Arthur Dent would like to just stay at home and mind his own business, thank you very much. But unfortunately for him—and the planet Earth—that’s about to get a whole lot harder.
When the bureaucratic alien species called the Vogons destroy Earth to make way for their intergalactic bypass, Arthur is the only survivor. Rescued from the planet by Ford Prefect, Arthur joins the humanlike alien researcher on his quest to create the definitive Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Ford teaches Arthur some tips and tricks for survival as they catch a ride together on the Vogon spaceship. With plenty of eccentric characters, including galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox; Marvin, the paranoid android; and Trillian, a human woman taken from Earth years ago, Arthur has his work cut out for him to adapt to his new life among the stars. Especially when a pack of descendants from a race of hyper-intelligent beings are after him, thinking that he knows the ultimate Question their ancestors were seeking when they created Earth.
Having started life as a radio play, the increasingly inaccurately named “Hitchhiker’s trilogy” is performed by a full cast of professional actors. The dramatized version is a remastered edit of the BBC Radio 4 original cast, filled with imaginative interpretations of Douglas Adams’s quirky characters. The series also features audiobooks masterfully performed by a single voice, including prolific English actor and acclaimed narrator Stephen Fry.
Adams originally started the project that would become The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as a six-part radio special about various ways the Earth could be destroyed. While adding an alien researcher character for context, Adams switched more of his focus to the newly added Guide and scrapped most of the original idea to make way for the new story. The idea for the Guide came from Adams’s own travels around Europe, including an incident during which he relied on a guidebook, the Hitch-hiker’s Guide to Europe, to get around.
After being adapted from radio to print, the Hitchhiker story was adapted into a television series, a stage show, video games, comic books, and a movie, which differed widely from the original novel. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy novel has been translated into more than 30 languages for worldwide enjoyment.
