The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams

“Or would you like to meet the Dish of the Day?” I’m not at all exaggerating when I say this is the by far the funniest book I have read in my life.“Would you like to see the menu?” he said. And take my word, once you are done with this one, you will read the first one anyway.īottom line: If you have even a whit of a sense of humour in your heart and if you can laugh at yourself, this world, this galaxy and even this universe, you can’t possibly go wrong with this one. But I still recommend the first book, if only for the sheer fun. To enjoy The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, you don’t particularly need to read the first book, as it’s pretty much standalone. It is as though the humour is integral to the story, and the book wouldn’t have any sort of existence without all the fun.Įven Marvin, the robot with always-gloomy disposition, manages to be funny. The protagonists travel across the galaxy, sojourn weird planets, meet weird and oft-times, dangerous people.Īdams derives gags from the most mundane, trite facets of life. Then begins one of the most exhilarating vicarious adventures you will ever experience. Marvin, an intelligent and despondent robot, completes the list. They hitchhike on the spaceship of a belligerent species called Vogons (who, as a matter of fact, are responsible for earth’s destruction).įrom there, Arthur and Ford Prefect join two other protagonists-two-headed Zaphod Beeblebrox, who is an alien, and half-cousin to Ford, and Trilian, an earthling like Arthur. One day the earth is demolished, but Arthur is saved by his friend, the alien Ford Prefect, who Arthur had assumed to be an Earthman like him. Arthur is an earthling-inhabitant of the planet earth. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, on the other hand, goes well beyond science-fiction and insidiously creeps up in your everyday life. But there is one distinguishing factor: Discworld is confined to its genre-fantasy and lampoons many notable fantasy writers and plot-devices. Simply put, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is related in the same way to science-fiction as Discworld is related to fantasy.īoth Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett aim to mock their respective genres. After that, I went into a bit of a decline.” The third ten million years I didn’t enjoy at all.

“The first ten million years were the worst,” said Marvin, “and the second ten million years, they were the worst too.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams