Comparing The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy By Douglas Adams

Every Doctor Who fan’s dream is to travel the galaxy with an alien tour guide, meet other aliens, learn things about the galaxy that those back on Earth could only dream of learning, and go on a life changing adventure. So buckle up and grab your suitcase because The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams will take you on the journey of a lifetime through the wacky galaxy. Not only will this book teach you how to travel through the galaxy, but it will also teach you how to survive in the galaxy should Earth ever be destroyed. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is both witty and captivating, which allows the reader to fully submerse himself or herself in the world Adams creates. The novel is an adaptation of Adams’s comedy radio

Anyone who reads The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy can immediately tell that this story is unlike other science fiction novels. Critic Tim Wynne-Jones best describes Adams’s writing style as “[The ability] to turn logic and language on its head in a most entertaining way” (Wynne-Jones). The novel begins by telling a story that is completely unrelated to the actual events that take place throughout the novel (Adams). The writer also deviates from the actual story multiple times, and these jumps away from the story line demonstrate Adams’s comical writing style. In addition to the deviations from the main plot, Adams demonstrates “wise-guy sci-fi” style when he often lessens the importance of large events (Kemp). For instance, missiles nearly hit the group’s spaceship but they avoid their impending doom because of the spaceship’s improbability drive. Rather than spending more time developing the scene and climax, Adams quickly cuts away from it to discuss the short life of a whale in outer space. The quirky digressions and the anticlimactic moments of the novel differ from most science fiction writing styles. While most science fiction is serious and captivating, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is captivating but remains this way because of its humor. According to critic Peter Kemp “what makes this book, […], almost unputdownable is its surreal, comic creativity”