Number 42 - The Restaurant at the end of The Universe - Douglas Adams

 “The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

 With an opening line like that, how can a book go wrong?  In this case it certainly can’t.

The Hitchhikers trilogy (all 5 books) have been a staple part of my existence since I was about 12.  Whenever I hit book 42 in a year, it has to be a HHGTTG related tome – if that isn’t the law it should be, and this year I decided on a long delayed reread of book 2.

Accidentally, I’ve chosen a very appropriate time to post this review as it’s the 20^th anniversary of Adams’ sad death.

This second part of the 5 part trilogy is a very loose adaptation of the last two episodes of the first radio series, and the first 3 episodes of the second. The first book finished with our favourite space travellers boarding the Heart of Gold on the planet Magrathea.

The second starts straight after the events of HHGTTG when Eddie the onboard computer on the Heart of Gold spaceship shutting down to help the drinks machine work out how to make a good cup of tea, just at the moment that a Vogon ship is about to launch an attack.

We're then launched into the events from the first couple of episodes of the second series, where Zaphod finds he's set himself a mission and wiped his memory of it. He soon finds himself at the headquarters of the Guide's publishers where the psychic lifts don't want to take him to the 15th floor.  They know what's about to happen.

After various misadventures involving a sense of perspective, fairy cake, and missing lemon scented napkins, he is reunited with the rest of the cast and they make their way to Milliways.  From then on the book pretty much follows the end of series 1 of the radio show, with a brief diversion to episode 3 of series 2. 

There's not a single page of this book that doesn't contain laugh out loud funny jokes, and/or seriously groan inducing puns.  The wordplay is genius throughout and Adams' natural cynicism shines through all of it.  I always wondered who was to blame for my sarcastic sense of humour.  rereading these points to a very likely suspect.

All 5 books in the trilogy are comic masterpieces.  Please note I don't count book 6 as part of the trilogy.  The end of Mostly Harmless makes it clear that Adams wanted it all to stop so he could write something else for a change. So book 6 was a cash cow and nothing else. 

Not much else to say.  Adams was a comedy god and is sadly missed. 

If you've not read the books, read them now and that's an order.