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Title:
Life, the Universe and Everything
Series:
THGttG #3
Author: Douglas Adams
Rating:
2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages:
126
Words: 53K
This
was stupid. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t amusing, it didn’t tell
a story. It was simply stupid and Adams completely wasted my time
with this utter piece of drivel.
Don’t
be like the Chartreuse Emperor and read this book, or you’ll go
insane. That’s a DoUbLe BoBa FaCt PrOmIsE!
★★☆☆☆
From
Wikipedia
After
being stranded on pre-historic Earth after the events in The
Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur Dent is met
by his old friend Ford Prefect, who drags him into a space-time
eddy, represented by an anachronistic sofa. The two end up
at Lord's Cricket Ground two days before the Earth's
destruction by the Vogons. Shortly after they arrive, a squad of
robots land in a spaceship in the middle of the field and attack the
assembled crowd, stealing the Ashes before departing.
Another spaceship arrives, the Starship Bistromath, helmed
by Slartibartfast, who discovers he is too late to stop the
theft and requests Arthur and Ford's help.
As
they travel to their next destination, Slartibartfast explains that
he is trying to stop the robots from collecting all the components of
the Wikkit Gate. Long ago, the peaceful population of the planet of
Krikkit, unaware of the rest of the Universe due to a dust cloud that
surrounded its solar system, were surprised to find the wreckage of a
spacecraft on their planet. Reverse engineering the vessel,
they explored past the dust cloud and saw the rest of the Universe,
immediately taking a disliking to it and deciding that it must be
destroyed. They built a fleet of ships and robots to attack the rest
of the Universe in a brutal onslaught known as the Krikkit Wars, but
were eventually defeated. Realizing that the Krikkit population would
not be satisfied alongside the existence of the rest of the Universe,
it was decided to lock the planet in a Slo-Time envelope, to be
opened only after the Universe has ended so that the planet can exist
alone. The Wikkit Gate, shaped exactly like a wicket used
in the sport of cricket, is needed to unlock the envelope.
However, one ship carrying a troop of robots from Krikkit avoided
being sealed in, and these robots began to search for the pieces of
the Gate after they were dispersed about space and time.
Slartibartfast,
Arthur, and Ford transport to an airborne party that has lasted
numerous generations where another Gate component, the Silver Bail,
is to be found, but Arthur finds himself separated from the others
and ends up at a Cathedral of Hate created by a being called Agrajag.
Agrajag reveals that he has been reincarnated countless times in a
wide variety of forms, only to be killed by Arthur in each life; he
now plans to kill Arthur in revenge. However, upon learning that
Arthur has yet to cause his death at a place called Stavromula Beta,
Agrajag realizes that he has pulled Arthur out of his relative
timeline too soon and that killing him now would cause a paradox,
but attempts to kill Arthur anyway. In his insanity, Agrajag brings
the Cathedral down around them. Arthur manages to escape unharmed,
partially due to learning how to fly after falling and missing the
ground while catching sight of a bag he had lost at a Greek airport
years before. After collecting the bag, Arthur inadvertently comes
across the flying party and rejoins his friends. Inside, they
find Trillian, but they are too late to stop the robots from
stealing the Silver Bail. Arthur, Ford, Trillian, and Slartibartfast
return to the Bistromath and try to head off the robots
activating the Wikkit Gate.
Meanwhile,
the Krikkit robots steal the last two pieces, the Infinite
Improbability Drive core from the spaceship Heart of Gold and
a peg leg used by Marvin the Paranoid Android. They capture both
Marvin and Zaphod Beeblebrox in the process.
The Bistromath arrives
too late to stop the robots from opening the Gate, so its occupants
transport to the planet to attempt to negotiate with the Krikkit
people. To their surprise, they find that the people seem to lack any
desire to continue the war, and are directed to the robot and
spaceship facilities in orbit about the planet. With help from Zaphod
and Marvin, the group is able to infiltrate the facilities. Trillian
deduces that the Krikkiters have been manipulated, reasoning that the
people of Krikkit could not simultaneously be smart enough to develop
their ultimate weapon—a bomb that could destroy every star in the
universe—and also stupid enough not to realize that this weapon
would also destroy them.
The
characters discover that the true force behind the war has been the
supercomputer Hactar. Previously built to serve a war-faring
species, Hactar was tasked to build a supernova-bomb that would link
the cores of every sun in the Universe together at the press of a
button and cause the end of the Universe. Hactar purposely created a
dud version of the weapon instead, causing his creators to pulverize
him into dust, which thus became the dust cloud around Krikkit.
However, Hactar was still able to function, though at a much weaker
level. Trillian and Arthur speak to Hactar in a virtual space that he
creates for them to explain himself. Hactar reveals that he spent
eons creating the spaceship that crashed on Krikkit to inspire
their xenophobia and incite them to go to war, also
influencing their thoughts. However, when the Slo-Time envelope was
activated, his control on the population waned. As he struggles to
remain functional, Hactar apologizes to Trillian and Arthur for his
actions before they leave for their ship.
With
the war over, the group collects the core of the Heart of
Gold and the Ashes, the only two components of the Wikkit Gate
not destroyed by the robots, and returns Zaphod and Marvin to
the Heart of Gold. Returning to Lord's Cricket Ground only
moments after the robots' attack, Arthur attempts to return the
Ashes, but is suddenly inspired to bowl one shot at a wicket that is
being defended using a cricket ball in his bag. However, during his
run-up, Arthur suddenly realizes that the ball was created and placed
in his bag by Hactar and is actually the working version of the
cosmic-supernova-bomb, and that the defender of the wicket is one of
the Krikkit robots, ready to detonate the bomb once thrown. Arthur
trips, misses the ground, and flies over the pitch, allowing him to
throw the bomb safely aside and behead the robot with its own bat.
Afterward,
the group are taking Arthur to a 'quiet and idyllic planet' when they
come across a half-mad journalist. Some time earlier, he had been
reporting on a court case in which a witness named Prak was
inadvertently given an overdose of a truth drug. Prak began to tell
all truth, horrifying the involved parties so badly that they
abandoned the courtroom and sealed it up with him inside. The group
find him still there, hoping to learn from him the Ultimate Question
of Life, the Universe and Everything. They are disappointed to find
that Prak has told all the truth in existence, but has forgotten it
and kept no record. The only information he can provide is that the
Ultimate Question and its answer can never both be known about in the
same universe. He then attempts to tell Arthur where God's last
message to His creation is, though he dies seemingly before Arthur is
able to memorize the location.
Arthur
ultimately settles on Krikkit, where he becomes a more skillful flier
and learns bird language. He is briefly interrupted by the
arrival of an immortal alien who has made it his goal to insult every
living creature in the universe, but the alien realizes that he has
already done so with Arthur on prehistoric Earth.
