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The Hitchhiker-s Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Genre Comic science fiction
Written by Douglas Adams
Published by Pan Books
Series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Country of Origin United Kingdom
Related Books -

Book 1.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is a book, radio series, television series and a film written by late author Douglas Adams. It is about a man called Arthur Dent who one morning, after fighting tooth and nail to stop his house from being demolished, is startled to discover that an old friend of his called Ford Prefect, who he knew to come from Gilford. Ford persuades him to get up from lying infront of the bulldozer, reassuring him that it won't knock his house down, and gets him to the pub, albeit in his dressing gown.

In the pub he hurridly explains over the three pints of beer he makes arthur drink that he is in fact from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, Arthur doesn't take him seriously but, after hearing his house being knocked down and rushed to the rubble and finds that a vogon constructor fleet hovering in the sky, he begins to believe. Ford manages to teleport them onto the ship only seconds before the planet is demolished whereapon they are found by the aliens, who are called Vogons, and are dragged before the captin. He decides to read them some vogon poetry of which Vogons, even though it is their favourite past time, are utterly talentless at writing. After the torture Ford tries to talk his way out of it, fails, and he and Arthur are dragged off to the airlock. Ford tries to talk the guard into a sudden carea change, fails again, and they are thrown out of the airlock.

A second before they would have asphyxiated they are picked up by a ship powered by an engine that runs on improbability, piloting this is Ford's semi-cousin and ex galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox along with his present girlfriend Trillian, who he abducted from earth, an overly optimistic computer and a depressed robot who is sick and tired of life but, rather ironically, survives every deadly task that befalls him. After a brief introduction Zaphod explains to Ford that he is looking for the lost planet of magrathea, which he finds only hours later, a planet famed in ledgend for its inhabitance having a great success for creating other planets that people with more money than sence would buy and live on. The automatic defence systems set two missiles on them which, after a brief chase, are turned into a bowl of petunias and a whale which crash onto the planets surface a while later. They land and, after picking their way through the leftovers of the whale, find a shaft in the ground which Ford, Zaphod and Trillian go down, leaving Arthur and the robot (Marvin) to wait for them, they are then gassed by sleeping gas and fall unconscious.

Arthur soon bumps into a magrathean who goes by the name of Slartibartfast, Slartibartfast takes him down into the depths of the planet, leaving Marvin behind, and tells him that the planet earth was built by them and purchaced, commissioned and run by the mice that we had been supposidly studying on. The planet was in fact a giant computer which was built after a slightly smaller but impressive computer called deep through came up with the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything, Which turned out to be 42, and pointed out that they didn't know what the actual question was and so built the earth to calculate this. Unfortunately, the earth had been unexpectedly demolished 5 minutes before they had got the answer so the magratheans where busy trying to build a new one. Arthur is taken to see the two mice in charge of the whole thing and is surprised to find Ford, Zaphod and Trillian who explain that they had been mistaken as tresspassers and were being treated as guests. The mice tell slartibartfast that the earth will no longer have to be re-built because they now have Arthurs brain to get it and were willing to pay for it. They all agree but have a nasty shock to find they were going to take the brain out of arthurs head and read it that way, after an argument things get ugly and they make a run for it just as an alarm sounds that a hostile force has landed on the planet.

After a chase they are confronted by two armed police guards who are after Zaphods ship, which he had stolen, they hide from them behind a computer bank and after a very confusing convesation the policemen go quiet. Ford plucks up the courage to go and look, mainly because everyone else is to chicken to go, and finds the policemen have died instantly, they turn out to be methaine breathers and the masks pumping methain into their lungs has failed. They return to the surface of the planet and head back to the ship, next to it they find the police's ship, Ford takes a look and finds Marvin face down on the ground. Marvin explains dismally that he had told the ship his view of the universe and it had committed suicide, therefore causing the policemens methain masks to stop working. They set off in the ship, leaving magrathea far behind them.

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