150,000 copies as their usefulness is limitless. I use two sideways at each end bookends, and then I have one that stops the rocking chair from rocking because the beaver chewed off the back of the rocker so its more of a flip-over-backwardser if the book isn't under it. My monitor sets too low so I've stacked 5 copies under it to raise it up to eye level and I use two copies side by side for wrist rests. The Large Leather-bound copy I have makes an excellent mouse pad, and I've just used a nice hardback copy to brain my helper monkey who tends to misbehave if I don't read to him from the book on a daily basis. Now that I think of it, this would most likely work on children as well. My drum set tends to sound a bit too "ringy" without 15 copies shoved into the bass drum. At night a heavy larger print copy perched over the doorframe makes a stunning burglar alarm. My CD-ROM version of the book makes a nifty mirror to look around corners with. Large hardbacks open walnuts and turtles alike, and two together make a wine press that you can be proud of. I know I simply could not sleep at night without my pillow made from shredded copies that have been too severely damaged to be saved. Building a home from the books should ONLY be done by a professional who pre-laminates the books into blocks, and of you go get yourself hurt building a home from copies of The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide without consulting a professional don't come crying to me. Unless of course you can't read in which case, you wont know whom to cry to.

And though and at least one copy is absolutely essential for life, I suggest buying at least half a million copies to get your through to old age. (Mr. Adams will be sorely missed...So long and thanks for all the fish.)

If you read this book, be careful, it has a way of altering the way you look at things (for the better), and if you're a person who even remotely enjoys it, you end up being a better person for having read it.

The entire collection of Douglas Adams books, but especially The Hitchikers Guide Series, are quite possibly the purest forms of comedy that there are, have been, or ever will be. And though mostly science fiction based, no real love of science fiction is needed to thourougly enjoy this book, nor for that matter is a deeply rooted love of comedy, or even the ability to read needed. Though I admit they all contribute to the enjoyment of the books immensly

If it does turn out that you can read, (and if not stop looking at this because you don't understand any of it!) your enjoyment of the book need not end when you finish reading. This book has been published in many formats and thusly it's various sizes and shapes lend it to being a useful device around the house. If you open it to 90degrees, you can set things on top of it. My hardback will hold up an entire tea tray full of tea and drinks, whereas the paperback will only hold up a can of soda.

Actually I own about 150,000 copies as their usefulness is limitless. I use two sideways at each end bookends, and then I have one that stops the rocking chair from rocking because the beaver chewed off the back of the rocker so its more of a flip-over-backwardser if the book isn't under it. My monitor sets too low so I've stacked 5 copies under it to raise it up to eye level and I use two copies side by side for wrist rests. The Large Leather-bound copy I have makes an excellent mouse pad, and I've just used a nice hardback copy to brain my helper monkey who tends to misbehave if I don't read to him from the book on a daily basis. Now that I think of it, this would most likely work on children as well. My drum set tends to sound a bit too "ringy" without 15 copies shoved into the bass drum. At night a heavy larger print copy perched over the doorframe makes a stunning burglar alarm. My CD-ROM version of the book makes a nifty mirror to look around corners with. Large hardbacks open walnuts and turtles alike, and two together make a wine press that you can be proud of. I know I simply could not sleep at night without my pillow made from shredded copies that have been too severely damaged to be saved. Building a home from the books should ONLY be done by a professional who pre-laminates the books into blocks, and of you go get yourself hurt building a home from copies of The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide without consulting a professional don't come crying to me. Unless of course you can't read in which case, you wont know whom to cry to.

And though and at least one copy is absolutely essential for life, I suggest buying at least half a million copies to get your through to old age. (Mr. Adams will be sorely missed...So long and thanks for all the fish.)

The books are a bunch of sketches and episodes - some are brilliant some are less, and some are not finished.

Worth buying for the brilliant parts of it.

In any case, if you don't like Adams special humor, it's always a great gift to give to friends, or a nice book to put on the shelves !