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The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Copyright © 1979 by Douglas Adams | ||
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Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. This planet hasor rather hada problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasnt the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. | Topics: | |
It is also the story of a book, a book called The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxynot an Earth book, never published on Earth, and until the terrible catastrophe occurred, never seen or even heard of by any Earthman. [...] Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful onemore popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty-three More Things to Do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphids trilogy of philosophical blockbusters, Where God Went Wrong, Some More of Gods Greatest Mistakes and Who Is This God Person Anyway? In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhikers Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words DONT PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover. | Topic: | |
Chapter 1 | The thing that used to worry him most was the fact that people always used to ask him what he was looking so worried about. | |
Chapter 2 |
It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. It says that the effect of drinking a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick. The Guide also tells you on which planets the best Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters are mixed, how much you can expect to pay for one and what voluntary organizations exist to help you rehabilitate afterward. | Topic: |
He said, Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. | Topic: | |
This must be Thursday, said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. I never could get the hang of Thursdays. | ||
Chapter 3 | The huge yellow something went unnoticed at Goonhilly, they passed over Cape Canaveral without a blip, Woomera and Jodrell Bank looked straight through them, which was a pity because it was exactly the sort of thing theyd been looking for all these years. | |
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks dont. | Topic: | |
Chapter 4 | He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. | Topic: |
Chapter 5 | Ford stood up. Were safe, he said. Oh good, said Arthur. Were in a small galley cabin, said Ford, in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet. Ah, said Arthur, this is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasnt previously aware of. | |
Chapter 6 |
No, dont move, he added as Arthur began to uncurl himself, youd better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace. Its unpleasantly like being drunk. Whats so unpleasant about being drunk? You ask a glass of water. | Topic: |
The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish. Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the nonexistence of God. The argument goes something like this: I refuse to prove that I exist, says God, for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing. But, says Man, the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isnt it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you dont. QED. Oh dear, says God, I hadnt thought of that. and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. Oh, that was easy, says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing. Note (Hals): end note | Topic: | |
Harmless! One word! Ford shrugged. Well, there are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy, and only a limited amount of space in the books microprocessors, he said, and no one knew much about the Earth, of course. Well, for Gods sake, I hope you managed to rectify that a bit. Oh yes, well, I managed to transmit a new entry off to the editor. He had to trim it a bit, but its still an improvement. And what does it say now? asked Arthur. Mostly harmless, admitted Ford with a slightly embarrassed cough. | ||
Chapter 7 |
The prisoners sat in Poetry Appreciation chairsstrapped in. Vogons suffered no illusions as to the regard their works were generally held in. Their early attempts at composition had been part of a bludgeoning insistence that they be accepted as a properly evolved and cultured race, but now the only thing that kept them going was sheer bloody-mindedness. | Topic: |
I dont want to die now! he yelled. Ive still got a headache! I dont want to go to heaven with a headache, Id be all cross and wouldnt enjoy it! | Topic: | |
You know, said Arthur, its at times like this, when Im trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space, that I really wish Id listened to what my mother told me when I was young. Why, what did she tell you? I dont know, I didnt listen. | Topic: | |
Chapter 8 | [...] the fabulously beautiful planet Bethselamin is now so worried about the cumulative erosion by ten billion visiting tourists a year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete while on the planet is surgically removed from your body weight when you leave: so every time you go to the lavatory there it is vitally important to get a receipt. | Topic: |
Chapter 9 |
Ford! he said, theres an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet theyve worked out. | Topics: |
Chapter 11 |
The Encyclopedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as Your Plastic Pal Whos Fun to Be With. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as a bunch of mindless jerks wholl be the first against the wall when the revolution comes, with a footnote to the effect that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking over the post of robotics correspondent. | Topic: |
Chapter 12 | For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitiveyou merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program. | Topic: |
. . . and news reports brought to you here on the sub-etha wave band, broadcasting around the Galaxy around the clock, squawked a voice, and well be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere . . . and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys. | Topic: | |
Chapter 15 | In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split beforeand thus was the Empire forged. | |
Chapter 17 | When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subjects taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subjects metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subjects brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariably delivered a cupful of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. | |
It is most gratifying, it said, that your enthusiasm for our planet continues unabated, and so we would like to assure you that the guided missiles currently converging with your ship are part of a special service we extend to all of our most enthusiastic clients, and the fully armed nuclear warheads are of course merely a courtesy detail. | ||
Chapter 23 |
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so muchthe wheel, New York, wars and so onwhile all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than manfor precisely the same reasons. | Topics: |
Chapter 25 | And to this end they built themselves a stupendous super computer which was so amazingly intelligent that even before its data banks had been connected up it had started from I think therefore I am and got as far as deducing the existence of rice pudding and income tax before anyone managed to turn it off. | |
Chapter 31 |
Well, I mean, yes idealism, yes the dignity of pure research, yes the pursuit of truth in all its forms, but there comes a point Im afraid where you begin to suspect that if theres any real truth, its that the entire multidimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs. And if it comes to a choice between spending yet another ten million years finding that out, and on the other hand just taking the money and running, then I for one could do with the exercise, said Frankie. | Topic: |
[...] The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question How can we eat? the second by the question Why do we eat? and the third by the question Where shall we have lunch? | Topics: | |
text checked (see note) Apr 2005; Feb 2006; Jan 2007 |
Graphics copyright © 2003, 2004 by Hal Keen