The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Illustrated Edition
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4.3 • 893 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
This beautifully illustrated edition of the New York Times bestselling classic celebrates the 42nd anniversary of the original publication—with all-new art by award-winning illustrator Chris Riddell.
SOON TO BE A HULU SERIES • “An astonishing comic writer.”—Neil Gaiman
Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
It’s an ordinary Thursday morning for Arthur Dent . . . until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly after to make way for a new hyperspace express route, and Arthur’s best friend has just announced that he’s an alien.
After that, things get much, much worse.
With just a towel, a small yellow fish, and a book, Arthur has to navigate through a very hostile universe in the company of a gang of unreliable aliens. Luckily the fish is quite good at languages. And the book is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy . . . which helpfully has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large, friendly letters on its cover.
Douglas Adams’s mega-selling pop-culture classic sends logic into orbit, plays havoc with both time and physics, offers up pithy commentary on such things as ballpoint pens, potted plants, and digital watches . . . and, most important, reveals the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything.
Now, if you could only figure out the question. . . .
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The first novel in Douglas Adams’ funny, classic sci-fi series begins with the world’s end. When everyman Arthur Dent wakes to find bulldozers about to demolish his house, his undercover-alien friend, Ford Prefect, drags him to the pub. Suddenly, the two are hitchhiking through the cosmos, where they encounter inept villains, a depressed robot, and poetry worse than death. Part travel-guide satire, part buddy-comedy spoof, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is like Jack Kerouac’s On the Road mashed up with Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs. In other words, nerd humor at its finest.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Audio reviews reflect PW's assessment of the audio adaptation of a book and should be quoted only in reference to the audio version.FictionTHE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY: The Tertiary PhaseDouglas Adams, performed by the author, Simon Jones, Geoffrey McGivern et al. Audio Partners, three CDs, 3 hrs., American readers may not be aware that Adams's sci-fi parody classic started out as a BBC radio production. This audio, which contains a portion of that radio serial, will have listeners glued to their CD players. Never a dull moment passes in this uproarious dramatization, as Arthur Dent a refugee from Earth, which was destroyed to make way for a galactic freeway escapes from prehistory, and self-imposed insanity, on a time-traveling sofa along with his alien friend, Ford Prefect, who is a reporter for the eponymous guide. The pair find themselves reunited with old friends (such as Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed president of the galaxy) and swept up in an attempt to stop the explosively xenophobic denizens of the planet Cricket from wreaking havoc on all of existence by behaving remarkably like players of the British sport of the same name. Each CD contains two episodes full of hilariously appropriate sound effects, dramatic music and witty fake advertising, and every performer brings his or her character to life with aplomb, including Adams, who makes his appearance in one scene as Agrajag, an entity that is killed and reincarnated innumerable times. Fully embodying the zany otherworldliness of the series, this audio production is a treat for anyone familiar with the Hitchhiker's books (the first of which will debut as a major motion picture from Touchstone in May).
Customer Reviews
Bulldozer
Love this book! However, in this edition, it seems that there has been a mistake in that every time there is a word or phrase in italics, instead of what the word or phrase actually is, it just says “bulldozer”. Amusing the first few times, annoying after a while. Please fix!!!
Amazing
I thought that it was funny, interesting and descriptive
Critique, not of the book, but of the electronic version.
I rember reading this many years ago in hardcopy and greatly enjoying it, so I wish to emphasize the book itself, IMO, is 4 stars out of 5.
I would have thought that by now an e-version would have had all the kinks and bugs worked out. But I'm only a few chapters in, and already I've encountered a couple of superscript footnote numbers, but the footnotes themselves are nowhere to be found. So already I'm dissatisfied - 2 stars out of 5 for the e-book. Wish there was a way to direct such complaints to those who could take corrective action, instead of putting them here in the review.