The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

This is easily one of the funniest books I’ve ever read, but this novel (and the series as a whole, although I have mixed feelings about the later books) contains some of the most imaginative places, species, inventions, and characters I’ve ever seen.

Even some of the one-off side characters that are little more than a passing joke are obnoxiously original and could star in their own stories as easily as Arthur Dent does in this one. I’m hard-pressed to think of a more creative, absurd, and wide-reaching book than Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Oh, what’s not to love? Space travel, poetry writing aliens, a criminal galactic president, the end of the world, a depressed robot … this book has it all, and I reread it (and the other 4 volumes in the trilogy, yes, trilogy) every year or so.

This is a fun escape, I discovered this volume as a kid, fell in love with it, and it’s my favorite book still to this day all these centuries later.

No list of funny sci-fi books would be complete without this book, the grandfather of humorous SF. I like underdogs, and as I mentioned above, Arthur Dent is the quintessential underdog. In fact, he’s almost too browbeaten to love, but he manages to come through in the end.

But the best parts of Adams’s famous book (and series) are the insanely ridiculous planets and circumstances Dent encounters. When I’m looking for something really silly, I reread this book.

Technically, this book is science fiction instead of fantasy–aliens, spaceships, planet-hopping, check. But Adams isn’t particularly interested in the science or the predictive aspects as he is in finding a backdrop for his hilarious satire. His phrasing is so deft, his jokes so devastating that people are quoting him decades later. They’re still some of the funniest books ever written.

But there’s a bitter wounded heart under it all that comes out in a wistful strain of melancholy, which makes it all ring true. It’s funny because it has something deep and urgent to say about humans and our nature.… show more.

The whimsy and humor of this book make it an easy choice to round out an otherwise serious list! An engrossing story lurks behind the comedy, which is no doubt why this book has transcended generations and cultures to persist as a worldwide fan favorite.

The truth is that we have no idea what humanity’s first encounter with aliens will look like, even if Arthur Dent’s experience with the bureaucratic Vogons is a little more tongue-in-cheek than those in our more “serious” picks.

It’s a strange confession to make, but after my formative reading of this book, I can’t help but feel there’s something mystical about the number ‘forty-two.’ As you remember, ‘forty-two’ is the computer Deep Thought’s answer to the question, "What’s it all about, life, the universe, and everything?".

It fits Adams’ skepticism that this baffling ultimate answer sends everyone back to rethinking what the ultimate question might be. It’s questions, not answers, that count here.

Adams simply makes me laugh, or rather complexly makes me laugh. Depressive Marvin, the paranoid android, with his "brain the size of a planet"; the… show more.

In my experience, long-form humor writing often loses its whammy before the finish line. It becomes tired or repetitive. Satire as well: cynicism can curdle when presented at length.

But not this book and its many sequels (a trilogy of five, says the author). This is a delirious, Monty Pythonesque satire of all things bureaucratic, philosophical – even sci-fi itself. Example: At the end of Chapter 3 of this first volume, Earth is destroyed by the Vogons, government flunkies of an alien species (and the universe’s worst poets) to make way for a hyperspace expressway.

My friends and I would… show more.

It was already a cult classic when I heard of it, and as a college student it was a must read.

The humour is weird, the science even weirder, and it has everything I enjoy in a science fiction story. Aliens? Check. Space travel? Check. Spaceships? Check. A restaurant at the end of the universe? What? Shouldn’t every sci-fi story have one? Well, probably not.

This is the first of four books in this trilogy. No, that’s not an error. That’s what it says on the book.

Hitchhiker began life as a BBC Radio series. And a lot of credit should go to Douglas’s writing partner, John Lloyd. After ten months on the scripts, Douglas knew that he needed help. He and John got the last two scripts done in two weeks.

John went on to become our generation’s leading comedy producer (Not the Nine O’clock News; Blackadder; Spitting Image; QI; The Museum of Curiosity). So, if you love the Hitchhiker books — who doesn’t? — give yourself the treat of listening to the original radio series. As the old saying goes, the pictures are better… show more.

The Hitchhiker series showed me how “way out” a novel could go.

As a comedian, I loved discovering that novels don’t have to be dry, dreary, and humorless. You know, like Congress. I’ve been accused of having an imagination and Douglas Adams’ books took my imagination and made it do tricks and backflips.