And I’m being left with that huge, time-release sucker-punch in the gut that comes with realising that I’m going to miss the characters all over again. 
So, can we have some Hitch Hiker’s Guide discussion, especially about the later books and the end? Just to fill the void? Please?
The first 3 books of the trilogy were wonderful! The 4th was mediocre at best, and the 5th left me cold. IMHO.
But those first three! Oh my! “they hung in the sky in exactly the same way that bricks don’t”! “He’s washing his head at us”! “I’m so hip I can’t see over my pelvis”! “The shoe event horizon”!
Priceless!!
I use the ‘shoe event horizon’ thing all the time…and folks always miss it.
One of the more memorable things for me is when the missiles turn into a whale and a flower, and the whale relates its new happy existance…and wonders if that large thing rushing up at it will be its friend. 
Or when the Prez eats the fairy cake on Frog Star B. 
-XT
I’ve read the series many times but not recently, so please remind me. Shoe event horizon?
The ‘shoe event horizon’ is the point of collapse for both your economy and entire civilization that is reached when too many of your businesses/resources are geared to the creation, maintenance and transport of…shoes.
Maybe someone else will take a better shot at explaining this. Its basically what happened to one of the civilizations (on Frog Star B…or maybe C…I always get my most feared planets in the universe wrong) in the story. The net result was that the civilization collapsed and all the inhabitants that survived developed wings so they would never have to walk again…thus would never again need shoes.
-XT
I loved all the books!
That’s so weird - I just started reading the series again too!
What a delightful style of writing. So whimsical and weird.
The first two pages of the first book is one of my favorite pieces of writing: “…nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change…”
I still think the “Somebody Else’s Problem” concept is utterly brilliant and I use it constantly at work. It’s the perfect excuse in many situations.
Slartibartfast: Your being here as already been heralded as the third most improbale event in the history of the universe!
Arthur: What were the first two?
Zaphod and Ford: To Business!
Captain of the Golgafrinchen Ark B: Gin and Tonics?
I just recently re-read the entire Hitchhiker series (quintilogy? set? guidebook compilation?) and was surprised at how much I enjoyed Mostly Harmless. It’s still vastly inferior to the other books (especially the brilliant, brilliant first three), but it has its moments.
By the way, those of you who haven’t read Adams’ Dirk Gentley books should go find copies of them, as well. 
Ford: Its unpleasantly like being drunk.
Arthur: Whats unpleasant about being drunk.
Ford: Ask a glass of water.
(hope I got it right, can’t find my copy at the moment)
Hitchhikers - Brilliant
Restaurant - Ok, not great
Life - ick
So Long - couldn’t get through it
Mostly - didn’t even try
My biggest problem with Life is that it explained too much.
I didn’t need to know why the petunias thought “here we go again” or how exactly you throw yourself at the ground and miss. It was the absurdity of these lines that made them so cool.
“Pardon me for breathing which I don’t do anyway so I don’t know why I mentioned it in the first place” - Marvin
I liked the line about how she twirled like a starfish. Lovely.
It’s been a few years, though, so I might be off a bit…
Ahhhh, the wrongly named Hitchiker’s trilogy, how I love thee.
Hitchiker’s: Great loved it!
Resteraunt: More greatness!
Life: Even more greatness! I esspecialy loved the part where that one thing that one bat thin confronted Arthure because he kept killing him. “You multi-me murderer!” tee hee!
Fish: hu hum. The bit about the dead kitty in Arthurs house as funny, but besides that this was a pretty lame book.
Mostly Harmless: I loved it. I loved the name of the planet “Now what?” and it’s capitol “oh well”, and I loved the way Ford acted like a action hero what with the jumping out of the windows and whatnot. I’m still mad about the way Adam’s ended it though. I really wish the HGTTG trilogy had a happy ending, or at least a more appropriate one.
Does anyone here beside me own the HGTTG DVD? It’s pretty good. Before I bought it I always thought that they couldn’t put the HGTTG on a screen, but they did and did a half decent job considering what they had to work with at the time. It’s very much worth the $30 it costs.
I urge everyone , if they can , to listen to the original radio series. To mind still the best. Much better than the TV show and even better than the books. Let’s only hope that the up and coming film makes a half decent attempt to stick to the original , but I won’t be holding my breath.
I reread the lot recently. I was surprised how well it stands up. I hated Mostly Harmless when I first read it, but I loved it this time. It’s an elegant, funny and very depressing end.
I still can’t bring myself to read Mostly Harmless again.
But the other four (I’m lukewarm about the third, though) are treasures. As are the Dirk Gentlys.
Still, even the third one was chock-full of great bits like learning how to fly (throw yourself at the ground and miss), and the immortal who’s out to insult the universe (enjoyed aleaning up on long-term low-risk investments, and just generally outliving the hell out of everybody).
I thought Resturant was even better than HHG
When I was working a switchboard in college I found a bottle of telephone sanitizer. It said a clean phone never offends! I guess we dide decend from the Golgafrinchens.
I have the tapes too, I haven’t finnished listening to them but they do reveal whose arm was brused in the missile attack.
My senior quote in my high-school yearbook was “Don’t Panic”
I read Mostly Harmless three or four years ago and I can’t see myself ever reading it again. Given the book and some interviews I’ve read, I think Adams was just so sick of getting asked to write another HHGG book that he decided to crater the whole series just to shut people up. First of all I found the simple dismissal of Fenchurch horrifying. Maybe it’s that I’m a hopeless romantic, and maybe it’s just that I was at the perfect age when I first read “So Long,” but I thought that was one of the great romances of the whole british-penned light science-fiction/humor genre.
The other four books were great. While “So Long” wasn’t as well-constructed as the rest, it had real heart – not to mention that hilarious story about “And there were my biscuts!”
Whenever a friend does something dorky in my presence I alsways say “Man, you’re so unhip it’s a wonder your bum doesn’t fall off.”
–Cliffy
Life the Universe and Everything is my favorite (although I like Dirk Gently even more)! DNA was no longer tied to the radio show (which I have heard, and have read the scripts for), so he was able to come up with a good, original, story. (And then of course, with DG he wasn’t tied to the characters, so this time doubly so.) Also, some of the jokes that worked on the radio didn’t work so well in the book (Marvin’s “ironical humming” on Magrathea, or that random bird creature on Frogstar) but he kept them anyway, for some reason.
For me, the absurdist sentence structure and weird moments are great, but they don’t fully showcase Adams’ creativity. DNA is not just a funny writer, but a clever writer. The throw-away line, “Many people speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.” was funny. Coming up with a way to make that sentence true was brilliant.