Life, the Universe and Everything
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 U.S. first edition cover of Life, the Universe and Everything. |
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| Author | Douglas Adams |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Peter Cross (U.S. hardcover) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy |
| Genre(s) | Science Fiction |
| Publisher | Pan Books, UK; Harmony Books, U.S. |
| Released | 1982 UK, 1983 U.S. |
| Media type | Paperback and hardcover |
| Pages | 160 (UK Paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-330-26738-8 |
| Preceded by | The Restaurant at the End of the Universe |
| Followed by | So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish |
Life, the Universe and Everything (1982, ISBN 0-345-39182-9) is the third book in the five-volume Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. The title refers to the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
The story was originally outlined by Adams as Doctor Who and the Krikketmen to be a Tom Baker Doctor Who television six-part story, but was rejected by the BBC.[1] It was later considered as a plotline for the second series of the Hitchhiker's TV series, which was never commissioned.
A radio adaptation of Life, the Universe and Everything was recorded in 2003 under the guidance of Dirk Maggs, starring the surviving members of the cast of the original Hitchhiker's radio series. Adams himself, at his own suggestion, makes a cameo appearance; due to his death before production began on the series, this was achieved by sampling his character's dialogue from an audio book of the novel read by Adams that was published in the 1990s. The radio adaptation debuted on BBC Radio 4 in September 2004.
This book is the only in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series to have been censored in its U.S. edition. An extensive but still incomplete list of the changes between the two versions can be found on an archived web page (warning: contains spoilers). Possibly the most famous example of censorship is in Chapter 21, which in the UK edition mentions that a Rory was an award for the most gratuitous use of the word fuck in a serious screenplay. In the US edition, this was changed to "Belgium" and the text from the original radio series describing "Belgium" as the most offensive word in the galaxy is reused. It should further be noted that translations of this novel, and the 2004 radio series, derive from the UK edition ("Scheisse" ["shit"] is used in the German edition, and "f**e" in the Romanian, for example), and thus omit the description of "Belgium."
[edit] Plot summary
Stranded on pre-historic Earth, the unfortunate Arthur Dent decides to spend his time to the fullest by going insane. Just as he makes this decision he is sidetracked by the sudden reappearance of his old friend, Ford Prefect. Prefect pulls him through an eddy in the space-time continuum (cleverly disguised as an anachronistic sofa) and into Lord's Cricket Ground a day before the Vogons are to destroy the Earth. Unfortunately, the pitch is about to be the scene of a shocking act of intergalactic terrorism. A ship lands and a squad of robots steals The Ashes while wreaking havoc in what seems to be an obscene parody of cricket. Slartibartfast, former award-winning designer of fjords, arrives too late to stop the violence, but asks Ford and Arthur to help him.
On Slartibartfast's ship, powered by the awe-inspiring Bistromathic drive, Arthur learns the history of Krikkit. Long ago, the inhabitants of Krikkit were a quaint, peaceful people. Their planet and sun had been encircled by an immense dust cloud as long as they could remember; since they couldn't see the stars, they had never considered the possibility of life outside their home. When a spaceship screamed through the dust cloud and crash-landed on Krikkit, the Krikkiters were traumatised beyond words. After confirming the existence of a universe outside of their dust cloud, the only course of action, they decided, was to build a fleet with which to destroy it. They launched a fleet of warships and robots to slaughter every other species; they were defeated after a long and bloody war and the people of Krikkit were sentenced by galactic judge Judiciary Pag to be sealed within a Slo-Time envelope until the rest of the universe died out naturally. (The British sport of cricket, as it turns out, came about as the result of a vague interspecies collective unconscious memory; everyone else in the universe with knowledge of the Krikkit Wars is quite disgusted by how the humans turned it into a sport.)
Somehow a lone Krikkit warship has escaped the envelope and is looking for the three stumps and two bails that will form the Wikkit Gate; this is the key that will unlock the Slo-Time envelope and release the Krikkiters to complete their genocidal mission.
While pursuing the Krikkit ship, Arthur is somehow diverted to a dark cave where an angry creature confronts him. This creature, who calls himself Agrajag, claims to have been killed by Arthur hundreds of times in various reincarnations. E.G: He was a rabbit killed by Arthur on prehistoric Earth; he was a fly swatted by Arthur; he died of a heart attack when Arthur materialised in the middle of a cricket match he was watching; he was the bowl of petunias suddenly called into existence several miles above the surface of Magrathea, etc. After many of these deaths, he began to notice that the person who dispatched him looked familiar and eventually formed a consciousness that spanned his various lives. Agrajag finally managed a reincarnation in one final hideous form and constructed a Cathedral of Hate for the specific purpose of finally killing Arthur. While recounting his many murders at Arthur's hands, he briefly mentions an assassination attempt on Arthur, in a place called Stavromula Beta. Apparently, the attacker shot at Arthur, who ducked, and the bullet hit another form of Agrajag. Arthur stammers that he's never been to Stavromula Beta, and Agrajag realises that he's brought Arthur to the Cathedral too soon; Arthur cannot be killed until he has been to Stavromula Beta. He attempts to kill Arthur anyway, and suffers yet another accidental death at Arthur's hands. While fleeing from the collapsing cave, Arthur discovers the knack of flying: being able to throw yourself at the ground and miss. He soars jubilantly until he is hit in the small of his back by a flying party, where he rejoins Ford and Slartibartfast. The party is the location of the "Silver Bail" portion of the key, which is also lost to the robots.
The group completely fails to stop the Krikkit war party from reconstructing the Key and opening the envelope. However, the Krikkiters seem to have lost their bloodthirstiness over the centuries. As it happens, the dust cloud was actually the pulverised remains of Hactar, a supercomputer built by the Silastic Armorfiends. Hactar was originally tasked by the warlike Armorfiends with creating a weapon of ultimate destruction that would cause every sun in the universe to go supernova simultaneously. Shocked, Hactar did as asked but designed a small flaw into the device. It hoped that when the weapon failed to destroy all of existence, the Armorfiends would see the folly of their ways and turn to a life of peace. Instead, they blasted Hactar into molecules before finding entirely new ways of killing each other. Hactar's construction was such that every molecule retained a bit of its "consciousness", however, and even in its unconventional state was still functional. As the Armorfiends died out and gave way to the peaceful Krikkiters, Hactar resolved to complete its original task. Through centuries of subtle influence, it guided the psychological development of the inhabitants of Krikkit before fabricating a mockup of a ship to inspire their xenophobia. In the wake of the original Krikkit Wars, however, the Slo-Time envelope blocked Hactar's influence and allowed the Krikkiters to return to their peaceful ways.
With the universe seemingly saved, Ford, Arthur and Slartibartfast return The Ashes (which had been, as the Wooden Pillar of Nature and Spirituality, part of the Wikkit Gate). Arthur can't resist his only opportunity to bowl a ball at Lord's; he finds a red ball in his pouch and a batsman obligingly stands before a wicket. As he begins to bowl, time slows and he realises several things. First, the odd sensation he had in his pouch while talking to Hactar, and that the ball really was the supercomputer's doomsday device supplanting the one that had fallen in his bag when he first arrived at Lords, planted there by Hactar. Second, the batsman is in fact a Krikkit robot, and if it manages to strike the ball, it will detonate the bomb and destroy the universe. Distracted by all of these thoughts, Arthur trips, forgets to hit the ground and goes sailing off, sending the weapon sailing harmlessly off into the distance.
Life, the Universe and Everything is the last book in the series to feature the characters of Zaphod Beeblebrox and Slartibartfast.
[edit] Audiobook adaptations
There have been three audiobook recordings of the novel. The first was an abridged edition, recorded in the mid-1980s by Stephen Moore, best known for playing the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in the radio series, LP adaptations and in the TV series. In 1990, Adams himself recorded an unabridged edition, later re-released by New Millennium Audio in the United States and available from BBC Audiobooks in the United Kingdom. In 2006, actor Martin Freeman, who had played Arthur Dent in the 2005 movie, recorded a new unabridged edition of the audiobook. Of further note, Stephen Moore used the censored U.S. edition of the text, while Adams and Freeman used the uncensored UK edition for their recordings.
[edit] References
- ^ Gaiman, Neil; Dickson, David K; Simpson, M. J (2003-10-01). "Appendix V: Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen", Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 3rd Edition, Titan Books ltd. ISBN 1-84023-501-2.
