The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Earth is demolished on a Thursday. Adams makes it the funniest thing that has ever happened. Bring a towel.
Don't Panic
Douglas Adams's 1979 novel began as a BBC radio comedy and became one of the best-loved science fiction novels of all time. Arthur Dent is whisked off Earth by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, seconds before the planet is demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. They hitch a ride on the improbability drive of the spaceship Heart of Gold, encounter the depressed robot Marvin, a megalomaniac galactic president, and eventually discover that the Earth itself was a giant computer built to find the Ultimate Question. The answer, famously, is 42. The novel has sold over 15 million copies worldwide.
"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
"Douglas Adams
Reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Absurdity
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Chapter
Adams claimed to have come up with the idea while lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck in 1971, looking at the stars with a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe beside him. The radio series premiered in 1978 before the book.
Adams was famously unable to meet deadlines. His publisher reportedly locked him in a hotel room with an editor to force him to finish. He later said he loved deadlines because of the whooshing sound they made as they went past.