Oct 18, 2010 - 
Tablet 
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Tablet 5 Comments The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts
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When Earth is destroyed to make way for a Hyperspatial express route, Arthur Dent discovers that space is big, as he is taken on a hair-raising tour of the Galaxy and its very strange inhabitants, by his friend Ford Perfect. This is a new edition which incorporates the fifth part of the trilogy.
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(out of 124 reviews)
List Price: £20.00
Price: £10.79
Review by Lew 1 for The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts
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I had read all of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s incarnations individually, mostly from the local library. I am a big fan – but tatty library copies only go so far. When you appreciate a series of books this much, to own the real thing is an absolute must.This boxset presents all five books in the trilogy (!) nicely in paperback, with a hard box to house them all in. These editions are quite bare-bones, but perfect for reading multiple times – and they all share a cover scheme that is oh-so subtly changed to suit the book you are reading.Those who have not met with Douglas Adam’s most famous works before are in for a reat treat – espcially if you like some witty and intelligent yet slightly off-the-wall humour. This is an excellent way to enjoy the series.
Review by Professor Donald Mitchell for The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts
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Over the Memorial Day weekend, I had the good fortune to be invited to Maine to see the fabulous tree house that is the subject of The Treehouse Chronicles. I decided this would be a good chance to listen to a recording of an old favorite that I’ve never heard in audio form before. Browsing through the library, it was an easy decision to pick this new recording of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Within minutes, I could tell that I’d made a winning choice as I listened to Stephen Fry brilliantly share his voice to add texture to this intriguing story. Between the accents and the humorous references to irony, I was enthralled. I found myself wishing that the recording was a longer one.
When you read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, it can come across a little simplistically in places. Those spots work much smoother in this audio version.
In fact, if you haven’t read the book, I recommend that you listen to this recording instead. I think you’ll enjoy and appreciate the book more in its more dramatic version here.
If you don’t know the story, Arthur Dent finds himself awakening with a hangover determined to save his home. Only problem is, while the demolition crew looms, he’s also about to lose his other home, the Earth. Aided by his alien friend, Ford Prefect, Arthur is soon off hitchhiking his way through the galaxy in a most improbable set of circumstances that will amuse and delight you. You’ll meet Zaphod Beeblebrox, one of the most memorable aliens in anyone’s fiction. Along the way, you’ll learn more speculation about wearing digital watches and finding lost ballpoint pens than you ever expected to know.
Bravo, Stephen Fry and Douglas Adams!
Review by Daniel Jolley for The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts
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No matter how many times I read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I’ve read it quite a few times already, it never fails to thrill me and induce bouts of almost uncontrollably hearty laughter. With this novel, Douglas Adams gave life to a phenomenon that will long outlive his tragically short life, delighting millions of readers for untold years to come. I’m not sure if science fiction had ever seen anything like this before 1979. This is science fiction made to laugh at itself while honoring its rich tradition, but it is much more than that. Adams’ peculiarly dead-on humor also draws deeply from the well of sociology, philosophy, and of course science. Whenever Adams encountered a sacred cow of any sort, he milked it dry before moving on. Beneath the surface of utter hilarity, Adams actually used his sarcasm and wit to make some rather poignant statements about this silly thing called life and the manner in which we are going about living it. This is one reason the book is so well-suited for multiple readings—a high level of enjoyment is guaranteed each time around, and there are always new insights to be gained from Adams’ underlying, oftentimes subtle, ideas and approach.Arthur Dent is your normal human being, and so he naturally is more concerned about his house being knocked down than facing the fact that the world is about to end. His friend Ford Prefect, he comes to learn, is actually a researcher from a planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, but before he can even begin to comprehend this fact, he finds himself zipped up into the confines of the Vogon space cruiser that has just destroyed the planet Earth. Things become even trickier for him when he discovers the great usefulness of sticking a Babel fish into his ear and then meets the singular President of the Galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox and his shipmate Trillian, both of whom Arthur actually met months before at a party. Such impossible coincidences are explained by the fact that Beeblebrox’s ship is powered by the new Infinite Improbability Drive. Dent grows more and more confused during his travels on board the Heart of Gold, and the story eventually culminates with an amazing visit to an astronomically improbable world.Much of the humor here is impossible to describe; this novel must be read to be appreciated. It seems like every single line holds a joke of some kind within it. The characters are also terrific: the unfortunate Arthur Dent, who basically has no idea what is going on; Ford Prefect, Arthur’s remarkable friend from Betelgeuse; Zaphod Beeblebrox, with his two heads, three arms, and cavalier attitude; Trillian the lovely Earth girl who basically flies the Heart of Gold; Slartibartfast the planet builder and fjord-make extraordinaire; and my favorite character of all, Marvin the eternally depressed robot. Life—“loathe it or ignore it, you can’t like it” is the Paranoid Android’s philosophy. One brilliant thing that Adams does is to step away from the action every so often to present interesting facts about the universe as recorded in the Hitchhiker’s Guide; here we learn about Vogon poetry, the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, Trans Galactic Gargle Blasters, and other fascinating tidbits about life in the crazy universe Adams created. He even gives the reader the ultimate answer to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything in these pages. This novel is just an amazingly hilarious read that will leave you yearning for more; to our great fortune, Adams indeed left us more in the form of four subsequent books in the Hitchhiker’s “trilogy.” If you don’t like science fiction, it doesn’t matter; read this book just for the laughs. The most amazing thing about Adams’ humor is the fact that everyone seems to “get” it. Adams broke all the rules in writing a novel quite unlike any that had come before it, and he succeeded in spades. This may well be the funniest novel ever written.
Review by for The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts
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Although the page says ‘A Trilogy in Four Parts’, the actual book is the updated one including Mostly Harmless (as you can see if you click on the photo of the book cover), so ignore the review that says its incomplete. My copy was delivered today and I can definatley say its the ‘Trilogy in Five Parts’, not four
Review by for The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts
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The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the best series of books I have ever read. I discovered them courtesy of my brother around 5 years ago, I read the ‘trilogy’ and have since become a ver avid fan. The chronicles of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect and the rest of the gang are always guaranteed to make me laugh, and the books are always very well-written by Douglas Adams, as the pace never slows and there is never a dull (or unfunny moment). I live my life according to these books, as I’m sure any of my friends will testify. If you’re thinking of buying this book, I would definitely recommend it to anyone after a comedy novel, a sci-fi novel or just a new outlook on life as a whole.