The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

This story was first a radio series, which I didn't happen to hear on first broadcast in spring 1978, but I heard it when it was repeated not long afterwards. Then I bought the book in 1980; which is not a transcription of the radio series (the radio scripts were published later), but was based on the radio series and contains some of the same material.

It was very popular at the time. Phrases and scenes from it became part of the mental equipment of many people, and I don't regret having that mental equipment. It's rather shocking to think that I might meet people who wouldn't recognize references to it or quotations from it.

It was an entertaining and pioneering series on the radio. But it wasn't designed as a novel. In fact, the original radio series wasn't designed at all: Douglas Adams said that he wrote each episode as he came to it, with no advance planning.

In book form:

1. It's short. Although it was sold as a novel, it's the length of a modern novella.

2. It's chaotic and rambling and lacks the structure of a well-conceived novel (or novella). It was a comedy series on the radio, and that's basically what it remains despite the transfer to book form.

I like it, I'm glad to have read it, but I don't reread it very often—compared with other books that I reread more often. When I reread it, it seems very familiar, and full of clichés. They weren't clichés in 1980, but they seem clichés now because they've become part of my mental equipment, and they're referenced now and then by other people. It's a punishment for success.

If you haven't read it, I'd encourage you to read it. It's short, it's funny, it's easy to read. But bear in mind that it's basically a radio comedy series; if you expect it to be a great novel, you may find it rather disappointing.

Adams wrote a series of sequels to this book, which you can read if you like this one. But I think this is the best-known of them, the target of the majority of references and quotations.