Life, the Universe, and Everything

Life, the Universe, and Everything-Douglas Adams

How I found this book: I read it immediately after Restaurant at the End of the Universe, as it was part of the same volume.

Setting: Immediately after the events of Restaurant at the End of the Universe. They start in pre-historic Earth and end up on the planet of Krikkit.

Main Characters:

Arthur Dent: Once a perfectly normal and rather boring Englishman from Earth, he is now stranded on his home planet in its pre-historic times, before being drug off to help prevent an intergalactic genocide on the part of the people of Krikkit.

Ford Prefect: Arthur’s best friend and field reporter for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Ford was stranded on Earth with Arthur. He too is taken off to help save the universe from the people from Krikkit.

Slartibartfast: Once the designer of fjords on Magrateha, Slartibarfast is out to try and prevent a genocide on the universe as hasn’t been seen since the great Krikkit wars, and useses his Bistromath ship to try and prevent the servents of the Masters of Krikkit from finding the keys to release them from their prison.

Hactar: A supercomputer built centuries ago for a race of homicidally, violent killers, Hactar has been manipulating the entire race of Krikkit to achieve his own protocol…that of destroying the universe.


Plot: Arthur and Ford have been stranded on pre-historic earth for years now. Out of no where, a time eddy forms that sweeps the pair back to the day before the Earth was destroyed at the beginning of The Hitchhiker’s Guide. Back in Arthur’s time, they find themselves on the Lord’s Cricket grounds, just as it is about to be attacked by strange robots with cricket bats and cricket balls for weapons. In the middle of the carnage, Slartibartfast from Magrathea appears to enlist Arthur and Ford in his quest to stop these robots, who are the servants of the planet of Krikkit. Many years before the planet came out of their all-encompassing cloud that surrounded their system and decided to destroy everything in the universe. They had since been locked in a pocket of slo-time, but one ship of their robot servitors is still out there, trying to find the pieces of the key to unlock them. Arthur, Ford, and Slartibarfast attempt to get all the remaining pieces of the key before the robots do…but will they be successful. And whose idea was this whole genocide thing anyway?

Themes:

Races and Genocide: The people of Krikkit appear to be the most peaceful of people, described as singing songs that would make Paul McCartney fabulously wealthy. So why in the world would this bunch of peaceful people turn to killing the entire universe? Why, psychological influence by a greater power, of course. Perhaps it is something to note when looking back on genocides that it only takes one person or a handful of people to manipulate the fears and worries of a particular group of people and turn them into something as atrocious as genocide.

The Secret to Flying is to Throw Yourself at the Ground and Miss: It’s true…as Arthur. Sometimes the coolest things in the world happen completely by taking a leap of faith and hoping it all works out.

Revenge is Pretty Stupid: Especially when you are trying to revenge something that occurred to you mostly as an accident. Poor Arthur is trapped by a being so consumed by his own rage and anger, that the being didn’t even stop to consider that all that hate was for a pretty stupid reason to begin with.


Every book sucks somewhere: Of all the Hitchhiker’s books, I would say that this one is the weakest. While it has some more of a semblance of a plot than the first two, it has less of a point and not nearly as much humor to take away from the lack of a point. While you can say that perhaps Adams is making a comment on violence and the universe, and I think he might, the fact is there isn’t a point outside of the further adventures of Arthur and Ford.

What did I like: More of the zany fun that characterized the first two books.

How would I rate this wormy book: I would rate this as a FAT worm, but perhaps on the low end, closer to LITTLE worm. It’s not a complete waste of time, but it certainly wasn’t my favorite book in the series.