Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series brings the absurdity of Franz Kafka and the comedy
of the Three Stooges into the realm of science fiction.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy sets the tone for the entire series: Arthur Dent is taken from his sedentary life in a small English town and, in the space of an hour, learns his best friend is actually an alien and researcher for the series’ eponymous travel guide, witnesses the
destruction of his home for a highway and then of the Earth for the construction of a hyperspace express route, is taught how to sneak onto the spaceship of his planet’s destroyers, learns that Ford Prefect’s fifteen years on the planet produced an entry about it in the guide of exactly two words ("Mostly harmless"), is forced to listen to the captain’s dangerously bad poetry, and is promptly, along with Ford, kicked out an airlock and into open space. The novel goes on to detail the search by aliens from a higher dimension for the answer to life, the
universe, and everything, the answer given by the supercomputer Deep Thought being "forty-two." The book ends with Arthur, Ford, and their friends Trillian and Zaphod Beeblebrox, who rescued them from certain death, meeting Slartibartfast, a planet designer. They learn that the Earth was in fact a computer designed to produce, after ten million years, the question to go with the answer and that it was destroyed five minutes before the question was finally to be calculated.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe begins with the group on the
Heart of Gold fleeing an attack and ending up at the restaurant of the title. There, they witness the destruction of the universe in the "Gnab Gib" ("Big Bang" backward) over dinner and a floor show. After the universe ends, they steal a ship that time warps them back to the rock concert of all rock concerts, where they learn that their ship is to produce the grand finale’s light show by diving into a star. Escaping this mess divides the group: Arthur and Ford end up on a ship of colonists about to crash into the Earth several million years before their own time; Trillian and Zaphod Beeblebrox go to meet the man who runs the galaxy and learn that he knows nothing outside the four walls of his cabin.
Life, the Universe, and Everything commences with Arthur and Ford again meeting up with Slartibartfast, this time to help him stave off the return of the robots of Krikkit, an evil force out to rescue their masters from their time-envelope prison. All of Arthur’s friends are eventually reunited, and the ending of the original trilogy is the saving of the universe and the destruction of the Krikkit robots.
In
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, Arthur hitchhikes to a planet and learns that it is in fact the Earth (although without the dolphins), a disconcerting fact to a survivor of its destruction. He meets Fenchurch, a woman who also realizes that something is strange, and the two go in search of the answer. They learn that the Earth was destroyed, but that the dolphins found a replacement Earth and switched everything just as the first planet was destroyed, leaving behind the final message that is the novel’s title. Arthur and Fenchurch find the planet holding God’s last message to his creations: "We apologize for the inconvenience."
Mostly Harmless ends the series with Arthur meeting the daughter he has not yet had and Ford trying to track down why the newest edition of
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is producing strange events. What ensues is an alien plot to control the galaxy and the ultimate, final destruction of the universe.