The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Author: Douglas Adams

It began as a radio series on the BBC. It was quickly adapted for television (with many of the same cast), and much later there came a film version (though the less said about that the better). But it is now probably better known as the novel, which became a trilogy, which in turn became a trilogy in five books, only now there's a sixth book as well (not to mention the various towels and computer games and stage shows and so on).What it is, is easily the funniest work of science fiction ever written. Frankly, if you don't laugh at this, you're not going to laugh at anything.We all know the story, even if Douglas Adams did keep making changes in each new version of the work. Arthur Dent wakes up one morning to find his house is about to be demolished, but as he tries to protect his home he discovers that his best friend, Ford Prefect, is actually an alien from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and that the Earth is about to be demolished to make way for a hyperspatial expressway. From that point, Arthur is whisked away on a series of increasingly absurd adventures that include Vogon poetry, the Infinite Improbability Drive, ZaphodBeeblebrox former President of the Galaxy and wanted criminal, Marvin the Paranoid Android, the answer to life, the universe and everything, which happens to be 42 but they forgot to ask what the question was. And on, and on. Don't panic, the whole thing is infinitely improbable and gloriously hilarious. Check it out. There isn't very much science fiction comedy because it's incredibly hard to do, and even harder to do well. This is on the list for the very simple reason that it is laugh out loud funny whether or not you're an sf fan, and that makes it just about unique.

Books in Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Series (7)

The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe

Life

The Universe And Everything

So Long

And Thanks For All The Fish

Mostly Harmless

And Another Thing...

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Douglas Adams died ridiculously young and didn't write anywhere near as many books as we'd like. But he did have ideas for a sixth Hitchhiker book shortly before he died, and that book, And Another Thing Ã?Ã?Â¢Ã?Ã?Â¦, was written by Eoin Colfer. Okay, it's not Adams, but it's a worthy conclusion to the series.

As for Adams's own work, you really don't want to miss Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and its sequel, The Long, Dark, Tea-Time of the Soul, which Adams himself described as "a kind of ghost-horror-detective-time-travel-romantic-comedy-epic, mainly concerned with mud, music and quantum mechanics." Even if they're not as good as the Hitchhiker series, they're still head and shoulders above anything else you're likely to come across.

If you want a taste of other science fiction comedies, it's worth taking a look at The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison, about an interstellar criminal who finds himself working for an elite law enforcement agency headed by the galaxy's greatest crook. The first book is pretty good, but there were endless sequels that each get progressively worse.

And don't forget that before he turned to fantasy, Terry Pratchett wrote Strata. It features a flat planet very like the Discworld, but this is actually taking the piss out of Ringworld. And it's by Pratchett, so you know it's going to be funny.