Read: Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

Well, read…more like heard. I listened to the unabridged audio version from Audible, as read by Stephen Fry. Apparently Fry and Adams were good friends. However, having the book read by Fry gave an interesting effect in and of itself. I really like Stephen Fry as a reader you see. I already listened to 7 Harry Potter books in his voice. Which made listening to The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, a bit like “Harry Potter in Space”. It’s strange to hear the voices of Harry, Ron and Hermione as they’re on a space ship about to explode. But I digress…

Getting back to the book itself, well, it’s obviously a cult classic. Quite interesting to recognize a lot of references I didn’t realize or forgot were from Adams’ book: Trillian (IM client/character in the book), Paranoid Android (Song by Radiohead), Subetha (OSX text editor / intergalactic computer network). But also phrases such as ‘Thanks for all the fish’. When you start looking, Adams-references are all over the place. This in itself makes it worth having ‘read’ this 5.5 hour audiobook.

But onwards and upwards! What about the plot? The characters? The Style. Well, if you are a reader of so called ’serious’ works, then The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is something to stay away from. Characters are flat and dull, the plot is over-complicated if you were to call that thing a plot. Which it really isn’t, I won’t begin to try and summarize. Furthermore, it doesn’t really come full circle in this book - though Adams’ style suggests it never really will.

But it’s still a very funny book. Adams is quite unsurpassed at coming up with ‘quips’ and finishing sentences in a way you never quite expect. Which I suspect is probably much funnier in an audiobook, since you can’t read ahead. I guess you could also surmise that Adams’ overblown depiction of civil servants is kind of a social commentary though I’m sure it’s all just for stereotype based comic effect.

So in the end I like the book very much and I recommend reading it, even if it’s just for the references.

3 out of 5 stars.
(Only books worth owning are given any stars at all)