The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams

The book starts with Arthur Dent stressing because a road is being constructed right where his house is. His house needs to be demolished and replaced by part of the road. 

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Luckily, Dent’s good friend, Ford Prefect, is an alien. Much like Dent’s housing situation, the Vogons are trying to destroy the Earth to make way for a space road.

Prefect and Dent hitched a ride with the Vogon’s cooks. The Vogon’s though are not big fans of hitchhikers so they kicked Prefect and Dent out. 

Prefect has a cousin named Zaphod Beeblebrox. Beeblebrox comes in handy when he steals a spaceship. He picks up Dent and Prefect after stealing the spaceship. They start to make their way to the planet Magrathea. 

It disappeared quite a while ago and Zaphod is not completely sure why he wants to find the planet.

When the come across the planet, it seems dead. Though it is definitely not dead. Whilst Arthur and Marvin, an alien that was on Beeblebrox’s spaceship, are left on the surface of Magrathea, the other three explore the inside. A guy from the planet named Slartibartfast told Marvin and Arthur what apparently is the truth about the earth. 

In the words of Slartibartfast, the world is one giant computer. The goal of the creation of earth is to find the meaning of life. The original creators of earth have already found the answer though. 

The answer of the meaning to life is forty-two. They do not necessarily know what question they are trying to answer with forty-two. That is where Arthur comes in the picture. Since he is a human, and he was in the earth experiment and he was there at the end of it, the people of Magrathea think that by cutting into Arthur's brain they will learn the question. 

Arthur and the rest of them manage to escape before there is any brain dissecting goes on. The cops are after them because of the spaceship stealing event. They get out safe and avoid any further conflict. Whilst the cops are after them, they decide to grab a bite to eat. That’s where it ends. 

Douglas Noel Adams was born on March 11, 1952 in Cambridge. Adams and was originally interested in science. It was not until he achieved a full score on an essay when he was ten years old that his teacher told him he should start writing.

When he was studying in Cambridge he hitchhiked from Europe to Istanbul. Adams had many jobs over the years before he published any books. Those jobs included; barn builder, hospital porter, chicken shed cleaner, and a body guard. Adams died on May 11, 2001. He passed away from a heart attack