Douglas Adams was a British author famous for his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, the only five part trilogy written. He also wrote for Doctor Who and produced several BBC Radio series.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the first novel in the eponymous series. It is an absurdist comedy science-fiction series based on the radio series of the same name. It has been adapted into a BBC mini-series and a movie, as well as inspiring both video and board games.
Arthur Dent is an average six-foot tall ape descendant living in England on the planet Earth. At the moment he is upset because his house is about to be demolished to make way for a highway bypass. He is about to be more upset when his friend, Ford Prefect, reveals that he is an alien researcher for a galactic travel guide, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and that the Earth is about to be demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. What neither of them know is that they’re about to be roped in to an attempt to find the semi-mythical planet builders of Magrathea by Zaphod Beeblebrox, the President of the Galaxy and notorious con-man, Trillian, a human who escaped from Earth some time earlier, and Marvin, a clinically depressed android.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is the second installment of the Hitchhiker’s series and continues on from where the first book left off.
After escaping from an attack on the Heart of Gold spaceship by Vogons, Zaphod and Marvin find themselves seperated from the others and told to find the editor of the Hitchhiker’s Guide. Meanwhile, on the Heart of Gold, Arthur desperately tries to get the drink replicator to understand what a cup of tea is, and the rest of the crew try to escape the strange void their ship is stuck in. Eventually, they manage to meet up at Milliways! The Restaurant at the End of the Universe!
A non-Hitchhiker’s book, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency may or may not take place in the same universe. It is a sci-fi detective novel that has the same humour as Adams’s other books but is set back on the planet Earth. It has been adapted into a series by both BBC, in 2010, and Netflix/BBC America, in 2016.
Dirk Gently believes in the fundamental connectedness of all things. Rather than the plebian methods of the police or other private detectives wherein they study the crime scene, find out as much background information as possible, and following clues, Dirk will find one detail that catches his eye and follow it until something else catches his attention. In this manner, he is able to solve a great many cases while incurring a prodigious bill for his services, not all of them appreciated by his clients. He is currently hired to find a missing cat, and therefore decides to help an old school friend figure out a magic trick done by a former professor of theirs.
Space and Dragons 