"Life, the Universe, and Everything" took me months on end to get through. Every time I opened the book I'd think "Ha, ha! What a funny and crazy man that Adams is. Why don't I read this more?", but after a few pages I'd grow weary. This book is genuinely funny, but I think instead of being a five-book trilogy, the Hitchhiker's franchise should have stopped at one. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was one of my favorite books for a time, and still holds a special place in my literary tastes. It's hilarious, and Douglas Adams has undoubtedly the sharpest wit this side of Oscar Wilde! Unfortunately, his abilities in the field of plot propulsion are weak at best. I read through this series, loving the first, liking the second, and by the time I got to this one, I just felt like asking what's the POINT? All this book was was another opportunity for the author to demonstrate his wit, which is, i reiterate, amazing. However, it's not enough to keep me reading, ...

Another winner from Douglas Adams. Arthur Dent, I increasingly believe, can perhaps best be compared to Bilbo Baggins, the Hobbit, from J.R.R. Tolkien's classic books. He is a basically very humdrum guy, who gets pulled into this kaleidoscopic world of adventure through no wish of his own... In this book, at any rate, the references to the game cricket went mostly over, or perhaps under, my American head, but most of this book has to do with the insanity of war, which of course is a pretty universal message.

The White Robots of Krikkit sound a lot like the stormtroopers from Star Wars, but it's probably better to compare then directly with the Nazis from which those stormtroopers themselves were in all likelihood derived. The theme is of how most people from the planet Krikkit want to enjoy life, listen to music, have their own little farm to raise a family on, etc, while the warlords that run their government are constantly trying to get them fanatically worked up to go forth and conquer the universe. Trillian gets some of her first real character development in the whole series, or at least a few solid lines, when she is the one to piece this simple fact together, along with some other, less simple facts. Again, a very cool book, and one which makes you think in a good way about some really important stuff.

Life, the Universe and Everything, by Douglas Adams, is a story of unmatched proportions, tying in satirical humor with an amazingly complex storyline. The people of Krikkit have been looking at the same features every night in the sky, and are sick of it, simply because there are no features. Krikkit is located inside a dust cloud, and when a mysterious spaceship crash lands on the planet, it puts the people in a sense of panic. They find out there are things out there, and don't like it, they enjoyed their solidarity. It is now that they must destroy the entire universe, and regain that piece of mind.
It is Arthur Dent's job to make sure that none of this happens. Arthur is a human who was rescued from earth, just as it was about to be blown up by blood thirsty mongrels, named Vogons, to make way for a hyper space bypass. Along to help Arthur is the man who rescued him, Ford Prefect, Tricia McMillan (Trillian), the ex-president of the galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox, and a handy man from a planet factory, Slartibartfast.
In this story, the 3rd in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, it starts out on prehistoric earth, and through the marvels of time travel, Arthur Dent is teetering on the edge of insanity, while living in a cave where his house will be located in another couple billion years. In the mean time, Ford Prefect has decided to resort to animal cruelty in Africa, until he decides that it is time to try to find a way back to their time. Along the way they meet up with Slartibartfast, who tells them of the pending problem. The people from the land of Krikkit are about to escape from a "Slow Time Envelope", which is supposed to only open when all other life in the universe has disappeared. It is now their job to try to keep the inhabitants of Krikkit from attacking the galaxy, and restore peaceful life to all of the people of the universe. Can Arthur do it? To find out, read Life, the Universe and Everything. But be sure to read the other books in the series before to avoid complete confusion.

My theory is that Douglas Adams had 2 worries after the first part of this whole series. First of all, jeez louise, he sure was giving poor Arthur Dent a hard time... couldn't he at least maybe let him have a girlfriend? And second of all, how about the dolphins? Douglas Adams is really into animal rights, the environment, etc, and it just seemed a little perfunctory to have them all totally obliterated along with the Earth just because of that whole business about the interstellar hyperspace bypass. In this book, dolphins, Arthur, and Arthur's (surprise) girlfriend somehow come together, with a variety of mutant plot twists along the way.

As usual with these books, I envy anyone coming to them for the first time. Watch for the "Rain God", he is quite hilarious, and sort of a stand-in for Marvin in some ways. Ford Prefect has sort of a guest appearance, he isn't exactly central to the plot, but he becomes important in some ways at the very end.

I would tell a new Douglas Adams fan to read this as a love story, Adams' gift to the hapless Arthur Dent. The wackiness is MUCH lass omnipresent here than it is in the other books, so be warned. Basically good stuff, but very distinct in tone from the rest of the series.

This is by far the best of all of Douglas Adams's novels - including the entire Hitchhiker's series and both Dirk Gently books. It contains all-new material, not just scenes from the radio series rearranged and slightly altered. Adams splits off Arthur Dent from the rest of his friends and throws him into the strangest situation of all: his galactic hitchhiking has led him back to Earth, an Earth which had long ago been destroyed by the Vogons, but is, for some reason, still there.

Adams is at his best here, creating wonderful imagery and great new characters. He perfectly captures the sensations of falling in love. The comedy is gentle, and the science-fiction elements nearly take a back seat to the love story - but come back in a big way when a long-estranged friend shows up.

In M.J. Simpson's Douglas Adams biography "Hitchhiker", he maintains that many DNA fans (including Simpson) regard this as his worst book - an opinion Adams seemed to share (but Simpson points out that Adams had this opinion of most of his books at one point or another.) As a fan from the very first NPR radio broadcasts, I respectfully - and strongly - disagree. This is Adams at his gentlest, and his most poetic, and his best - in fiction, anyway. The nonfiction "Last Chance To See", itself a love story of sorts, is the only long-form Adams that I would rate higher.

Adams chooses to focus mainly on Arthur Dent in his fourth novel in the Hitchhiker's series. He also begins to make commentary on the environmental damage we are causing our planet. Many Hitchhiker's fans have criticized Adams on this point, but I praise him for having the courage to make this sort of statement in this series. It is still a very funny novel (I mean, we find out that humans are actually only the _third_ most intelligent creature on Earth, somewhere behind...well, I won't ruin it for you), but Adams chooses to tackle some serious topics within it. The ending was slightly disappointing, but mainly because it took him so long to write the fifth book. If you are reading the series, don't let anyone discourage you from reading this book. It is a necessary and natural part of the series, and I feel that it is an excellent novel in and of itself.

Note: For those readers who enjoyed the environmental commentary and are interested in this subject, try reading Adams' "Last Chance To See," a non-fiction work and what I consider to be one of the best books I have ever had the priviledge to read.

I bought this as an introduction to Arthur Ford, and it serves that purpose admirably. It is a shortish volume published by the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship, which Ford was instrumental in founding. It is, therefore, solidly pro-Ford -- but it doesn't ignore his personal flaws or the controversies surrounding his mediumship. It consists of passages from Ford's own writings as well as the writings of his closest associates. One particularly interesting part concerns an auto wreck in which Ford's sister and a friend were killed and he was left in a coma. Writing 25 years before anyone had heard the term "Near Death Experience," he described a classic NDE. In case you aren't familiar with Ford, he had nearly a 50-year career. Two of his main claims to fame were solving the riddle of the message Houdini had left for his wife ("Rosabelle, believe") and putting Bishop Pike in touch with his late son. I previously hadn't taken Ford seriously due to the controversy surrounding the Houdini episode and some of the other anti-Ford propaganda, but this book led me to do additional digging. Ford clearly seems to have had a great deal of genuine mediumistic ability (whatever that may be). He was also a complex individual who would make an interesting study even if he had been a complete fraud. I would recommend this as an excellent introduction to Ford (or a good summing up as to what he was all about, if you are already familiar with him).

I loved the entire book. This is my peronal first of reading anything by Douglas but this book is a perfect (or PREfect) for a beginer.It's tantalizing and Adams has a world class imagination.

Having family that has recently moved to D.C. we felt that we needed some "see & do" books, so we ordered this one and another("Access Washington") on the subject. This is the second Frommer's we have bought and our last. It is not tight. It does not cover the subject thoroughly. It is not arranged properly. Sure, there's a lot to cover in D.C., but there are other books that do it! "Access Washington, D.C." is much superior. Access groups the city by area; it color codes by historical, lodging and dining. Wherever you are in D.C. one can find where to stay, where to eat and what to see. Frommer simply hasn't discovered how to get people to the great places. Thieir books are often written as if they had not been there.

Like other Frommers books I have used, the walking tours offered here make the D.C. edition worth it. Tours and agendas are designed around how much time one has, which is always beneficial. I found three good (and affordable) places to eat thanks to the book. Why only four stars? The map. Yes, it's free, but it isn't as detailed as I would like, and the glossy surface makes it hard to highlight. Improve on that, guys, and the fifth star is yours!

"Frommer's Washington, D.C. '98" is a stellar guide to this vibrant and culturally-diverse cosmopolitan city. Elise Hartman Ford not only gives us astute and in-depth assessments of the shops, hotels, and museums, she provides extensive background on the city itself--everything from "History 101" and "Hollywood On The Potomac" to "Washington Calendar of Events" and "Getting to Know Washington, D.C." I especially loved Ford's "Best Bets" sections, where she gives insider-info on, say, the Best Inexpensive Hotel (The Days Inn Premier) or the Best Desserts (the "no frou-frou" sweets at Cafe Berlin). The book's maps are terrific, and Ford's "Getting There" and "Getting Around" are marvelous guides to the various airports, shuttles, and public forms of transportation. Don't miss this top-notch guidebook.

Mostly Harmless is not Douglas Adams' best Hitchhiker's Guide novel. Having said that, we can read the book not expecting the highest quality humor from it. It still contains Adams' comic genius, but I think that he should have included Zaphod Beeblebrox, the funniest character in the series. Arthur's new love Fenchurch is sadly killed off after an accident in space, and it seems that this was done as an afterthought by the author. We meet Arthur's daughter, who, strangely enough, is also Trillian's daughter. Sorry, but no romance there. She merely selected human sperm from an intergalactic sperm bank. The best scenes take place when Arthur crash lands on a planet and becomes "Bob's sandwich maker" to the natives. Ford is still up to his hoopy antics, towel and all. Oh, and they also finally find out where Stavromula Beta is. I don't think that he should have ended the series like this, but fans can still hope for solo Zaphod stories, right, right? It's a good read though, really

This fifth and final installment in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy is simply amazing. While it seems that a lot of people weren't satisfied with it, I am quite the exception. The tone of the humor in this book (as with SLATFATF) is much darker than the earlier books, but that's just fine by me. I prefer a little darkness.

While this book returns somewhat more to the zaniness of the first three books (at least in comparison to the fourth book), it is not entirely wacky. It seems that this book is, in many ways, quite "fannish," there to please fans of the series with cheap thrills and tips of the hat (one example would be the return of the Vogons, which I don't exactly think anybody was clammoring for). However, in the midst of all this, Adams tells a wonderfully adventurous story that ties together in an ending that will leave you stunned and breathless (I'll try not to spoil it, but it's reminiscent of something that happenned in the first book, HG2G).

The worst part of the book is that Fenchurch just disappears... literally! And we never see Arthur deal with it! Still, Adams provides us with yet another wonderful character to help reveal the human side of Arthur....

I think it is a wonderful, if unexpected and somewhat unnecessary, end to the series. Trillian returns (although thankfully Zaphod doesn't), but Marvin is depressingly absent. Oh and remember Agrajag, from LTUAE? Well, there's a wonderful tie to that whole thing that you just can't miss. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, go read LTUAE and then read this and laugh along with me. Read it. You'll be blown away.

What do you get when you combine interstellar space travel, romance, action, mindless astronauts, parallel universes, religion, and sandwiches all into the same book? Why, you get Mostly Harmless, the fifth book in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams.
Mostly Harmless takes you through the life of Arthur Dent, a man whose house and world have been demolished by the Vogons, a race of evil space aliens that evolution has literally given up on. After losing the love of his life, Fenchurch (she literally vanishes into thin air), he begins to search for a new planet to reside upon... Adams also brings back old favorites from the previous books in Ford Prefect and of course, the aptly named Hitchhiker's Guide itself.
Mostly Harmless is an great finale for an excellent series. Adams does a good job in tying up the story line while still adding his randomness and humor to the novel. If you love a good science fiction story, or just a good humorous read, Mostly Harmless and the rest of the Hitchhiker's Guide series is definitely something you'll enjoy.