About this item
Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American ReadHow shall we begin? This is the story of a book called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - not an Earth book, never published on Earth and, until the terrible catastrophe occurred, never seen or even heard of by any Earthman. Nevertheless, a wholly remarkable book. or This is the story of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a number-one best seller in England, a weekly radio series with millions of fanatic listeners, and soon to be a television spectacle on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. or This is the story of Arthur Dent, who, secnds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, is plucked off the planet by his friend, Ford Prefect, who has been posing as an out-of-work actor for the last fifteen years but is really a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Together they begin a journey through the galaxy aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with the words don't panic written on the front. ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.") In their travels they meet: * Zaphod Beeblebrox - the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch President of the Galaxy * Trillian - Zaphod's girl friend, formerly Tricia McMillan, whom Arthur once tried to pick up at a cocktail party * Marvin - a paranoid android, a brilliant but chronically depressed robot * Veet Voojagig - former graduate student obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years To find the answers to these burning questions: Why are we born? Why do we die? And why do we spend so much time in between wearing digital watches? read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But remember . . . don't panic, and don't forget to bring a towel.
About the Author
Douglas Noel Adams was an English author, comic radio dramatist, and musician. He is best known as the author of the series. Hitchhiker's began on radio, and developed into a "trilogy" of five books (which sold more than fifteen million copies during his lifetime) as well as a television series, a comic book series, a computer game, and a feature film that was completed after Adams' death. The series has also been adapted for live theatre using various scripts; the earliest such productions used material newly written by Adams. He was known to some fans as Bop Ad (after his illegible signature) , or by his initials "DNA".In addition to , Douglas Adams wrote or co-wrote three stories of the science fiction television series Doctor Who and served as Script Editor during the seventeenth season. His other written works include the Dirk Gently novels, and he co-wrote two Liff books and , itself based on a radio series. Adams also originated the idea for the computer game , which was produced by a company that Adams co-founded, and adapted into a novel by Terry Jones. A posthumous collection of essays and other material, including an incomplete novel, was published as in 2002. His fans and friends also knew Adams as an environmental activist and a lover of fast cars, cameras, the Macintosh computer, and other "techno gizmos". Toward the end of his life he was a sought-after lecturer on topics including technology and the environment.
