The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide
Here's the summary and some other info about the book. I'd like to warn you one more time. Please do not read this if you'd like to read the book it'll spoil the fun. At least for a little bit.
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Score: 
What is the title:
The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide (to the Galaxy)
Explain the title:
The original book title was "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" but in this copy all books about the Guide are united so it’s called the Ultimate Guide.
How Many Pages:
The book has 815 pages.
Who is the author:
Douglas Adams
What kind of book is it:
It’s a science fiction/humour novel.
Where is the story set:
The story is set all over the Galaxy. From Ursa Minor Beta to plain old planet Earth.
In what time is the story set:
The story is set in all thinkable times. There’s a part which takes place on prehistoric Earth and then there’s a part which takes places when the Universe has already ended. And so forth and so on.
The main Characters:
Arthur Dent. He is the most important character in the book. He is one of the two sole survivors when planet Earth has been destroyed.
Ford Prefect. He is an researcher for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He has been accidentally stuck on Earth for fifteen years.
Zaphod Beeblebrox. The infamous Zaphod Beeblebrox has been many things. Apart from the fact that he is a two-headed three-armed ex-hippie. He is also a master in scams and he’s been elected to the position of president of the Universe.
Trillian (aka. Tricia McMillan) is the second survivor of Earth’s destruction. Zaphod picked her up at a party during a short visit to Earth.
Summary:
Since the book consists of several separate novels I will summarize them separately.
Book 1 : The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
In this book we meet Arthur Dent. He is in fact
lying in front of his house to prevent it from being demolished in order to build a Motorway-bypass. He is happily doing this until his old friend Ford Prefect comes by and picks him up in order to visit a pub. Ford convinces the workmen not to destroy Arthur’s house until they’ve returned. Once in the pub Ford quickly orders 6 beers whilst he is constantly telling Arthur there is little time left. When Arthur asks what the great number of beers are for Ford tells him that they’re to blur his senses so that he can accept more easily what’s about to happen.Ford knows, since he is the only alien on the Earth with equipment mere Earthlings don’t have, that it is about to be destroyed by a Vogon ship in order to make way for a hyperspace bypass.
Just milliseconds before Earth is being demolished Arthur and Ford are transported off it’s surface and onto the Vogon ship. This is done by the cooks on the ship which do not particularly like the Vogons and likewise. When the Vogon captain discovers Arthur and Ford he captures them and reads them some Vogon poetry which is bound to kill them because it’s so boring. But Arthur and Ford do not die (this on account of Arthur being naïve) the captain becomes really angry and throws them out of an airlock.
So far all was going quite well but when one drifts around in space with no life support one’s lifespan is limited to thirty seconds at most. However, what with space being the mind boggling size it is the chances of getting picked up by another ship within those thirty seconds are two to the power of two hundred and sixty-seven thousand seven hundred and nine to one against.*
Of course Arthur and Ford are being picked up on the twenty-ninth second by Trillian who is flying Zaphod’s newly stolen space ship The Heart of Gold which is the first ship with the Infinite Improbability drive. For more information about this new propulsion system please consult the Hitchhiker’s Guide. Here, the simple info that it’s there and it’s been stolen will suffice. Zaphod is not glad with Trillian’s decision to save Ford and Arthur because now he has some unwanted Hitchhiker’s just at the point when the whole Galaxy is pursuing him. On accord of the Infinite Improbability drive they stumble upon the long lost planet of Magrathea where they are almost ripped apart by automated planetary defenses. They land on Magrathea after successfully having lived through the attack and encounter a man called Slartibartfast. He is one of the inhabitors of the planet which main economic export product is other planets. They create custom made planets for the very very rich. The reason Magrathea was lost was that the population went into hybernation because of the universe’s poor economic position past few eons. Now they’ve been awakened to do a special job.
Recreation of the Eart.
At this point Arthur is severly confused and demands an explanation. So Slatibartfast takes the group under the planet’s surface to the creatures who have given the order to rebuild Earth. Now the point of the story is being told. Long long ago a very advanced civilization built a supercomputer which could provide them with the answer to life the universe and everything, something they desperately wanted to know. Generations later the computer came up with the very unsatisfactory answer, 42. Since nobody knew what to do with 42 they asked the supercomputer what the question would be. The computer replied that it could not calculate that but that it would design the computer who could. And it designed Earth. Earth’s had two-million years and when the answer was about to appear in the inhabitors minds, in this case the humans, as third-smartest species on the Earth, it was being destroyed by the Vogons. Now it turns out that there are two survivors so this whole costly process of rebuilding the planet isn’t really necessary. The beings who have given the order now pursue Arthur and Trillian to just simply extract the answer from their minds. Unfortunately for Arthur and Trillian this will not be very comfortable so they run and manage to escape. The book ends when the group returns to the surface of Magrathea and find there that Marvin, their depressed android has taken care of the police ship which was pursuing them. To give a short impression of Marvin’s personality:
Marvin: "That ship hated me," he said, dejectedly, indicating the policecraft.
Ford: "That ship?" said Ford in sudden excitement. "What happened to it? Do you know?"
Marvin: "It hated me because I talked to it"
Ford: "You talked to it?" Exclaimed Ford. "What do you mean you talked to it?"
Marvin: "Simple. I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself in to its external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the Universe to it,"
Ford: "And what happended?" pressed Ford.
Marvin: "It commited suicide," said Marvin, and stalked off back to the Heart of Gold.
Book 2 : The restaurant at the end of the Universe.
The plan was to grab a quick bite at a restaurant, after all, one can get quite hungry from being pursued, thrown out of airlocks and such, but the plans are rudely distured by a bunch of Vogons who have been hired to destroy the last two humans in existence. So they attack The Heart of Gold which has been rendered totally useless for a few hours, they can’t even raise its shields because the ship’s computer is busy making a formula for genuine tea (no Englishman can do without) for Arthur since all tea has been lost now the Earth has been destroyed. They escape through the intervention of Zaphod’s great grandfather whom they summon in a seance. Then they order the ship to go to the nearest restaurant and it takes them there but due to a small error Zaphod and Marvin have vanished. Now the story continues with Zaphod who has been transported to Ursa Minor Beta, the home of the Hitchhikers Guide. Where he is caught and sentenced to die on the Frogstar world where he is to be fed to the Total Perspective Vortex. Only one man can come out alive that terrible place and that’s the man who is able to percieve the whole infinty of creation and walk away. Of course this is Zaphod, not because he is so special but just because he is a naive fool. It is fun though.
So Zaphod walks away and he finds an abandoned ship. He meets Mr. Zarniwhoop, who takes him back to The Heart of Gold which has gone to the nearest restaurant. Not in distance though but in time. It’s the restaurant at the end of the universe. They grab a bite at the restaurant and then, finally, abandon The Heart of Gold. They steal another ship only to discover that it’s bound to fly straight into a sun. Luckily they are able to transport all off the ship except for Marvin who goes into the sun with it. That’s the end of Marvin, at least for now.
Ford and Arthur are transported on to a huge ship which is filled with all kinds of people and has as purpose to inhabit a new planet. The captain is a very relaxed man, has been in his bath for three years now and finds the new company he encouters quite interesting. After a while they land on a planet which is wild and beautiful and only inhabited by a very stupid species of cavemen. Arthur and Ford would like to take off again but there are no flying saucers coming by so they go travel instead. Once they’re somewhere in the north they suddenly see Slartibartfast’s signature in the fjords and they know where they’ve ended up. On prehistoric Earth.
In the meanwhile Zaphod and Trillian pay a visit to the genuine ruler of the universe who turns out to be just a man minding his own business and doing nothing in particular. In the end Arthur and Ford return to the colonists and the story ends with a pleasurable evening at river Thames in prehistoric England.
Book 3 : Life, the Universe and Everything
In this book Ford visits Arthur who has been living in a cave on prehistoric Earth for 5 years on his own now. Ford has picked up a very faint signature of a spacecraft which might be able to pick them up. This turns out to be a ship from an alien that hasn’t the slightest intention of picking them up but luckily for them there are some rips in the space-time fabric. The only thing they have to do is catch a sofa which appears in the distance and they’re out of there. So they manage to catch it and they’re transported through time and space right into a cricket match in the present. Unfortunately, right after their arrival a space ship arrives. Some robots come out of it and destroy most of the stadium. Just to take the trophy which the winner was supposed to have. Fortunately Slartibartfast was visiting the cricket match too and he takes Arthur and Ford with him in his ship. They have to stop the robots from finding all pieces of a key to a lock which will free their masters who will bring havoc to the galaxy once more (the reason why they were locked up in the first place). So they go on a dazzling pursuit, they manage to crash at the longest part ever in the mean time and find Trillian there, Arthur even fights Thor, god of thunder over her. And Arthur encounters a man who claims he has been killed by Arthur in all his reincarnations so far but Arthur manages to escape. Through all of this the robots have succeeded in their goal and free their masters’ planet. Panic is all over...what will the evil Krikkitters do? Well the answer is simple. Nothing. In the eons of their captivity the Krikkitters turned into a nice sport-loving society and they want to share that with the universe so the threath has eliminated itself.
In the end Arthur recieves a message from a dying entity which tells him the location of God’s final message to his creation. It’s located in thiry-foot letters of fire on top of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains in the land of Servobeupstry on the planet Preliumtarn.
Book 4 : So Long, and thanks for all the fish.
In order to understand this title it’s imperative to know that just before the destruction of planet Earth the dolphins, being the second-smartest species on the planet escaped all by themselves. Leaving the above message. This fourth book is set back on Earth in the present. Nobody remembers anything of the destruction of their planet. It has all been wiped from the inhabitants minds though a few people remember parts of it. As does Fenchurch, Arthurs lover. They meet the evening Arthur is dropped by a flying saucer with which he has hitch hiked to Earth. Fenchurch and her step-brother pick him up when he is standing by the road trying to get a ride home. They meet a few times after that before they become lovers. It’s all an awful coincidence of course. When Arthur is feeling terribly depressed because he’s lost her adress and phone number he tries to find out where his prehistoric cave must have been at and the house he finds is of course the house she lives in.
Together they do all kinds of fantastic things. Arthur teaches Fenchurh how to fly which is not all that difficult once you know how to avoid the ground. Their arial moves do not stay unnoticed so they decide to stop before people become really suspicious. It just so happens that some pieces of clothing falling down out of the night sky are starting to raise questions.
Arthur and Fenchurch fly (this time by plane) to The United States and meet a man there who claims he knows more about the dolphins’ departure. Well, they meet him and he turns out to be a very peculiar chap but, something which is quite important...he has received a goodbye gift from the Dolpinhs, just as Arthur has. A glass bowl with the above message inscribed. Arthur uses the bowl to keep his Bable fish** in but even with the help from the man they can’t work out where the Dolphins have gone.
A little dissatisfied Arthur and Fenchurch leave for England where they meet Ford Prefect. Ford takes them away again into space. They hitch a ride on a passing flying saucer. Once in space Arthur and Fenchurch leave Ford and decide to go and visit god’s final message to his creation which is located in thiry-foot letters of fire on top of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains in the land of Servobeupstry on the planet Preliumtarn. So they hitch hike to their destination and when they arrive they find they have to walk quite a great distance to get to the message. On the way they encounter a battered and almost dead robot which turns out to be Marvin. They take him with them and when they finally see the message, Marvin dies, finally for once content. Here the story ends. What god’s final message to his creation is....well let’s not put that here as not to spoil the fun.
Book 5 : Young Zaphod plays it safe
Basically this is just a short story with not much purpose. It handles about Zaphod Beeblebrox in his younger years. In this story he has a salvage company and he is on his way to salvage some "perfectly safe" things from the wreck of a spaceliner crashed on a planet. There is not much information about the cargo which is to be salvaged because the two officials who came with Zaphod don’t want to tell him a thing. When they search the ship the officials tell Zaphod what was the cargo. Three men with synthetic personalities, whom are able to walk unnoticed through a crowd because they just don’t ring alarm bells in other people. Finally they find one of the three men, the others have escaped to a planet in Galactic Sector ZZ9 Plural Alpha. Which is now to be made "perfectly safe"
Book 6 : Mostly Harmless
The final episode is titled Mostly Harmless, after the description of Earth in the Hitchhiker’s Guide. This is episode is more twisted than all it’s predecessors. Herein Arthur and Fenchurch are separated and end up in different realities or rather, dimensions. After years of searching for his planet in this new dimension Arthur gives up and retires to a rural and quiet life of sandwich making for a small planet community. When he has spent some years making his sandwiches and enjoying his rest he is visited by Trillian, whom, in this dimension, has become a very succesfull intergalactic news reporter. She introduces Arthur to his daughter. Now Arthur didn’t know he had a daughter but the embryo has been planted in Trillian’s womb and since Arthur and Trillian were the only two humans left in the galaxy the intergalatic sperm bank has automatically matched their DNA. So Trillian leaves their daughter, she is called Random, with Arthur and hurries on to report an intergalactic war. Random and Arthur do not become good friends, they don’t seem to develop a real father-daughter relationship.
Then, one day he recieves a parcel from outer space. It turns out to be sent by Ford Prefect and it contains a whole new version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Ford has stolen this during one of his short visits to the Guide’s headquarters. Arthur decides not to open the parcel since everything which has come from Ford so far has only caused trouble. But Random takes the package and opens it. The new Guide turns out to be totally interactive and capable of virtually anything. When Random expresses the wish to go to Earth to find her roots it takes her there leaving Arthur behind. The ship with which Random left had a passenger though whom has also been left behind, this is of course Ford Prefect.
Ford and Arthur leave the world on top of one of the Perfectly Normal Beasts which make their annual migration through space and time. They end up on a desert planet and since Ford has plenty of cash since his visit to the Guide’s headquarters (he has tampered with the main computer) they buy a space ship there and after short encounter with Elvis they hurry on home. Back on Earth we meet the other Tricia McMillan who is still just a reporter of a small British tv-station. But when she meets Random who thinks Tricia is her mother all hell breaks loose.
Random lands right in the middle of London and when she sees Tricia she blames all her misery on the poor reporter who doesn’t know what is going on. In the end Ford and Arthur find out where Tricia, Trillian (who has also joined the party) and Random are and when they rush to the club they find Random threatening her mother and Tricia with a gun. When she fires she hits the club’s proprietor and when Ford looks at the man’s card a bit later it says: Stavro Muller, Beta. Now Arthur knows it’s all over since he has had the encounter with the man he always gets killed in the third book. The man had said everything would be over after Stavro Muller Beta. And he is right because only seconds aftern that the Earth is destroyed, once more, by the Vogons.
* Courtesy of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
** A Bable Fish is a little fish which one can put in his ear and it translates all kinds of different Galactic languages (it also serves the purpose of giving away the existence and therefore, the non-existence of god)
My own opinion:
Well, as I said this book was the most nonsensible I’ve ever read. It was real humourous though. The first two books were good, in the third the effect was wearing off because the humour still was of the same kind and only the story changed. Then the fourth book was really good in my opinion. Fenchurch was a welcome new element. The fifth was nice but not really good and the sixth book wasn’t that humourous either. I still think the whole is a good book but I think it’s a pity the writer has written the last two books because they don’t reallyadd much to the original four. But that's only my humble opinion of course. Still, on account of this I gave the book 3.5 stars, not because the story was so well but because the humour really made it worth reading.