Life, The Universe And Everything!

Douglas Adams wrote a conclusion to the Hitchhiker's Guide to Universe series with Life, the Universe and Everything in 1982. This story has an origin unlike any of the other Hitchhiker novels in that it began as a Doctor Who adventure titled "Doctor Who and the  Krikkitmen". When that didn't develop the elements of this story were then translated into the third Hitchhiker yarn. As such this novel has much more plot than its two predecessors which are more gambols than true novels given a radio play origin. One can tell from the get-go that this book knows where its heading, though as with any Adams work it is possible it might not get there. 

Our heroes Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect are gathered together from Earth's prehistoric past by Slartibartfast to confront the menace of the Krikkit robots who are gathering various items from across space to combine into a great key which will unlock a pocket universe in which live the people of the planet Krikkit. These chaps are properly mad, who having seen evidence of life outside their world for the first time proceed to eradicate all such life in a jihad of sorts across the whole of the universe. To that end they develop a weapon that can end all life but are locked up before they can use it. We follow Arthur Dent when he is cut off from his allies and must confront the lifeform which once inhabited the bowl of petunias destroyed in the first novel, among other things. Eventually all the protagonists are gathered together as they lose the effort stop the Krikkit robots but then it is up to Trillian to save the day.

 

I'm being a bit more vague about this story because unlike the previous two yarns, the plot does actually matter. The loveliness of the original story is that we know all along that the events are in and of themselves meaningless, which speaks to the nihilism of the book, though that is ultimately rejected. What you do in the Hitchhiker universe doesn't really matter, because things only make sense rhetorically. This novel is different in that the events must happen as they do for any of the story the work. As it turns out of course this third part of the trilogy is hardly the end. Part four is looming next time. 

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