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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)

by Douglas Adams

Series: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1), Reclams Universal-Bibliothek (19744)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
40,15373658 (4.2)2 / 1349
After Earth is demolished to make way for a new hyperspatial expressway, Arthur Dent begins to hitch-hike through space.
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  1. 422
    Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency / The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams (gandalf_grey)
  2. 211
    The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett (mcenroeucsb)
    mcenroeucsb: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy : Science Fiction :: The Color of Magic : Fantasy
  3. 244
    Good Omens by Terry Pratchett (mcenroeucsb)
    mcenroeucsb: Good Omens is uneven in writing quality, but the flippant interactions between some of the angels and demons very much reminds me of Douglas Adams.
  4. 2911
    The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (ut.tecum.loquerer, coliemta)
    coliemta: One's more literary and the other more science-fiction-y, but they're both bizarre, hilarious and similar in feel. Most people who like one will enjoy the other.
  5. 195
    The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut (girlunderglass, catfantastic)
    girlunderglass: before The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - more than 20 years before it - there was THIS book about space travel, time travel, and the "ultimate answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything". Adams certainly borrowed a lot from Vonnegut.
  6. 141
    Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers by Grant Naylor (Konran)
  7. 131
    Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi (mcenroeucsb)
  8. 148
    The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett (Nikkles)
  9. 61
    Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett (SandraArdnas)
  10. 1713
    Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (souloftherose)
    souloftherose: Although Neverwhere and The Hitchhiker's Guide (THHG) are different genres (the first is urban fantasy, the second comic science-fiction) I felt there was a lot of similarity between the characters of Richard Mayhew (in Neverwhere) and Arthur Dent (in THHG). Both are a kind of everyman with whom the reader can identify and both embody a certain 'Britishness'. And they're both stonkingly good books by British authors.… (more)
  11. 20
    Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams (Anonymous user)
    Anonymous user: Douglas Adams's true masterpiece, albeit one of non-fiction. Far wittier and more profound than The Guide.
  12. 43
    John Dies at the End by David Wong (fundevogel)
  13. 10
    The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson (XRayBlaster006)
  14. 00
    The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith (fulner)
    fulner: Probability broach is the story of a 20th century PI who investigates a murder that stumbles him into a place that isn't quite what it appears to be. The broach is equivalent to a Stargate or a demonstrate traveling whale.
  15. 99
    Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (wvlibrarydude)
    wvlibrarydude: Satire and humor that will split your gut. Read if you want to laugh at humanity.
  16. 11
    Year Zero by Rob Reid (aethercowboy)
    aethercowboy: Year Zero is a humorous science fiction book that pokes liberal fun at the current state of music copyright, but also tells a hilarious story in the process about aliens obsessed with Earth music (except for North Korea).
  17. 11
    The Sheriff of Yrnameer by Michael Rubens (MyriadBooks)
  18. 01
    Martians, Go Home by Fredric Brown (fougny)
  19. 01
    Doorways in the Sand by Roger Zelazny (WildMaggie)
  20. 34
    The Wish List by Eoin Colfer (missmaddie)
    missmaddie: Follow the unlikely hero through a tongue-in-cheek, sci-fi adventure

(see all 37 recommendations)

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English (694)  Italian (10)  French (5)  Spanish (4)  Portuguese (Brazil) (3)  Dutch (3)  German (2)  Finnish (2)  Danish (2)  Norwegian (1)  Swedish (1)  Catalan (1)  Slovak (1)  Hebrew (1)  Portuguese (1)  Polish (1)  All languages (732)
date ▼ | votes
Showing 1-5 of 694 (next | show all)
Peak ( )
  Tgoldhush | Dec 26, 2024 |
Dryly funny and worthwhile, though the sum effect of the tale is surprisingly slight considering its lofty position in the s.f. humor canon. Still, it's hard to complain with that inimitably English cadence carrying you along. ( )
  drthygale4prez | Dec 25, 2024 |
Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect narrowly escape the destruction of the Earth by hitching a ride on a passing spaceship; madcap hijinks and adventures across the universe and across time soon follow.

The Hitchhikers' Guides books have moved to the category of best beloved, so I cannot review them objectively. I first read them as a teenager, and they were imprinted on my heart. I read them every so often when I need a good dose of Adams' snarky humor. They never fail to deliver. ( )
  sturlington | Dec 22, 2024 |
I feel like I would have liked this book better if I hadn't seen the movie. I feel like a lot of the meaningless nonesense intended for humor kind was kind of lost when I already heard the joke previously. Regardless, there are some great moments and great characters in this book. Highly recommend reading it before watching the movie. ( )
  lostinasuprmrkt | Dec 19, 2024 |
This story was first a radio series, which I didn’t happen to hear on first broadcast in spring 1978, but I heard it when it was repeated not long afterwards. Then I bought the book in 1980; which is not a transcription of the radio series (the radio scripts were published later), but was based on the radio series and contains some of the same material.

It was very popular at the time. Phrases and scenes from it became part of the mental equipment of many people, and I don’t regret having that mental equipment. It’s rather shocking to think that I might meet people who wouldn’t recognize references to it or quotations from it.

It was an entertaining and pioneering series on the radio. But it wasn’t designed as a novel. In fact, the original radio series wasn’t designed at all: Douglas Adams said that he wrote each episode as he came to it, with no advance planning.

In book form:

1. It’s short. Although it was sold as a novel, it’s the length of a modern novella.

2. It’s chaotic and rambling and lacks the structure of a well-conceived novel (or novella). It was a comedy series on the radio, and that’s basically what it remains despite the transfer to book form.

I like it, I’m glad to have read it, but I don’t reread it very often—compared with other books that I reread more often. When I reread it, it seems very familiar, and full of clichés. They weren’t clichés in 1980, but they seem clichés now because they’ve become part of my mental equipment, and they’re referenced now and then by other people. It’s a punishment for success.

If you haven’t read it, I’d encourage you to read it. It’s short, it’s funny, it’s easy to read. But bear in mind that it’s basically a radio comedy series; if you expect it to be a great novel, you may find it rather disappointing.

Adams wrote a series of sequels to this book, which you can read if you like this one. But I think this is the best-known of them, the target of the majority of references and quotations. ( )
  jpalfrey | Dec 17, 2024 |
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Showing 1-5 of 694 (next | show all)
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▾Published reviews
Humorous science fiction novels have notoriously limited audiences; they tend to be full of ''in'' jokes understandable only to those who read everything from Jules Verne to Harlan Ellison. The ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' is a delightful exception, being written for anyone who can understand the thrill that might come to a crew of interstellar explorers who discover a mysterious planet, dead for five million years, and then hear on their ''sub etha'' radio a ghostly voice, hollow, reedy, insubstantial: ''Greetings to you. ... This is a recorded announcement, as I'm afraid we're all out at the moment. ...''
added by Shortride | editThe New York Times Book Review, Gerald Jonas (Jan 25, 1981)
 
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Canonical title
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Original title
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Alternative titles
Original publication date
1979-10-12
People/Characters
Arthur Dent
Ford Prefect
Zaphod Beeblebrox
Marvin, the Paranoid Android
Tricia "Trillian" McMillan
Important places
Earth
Magrathea
England, UK
ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
Betelgeuse
Important events
Related movies
The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (1981 | IMDb)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1984 | VG | IMDb)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005 | IMDb)
Epigraph
Don't Panic
Dedication
for Jonny Brock and Clare Gorst
and all other Arlingtonians
for tea, sympathy, and a sofa
First words
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
The house stood on a slight rise just on the edge of the village.         (Chapter 1)
Quotations
Don't Panic
If there's anything more important than my ego around here, I want it caught and shot now.
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
For thousands of years, the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across—which happened to be the Earth—where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.
Life! Don't talk to me about life.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
This novel "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is the first novel of a series of novels, and the series has the same title.

The original version of this story is the first series (first broadcast 1978) of the radio programme written by Adams (the radio programme which also has the title "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"). For this 1979 novel by Adams, only the first four episodes of those six episodes were adapted.

Please do not combine it with the graphic novel adaptation.
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
English
Canonical DDC/MDS
823.914
Canonical LCC
PR6051.D3352
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▾Book descriptions
After Earth is demolished to make way for a new hyperspatial expressway, Arthur Dent begins to hitch-hike through space.
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Book description
Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.

Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.

Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!
Haiku summary
Arthur's drab lifestyle
The answer is forty two
What is the question?

(hreilly)
Wet, McKenna muttered
A curse up to God;
The clouds laughed.
Shall we hitchhike space?

Let's, for to stay here on Earth

Is mostly harmless.

(benscripps)

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WorldCat

Genres

Melvil Decimal System (DDC)

823.914Literature › English & Old English literatures › English fiction › 1900- › 1901-1999 › 1945-1999

LC Classification

PR6051.D3352Language and Literature › English › English Literature › 1961-2000

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