From Publishers Weekly
In this installment of the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy saga, Ford Prefect of the planet Betelgeuse relies on serendipity and his own quick wits to protect a new edition of the Hitchhiker's Guide from the loathsome Vogons. A 12-week PW bestseller in cloth. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Ford Prefect, Arthur Dent, and the usual cast of characters are back in the late Douglas Adams's MOSTLY HARMLESS, an installment of the HITCHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. Adams does a stellar job reading his own words as he captures his own dry wit, wry sense of humor, and gift for overstating the obvious. As each scene unfolds and each character appears, Adams takes great delight in the absurdity of the universe he has created, and his own entertainment comes across brilliantly in the reading. Any fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide will enjoy this turn of events as much as the author's interpretation of his work in this thoroughly enjoyable nugget of mind candy. H.L.S. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

ANNOTATION

The legions of Adams addicts waiting to thumb a new ride down the galactic highway were thrilled with Mostly Harmless, a New York Times hardcover bestseller for three months. Now the trade paperback version carries on the outrageous space odyssey that brilliantly explores new dimensions in cosmic oddity.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

It's very easy to get a little disheartened when your planet has been blown up, the woman you love has vanished in a misunderstanding about the nature of space-time, the spaceship you are on crashes in flames on a remote and Bob-fearing planet and all you have to fall back on are a few simple sandwich-making skills. However, instead of being disheartened, Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life a bit and, immediately, all hell breaks loose. Hell takes a number of forms: there is the usual Ford Prefect form of hell, fresh hell in the form of an all-new version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which behaves in an altogether more mysterious, sinister and airborn manner, and a totally unexpected hell that arrives in the form of a teenage girl who utterly startles Arthur Dent by being his daughter when he didn't even know he had one. Much as Arthur would love to stay in his rural sandwich-making idyll, he is forced to set off on his travels once again, this time on the back of a mysterious Perfectly Normal Beast. Can he save the Earth from total destruction throughout all dimensional probabilities? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save the Grebulons from completely myopic junked-up idiocy? Can he save his daughter Random from herself? Of course not. He never even works out what is going on, exactly. Will you? Mostly Harmless: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Part Five: The book that gives a whole new meaning to the world trilogy.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Ford Prefect, of the planet Betelgeuse, and Earthman Arthur Dent began their whimsical odyssey in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In Adams' latest book, Ford relies on serendipity and his own quick wits to protect a powerful new edition of the Hitchhiker's Guide from the loathsome, sluglike Vogons. Ford's pal, Arthur, misses his planet and his old flame, Tricia McMillan. The rootless traveler from Earth finds his metier, however, on Lamuella, a world whose people subsist on Perfectly Normal Beast. Adams sets a rapid pace that becomes even more hectic when Arthur is unexpectedly joined by Tricia; her peevish teenage daughter; Ford Prefect; and the travel guide to the stars. The book once looked like a hand-held computer; now it takes the shape of a mechanical talking bird. Using new techniques, this floating device can whisk users through space and time. Thus the scene shifts back to Earth, where the past, present and future braid together. Adams may depend too much on the cliffhanger form. But his ingenious wit still captivates, and his characters frolic through the galaxy with infectious joy. (Oct.)

BookList - Donna Seaman

Subtitled: "The Fifth Book in the Increasingly Inaccurately Named Hitchhiker's Trilogy," the latest installment in the intergalactic adventures of Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect is up to Adams' usual high standards of ironic inventiveness. The action whips back and forth between parallel universes, one in which the Earth still exists, and one in which the Vogons have dispassionately obliterated it. On Earth, Tricia, a TV anchorwoman (an astrophysicist until she met an attractive, two-headed alien at a party), is working on a story about the implications of the discovery of a tenth planet, called Rupert, for astrology. Meanwhile, Ford has returned to the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" headquarters to learn that the once hip little publishing company has been taken over by the monolithic and secretive InfiniDim Enterprises. While he reconnoiters forbidden corporate territory accompanied by a giddy, rewired security robot, Arthur is mooning around the universe, selling his sperm and DNA, trying to find a planet he can call find home. He is shocked to find out that he has a daughter, named Random, who he is expected to take care of while her reporter mother goes off to cover a war. Eventually, the space-time continuum warps in such a way as to bring everyone together for a cataclysmic finale. Good, metaphysical fun from one of its primary practitioners.

AudioFile