Hitchhiking The Universe

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is a brilliant trilogy (in five parts) by Douglas Adams that has been incarnated in more versions than you can count.

It started as a BBC Radio series, grew to a second radio series, became a book based, in part, on some of the BBC first and second series recordings, then a multi-part (what Americans would call a miniseries) then another book with more from the BBC and a bunch of new stuff, then a third book, abridged reading from the first three books, a fourth book, unabridged readings by Douglas Adams, a fifth book, a book of the radio scripts.........

If you can buy or borrow the five unabridged tape sets, do it! You will find more than 25 hours of brilliantly written, well read, Hitchhiker's Guide stories.

If you don't know about Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, Trillian, the Ravenous Bugbladder Beast of Traal, Excentrica Galumbits, the Triple-breasted Whore of Eroticon 5, and all of the others in this series, You are missing out.

Any of these versions may be safely purchased, if still available, with the secure knowledge that you will be getting something unique. And, don't be afraid to purchase multiple variations of the same thing For instance, listen to Clip One, a reading from the first abridged book-on-tape. Then, listen to Clip Two, the first several minutes from the BBC Radio programme. Very different!

Here are some of Adams's best works that have been translated to audio:

 

The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
 
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
  
Life, The Universe and Everything
 
The Restaurant at The End of
The Universe
  
So Long And Thanks For
All The Fish
Mostly Harmless


Also by Adams, and equally as much fun, is the Dirk Gently series. Dirk Gently is the star of "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" and "The Long, Dark Tea-time of the Soul." I am not sure how to describe these two books except to say that they are definitely by the same author as Hitchhiker's Guide and are almost nothing like one another. The only carry-over character is Dirk.

The other thing to keep in mind is that one of them features all of the Norse gods and Valhalla, and the other features Dirk pulling a string of gaily-colored streamers out of the bottom of a basset hound.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
  
The Long Dark Tea-time of The Soul

An old school chum of Dirk's—or at least someone who did not want to kill him after knowing him at school—comes to Dirk to help solve a murder case he doesn't know has occurred.

Dirk Gently excerpt

1:53 (900 K)

  

After surviving a surprise explosion at an airport, a woman finds herself caught in the life and strife of a Norse God. And his father, the greatest Norse God, Odin, who just wants to be left alone to spend his remaining years in a hospital.

Long Dark Tea-time excerpt

2:16 (1 MB)

These have been released on audio tapes in both abridged and unabridged versions, read by Douglas Adams, himself. The covers you see below are from the unabridged versions released by Dove Audio. You may have to look around for these. I found mine at a Barnes and Noble store.

 

Finally, Douglas Adams teamed with Terry Jones, formerly of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and the author of a number of good books not available in the US (pity) to create the novelization of Adams's new interactive game, Starship Titanic.

The novel is a skillful telling of at least one possible story surrounding the Starship, its builders, the financial shenanigans that went on in the background, and of the Earth people who accidentally board her.

This is a funny book, and good science fiction. Not only have I read the book, but I have listened to the audio book twice in the 18 months or so it has been out.