The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe [Paperback]

Written by Douglas Adams, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" was first published in 1980 and is the second instalment of his legendary five-part "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" trilogy. It starts within a matter of hours of where "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" finished so - at the risk of stating the obvious - is entirely the wrong place to start !! The series started life as a radio show, before becoming a book, a television series, a play and a bath towel. Douglas Adams was born in Cambridge in 1952 and died in May 2001 in California.

The Earth has been destroyed, officially to make way for a hyperspace bypass, and only two humans - Arthur Dent and Tricia McMillan - have survived. Arthur was rescued by an old friend called Ford Prefect - a roving reporter for "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", a sort of interstellar Rough Guide. The pair managed to escape the demolition of Earth by sneaking on-board the Vogon ship in charge of its destruction. Arthur and Ford are later picked up by Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed, renegade ex-President of the Galaxy and an old school-friend of Ford's. Beeblebrox's spaceship, "The Heart of Gold", is the most powerful and unpredictable ship in the universe. Its crew is completed by Marvin, a paranoid android, and Trillian - as Tricia is now known - she'd met Zaphod at a party some months previously.

At the end of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", Zaphod had decided to visit Milliways, the restaurant at the end of the universe. However, following an argument with the ship's computer, he has to calculate the improbability factor the need to actually get there himself. Unfortunately, the Vogon ship that destroyed Earth is approaching the "Heart of Gold" with a view to killing the planet's last surviving ex-residents. With the computer frozen, trying to understand how to make a cup of tea for Arthur, there is no apparent escape. The only possible option is to hold a s'ance, so Zaphod can ask his deceased great-grandfather for help. That help involves a trip to Ursa Minor Beta, home to a certain hugely popular guide book, and Frogstar B, the most evil world in the galaxy and home to the Total Perspective Vortex.

Like "Hitchhiker's...", this is an extremely silly and very easily-read book. However, although there's more of a point to what the characters get up to in this instalment, I'd still recommend reading "Hitchhiker's..." first. Hugely enjoyable and highly recommended.

This book should be read after the "The hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", due to the fact that "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" starts where the previously mentioned book ends. That is, with the two survivors to the Earth's destruction, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect, traveling along Trillian, Marvin the robot and Zaphod Beeblebrox in the "Heart of gold", a stolen Improbability Drive ship.

If you read this book, you will go along with our friends in their adventures, for example when they visit Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, or when they escape certain destruction in a stuntship used by rockstars. You will also learn the real meaning of "dying for a cup of tea", and have a chance to eat meat that wants to be eaten. Of course, Marvin will continue giving you lessons in pessimism, and Zaphod will go on being "so weird that he should be in movies".

I liked this book, but I didn't love it nearly as much as "The hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". What is more, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" doesn't have a clear ending, and I find some fault in that. Of course, I am more than ready to read the next book in the series, but that is not the point.

On the whole, I don't recommend "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" to those that haven't read "The hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", due to the fact that they won't enjoy it so much. Notwithstanding that, I do recommend this book as entertaining reading material for those already addicted to Douglas Adams quirky sense of humour. It is not perfect, but it is more than good enough to enjoy :)

Belen Alcat

This is a review of the Restaurant At The End Of The Universe
(AUDIO CD rendition).

The Book is fantastic! Totally hilarious. A welcome sequel to
any first-time reader of HGTG. The CD set consists of five (5)
CDs, and the story is read by Douglas Adams (the author) himself.
For anyone not familiar with the voice of DA, his reading,
inflections, and ease in switching voices during dialog passages
adds greatly to the presentation. The CD does have some
'electronically-modified' voices (Marvin & the ship's computer,
for instance), but they're all Douglas Adams, and he makes
it quite difficult not to laugh out loud while listening.
It's also pretty hard not to consume the whole book at one
sitting.

My two complaints on this media presentation are that it is
simply a straight transfer to CD of Douglas Adams'
CASSETTE-TAPE recordings. They didnt even remove all of the
'End of Side' notations from the original. Imagine that
you're listening to the story, and in the *middle* of a
disc, you hear Douglas say "End of side TWO". Then the story
continues. I also have to mention my biggest
beef with this presentation (as with ALL of the CD renditions)
which is that each disc is comprised of only ONE track!
You cannot jump forward or backward by chapters. If you
cannot listen to an entire disc at one sitting (about an hour),
then you cannot resume midway if you happen to stop the disc.
In this regard, the cassette-tapes excel over the CD renditions.

Considering that Douglas was pretty-much a techno-hound, I think
he'd be pretty disgusted that his works were being stamped-out
in such a shoddy fashion.

All-in-all, the book is as good as, if not better than,
the HITCHHIKERS GUIDE. Adams fanatics will love it. It's a
book that demonstrates that DA was an accomplished wordsmith,
and that he spent considerable time and effort to add hundreds
of subtle cross-references between passages that cannot be
caught at first reading (listening). In this regard, you'll
find something new each time you consume this book.