The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Author: Various contributors
Publisher: Megadodo Publications: one of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor Beta
Source book: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Of course a great many people have read, or listened on the radio to The Hitchhiker’s Guide, but how many have considered that it’s a book (radio show, TV programme, film, play, computer game, towel) that is actually about a rather large fictional book? A wholly remarkable book, never published on earth. A guide book to the Galaxy. For hitchhikers. Which galaxy we don’t exactly know, but presumably the Milky Way which is our local galaxy (if you’re reading this here on Earth).
And of course Ford Prefect was a roving reporter for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He knew how to see the Marvels of the Universe for less than $30 Altarian a day. There must have been many other reporters because space is big... really big.
Naturally The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is in English and not in the language of Betelgeuse Five (where Ford comes from) or Ursa Minor Beta or anywhere else galactic-sounding. Anyone brought up in the Star Trek/Stargate: SG1 tradition knowns that all aliens speak fluent English unless you’re in a prequel where the translator hasn’t yet been perfected (Star Trek). The Guide explains how the Babel fish translates foreign languages, such as Vogon, by living inside your ear, but doesn’t address the problem of written language. I have noticed that in SF universes everyone speaks English (unless you’re watching French TV or similar in which case they speak French or similar) but they frequently have quite a different writing system to the western alphabet used in Hollywood. Probably best not to think too hard about this.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide also features The Celestial Homecare Omnibus and Fifty-three More Things to do in Zero Gravity. But the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is more popular and better selling.
“In many of the more relaxed civilisations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, H2G2 has... supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.
“First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover”.
Plus the Encyclopaedia defines alcohol as a colourless volatile liquid formed by the fermentation of sugars and also notes its intoxicating effect on certain carbon-based life forms. H2G2 gives a detailed recipe for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. Guess which publication is more popular?
If you haven’t ever read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy I suggest you try and get hold of the original and best version: the radio show, which started life on BBC Radio 4. I used to listen to it in bed when I was still at school. What a long time ago that was.
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