How would aliens see us, humans? In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy you get one possible outlook on planet Earth. For a book published in 1979, Douglas Adams had quite a futuristic viewpoint.
It only adds to the experience that his is quite satirical as well. So this book starts minutes before our planet is set to be demolished to create a galactic highway, coincidentally right when Arthur Dent’s house is also set to be demolished. His best friend Ford Prefect, an alien who’s been commissioned to write for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, takes him away for a trip where all kinds of weird happen because... well, aliens.
One certainly has to read this book with an open mind, not expecting realistic stuff to happen. The odds are always something bizarre and characters are often unpredictable, and with names very hard to pronounce. All scenarios are minimally described, so you as the reader needs to do some brain work to set up everything and not think about how our reality is now. For example, Adams describes machinery and computers at a time where they were not as developed as they are now, so one has to be careful not to smudge his descriptions with today’s views. It is quite the exercise. It put me in Deep Thought (pun for those who read the book).
This is the first book in a trilogy of five. While it was entertaining and so much fun, I feel this book works great as a standalone, though as soon as I find the other books at a discount price, I will probably build up my collection and continue following the strange group of individuals that makes up this book. Fortunately, the movies stopped at the first one. No way they could make another one without Alan Rickman.
8/10
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