Life, the Universe and Everything/Audio Cassette (Hitchhiker's Trilogy (Audio))

Rating:
Summary: 42!
Review: "Life, the Universe, and Everything" is the third book in the five-book series, and it feels that away. It is not quite as great as the first two, but still enough to be good. The puns are great, as Dent and Co. go up against the evil Crikket aliens. Brit-isms abound, and some great moments of humor here, but doesn't get you rolling around in the seats. 42!

Rating:
Summary: A step in the wrong direction
Review: After being marooned on prehistoric Earth for several years, Arthur Dent and his alien chum Ford Prefect are rescued by the sudden appearance of a runaway sofa, which transports them millions of years into the future to a cricket game in England, a mere days before the Earth is due to be demolished by the evil Vogons. From here, the duo are reunited with their old friend Slartibartfast (from the first book), with whom they must embark on a mission to save the Universe. And yes, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, and Marvin the paranoid android all have roles to play, too.... Book 3 in Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" series, "Life, The Universe, And Everything," is certainly an amusing, occasionally hilarious entry in the zany intergalactic adventures of Arthur Dent and friends. Unfortunately, it falls short in comparison to the briliantly funny pair of books, "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" and "The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe," that preceded it. This may be because Books 1 & 2 were adapted from Adams' hilarious BBC radio play that started the whole "Hitchhikers" saga, while "Life" is a "Hitchhiker's" work that's not based on any previous material. Therefore, Adams' writing style for "Life" feels very different from the first two books, and doesn't flow as well. It's still funny, it's just not AS funny. The jokes are more fragmented, and Adams breaks apart *many* of the sentences that the characters speak in Book 3, which gets tiresome after awhile (ex: "The difficulty with this conversation," said Arthur, after a sort of ponderous look had crawled slowly across his face like a mountaineer negotiating a tricky outcrop, "is that it's very different from most of the ones I've had of late."). Therefore, some of the jokes miss the mark. Also, there's less excerpts from the Hitchhiker's Guide book itself, so often quoted in the first two books, so that's missed as well.And yet, "Life, The Universe, And Everything" still has some great comic moments, such as Zaphod Beeblebrox's drinking binge, Arthur's encounter with the creature Agrajag, the chapter on how to play Brockian Ultra Krikkit, and a pretty outrageous dinner party in space that Arthur & the gang crash. Overall, "Life, The Universe And Everything" is a decent entry in the "Hitchhiker's Guide" saga, and it's funny enough for me to give it a passing grade. Thankfully, though, Douglas Adams gets things right back on track with the brilliant fourth book, "So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish"....

Rating:
Summary: 42!
Review: I have no idea why no one seems to give this book good reviews! It is uber funny, just as much as the first two. I liked the exclusive terms for the actions of matresses and the whole Agrajag thing, which was honestly the funniest thing I have ever read! As for the Krikkit peoples, this line is one of Adam's most memorable, besides the number 42: "It's got to go." Also, I have established Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged as an all time favorite literary personality, because, well, seriously people, his dream is to insult the universe! Original. Personally, I don't see what all the fuss is about.

Rating:
Summary: I love the Universe
Review: Life, the Universe and Everything was interesting to follow the first two. The main theme is obvious same the universes, unlike in the other books it was kind of hidden under what was going on in them. The book was great with the whole time traveling. Plus you get to see what happens to every character one at a time then they all come together at the end to complete a nice third book.

I would have to say I like this book for the plot twists. Also I like how it flowed with the other books nicely unlike some, trilogies if you will, done have a lot to do with each other just the characters. You find out more about the white robots and cricket....

This book, its great... sorry but I believe it is. It doesn't follow the typical style of book writing most people are used too. But I loved the couch (you'll see why if you read the book), also that poor rabbit... so sad. This and many other interesting twist's and turns await you in this book.

Rating:
Summary: The Hitchhiker's trilogy loses some of its focus
Review: Life, the Universe, and Everything is rather different from the preceding two books in the Hitchhiker's Trilogy. It's quite funny, particularly in a few rather memorable sections, but it is not consistently funny from beginning to end. Parts of it were so unspectacular that I barely remembered what I had just read, and one aspect of the concluding scenario is still rather incomprehensible to me, a case of deus ex machina I just can't place in the context of the whole story. All of our favorite characters are back: Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, Marvin the woefully depressed android, and even Slartibartfast; unfortunately, they are rarely together, and I sometimes lost track of Zaphod in particular after reading a number of chapters that ignored him entirely. Much of the action is also rather contrived, such as the sudden appearance of a couch on prehistoric earth upon which Arthur and Ford travel forward in time to the last two days of earth's existence. On several occasions, characters seemed to zap to another place and time by no discernible means. The game of cricket is particularly important here, to the point that I really wish I understood what the sport is all about, but I admit it was a clever plot device to tie the sport to a particularly nasty, universe-threatening planet ten billion years in the past. The planet of Krikkit, you see, set out to destroy the rest of the universe because its people basically just wanted to be left alone. Throughout the novel white Krikkit robots appear out of nowhere to seize special items needed to unlock their planet from the Slo-Time envelope established around it at the end of the Krikkit Wars. This is a bad thing because the people of Krikkit still want nothing more than to destroy the entire universe. In a rather murky way, Arthur Dent is called upon to save the universe, and that is also not a particularly good thing.

There are a few highlights to the story. The subplot involving Agrajag is particularly good. In the course of Arthur Dent's journeys through space and time, he has been responsible for the deaths of a great number of creatures-insects, flies, at least one rabbit, etc. Quite coincidently, as Arthur tries to argue, every single one of these creatures was Agrajag in his multiple reincarnated forms. Naturally, a body develops a hatred for the brute who keeps killing it time and time again, but Agrajag has gone so far as to build a veritable shrine to the entity he hates most in the cosmos, complete with a gigantic statue of Arthur Dent simultaneously killing him in a great number of his past life forms. I also particularly enjoy Adams' take on learning to fly; it takes a special knack, one which consists basically of throwing yourself to the ground and missing-the easily distracted Arthur Dent is a natural at it.

Overall, the plot just meanders too much to suit me. Transitions of characters from one time and place to another make very little sense, major characters are abandoned for too long at a time, and the plot is not laid out neatly enough for it all to make sense to me. On the whole, much less seems to happen in this book than often happened over the course of a few chapters in the first two books of the trilogy. This is still an entertaining read, but even the comedy lacks some of the satirical and witty zest that typified Adams' earlier successes.

Rating:
Summary: LifeUniverseEverything: The worst of the guide.
Review: Of all of the hitchhiking books, I thought that Life, the Universe, and Everything was the worst of them. I can say that it was fairly entertaining, but it was definitely not the best book in the world. I enjoyed Douglas Adams's other books much more than I did this one. This book lacked plot, theme, and revolved around random comments and jokes (that were not very funny). In the other books before it the jokes were much more funny, and fit into the story line better. I am somewhat disappointed in this third book in the marvelous series: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Rating:
Summary: Alice in Wonderland of the 21st Century
Review: This book is the third book in a series of five. The two books before are called "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe". If you like random Storie's and a totally bizarre imaginative world, these book's will surely be the best for you to read. Just imagen you're Arthur Dent, a perfectly normal human who has agood friend called Ford Prefect who turns out to be an alien who saves Arthurs life. And thats how it starts. In the third book, they are stranded on prehistoric Earth. and by mere luck they get out and return with the ultimate question to the mice to tell them that they don't need to build earth2 because the question is so mest up that the answer is wrong.

I really enjoyed reading this book for a couple of reasons.
One, I really like random stories and totaly irrelevent litel inputs.
Two, I enjoy science-fiction in any way and detailed explanationof ships and robots e.t.c.
Three I identify with Marvin the depreesed robot who has existied until the end of the Universe and still is depreeded.

I recommend evrbody to read this book. It is very hilarious story and even for peopel who don't like sciece-fiction, it should be fun to read.

Rating:
Summary: The synthesized genius of Adams is here again
Review: This is the third book from the famous 'trilogy' (actually consisting of five books) written by his high majesty - Mr. Douglas Adams. Quite an interesting read after all, with no similarities to other famous books. The writing style of Douglas Adams is something that has been (and surely will be) one of the most popular topics when people sit around the table. There are numerous famous citations from his books that act (and will surely act) like pieces of wisdom for rebellios generations. Here is one of my favourites: 'Sounds bad. With little more of luck I hope I will be drunk enough, so that I don't notice it.'

This book is somehow innovative from the previous two, mainly due to the fact that it has a plot and after finishing it you have a story in your head, unlike after reading previous two. Is this bad or good - everyone decides for himself. I like it. The story is about our guys Ford Prefect, Arthur Dent, Zaphod Beeblebrox and the girl Trillian being lead on a mission by the old man Slartibartfast to save the Universe from being distinguished by the people of Krikkit who are as funny as well as every other character in the book (including the thunder god from the Scandinavian mythology - Thor). You will get an alternative look to the popular english sport game cricket after you finish the book.

There are a lot of funny tales that are not directly connected to the main story but add additional absurd humour that sometimes made me laugh histerically while reading. One of my favourite was about Zaphod getting drunk on his ship and Trillian leaving him, as well as the one about the poet Lallafa and his famous poems that after time travelling was discovered were used for marketing purposes and that changed the past so that these poems had never been written. And not to forget Wowbagger who insists on insulting every living creature personally.

I had great fun while reading this book and am quite enthusiastic to read the forth and fifth part of the 'trilogy'. Douglas Adams proved once again to me that he is unique and his stories are unpredictable.

Rating:
Summary: Not Quite "Everything", But Still Very Good
Review: This third effort by Douglas Adams is still in the same funny vein as the first two books in this sci/fi trilogy, but unfortunately, it is a little weaker. We begin finding Arthur and Ford separated from Zaphod and Trillian. This foursome is a big part of the comedy in the first two books, so their separation leaves one without some hoped-for humor. Then we find Arthur and Ford separated on prehistoric earth for a number of years. This giant time lapse takes the reader out the normal, regular interaction with the characters that you're used to for no explained reason. It's seems that their lives suddenly get boring for a few years, then pick up again. This tempo change was distracting for me.

With these negatives out of the way, much praise still has to given. Maybe it seems like I've criticized the book to be worse than my 4 star rating, but the shortcomings are vastly outweighed. The whole planet Krikkit plot is very intriguing: the slow time envelope, the seemingly unrelated cricket game on earth, the small bomb, and Slartibartfast's help. Adams contributes the expected doses of satire and irrational twists to this book, giving it the same funny and unique signature as the first two books. I've read this book a number of times. It's a quick read, just like the others in the series-go for it, it's fun!