Customer Reviews

The Illustrated Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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First, the good news: this contains the complete Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel, one of the greatest books ever written. Problem is, the photos and art that accompany this particular version only serve to distract the reader and snap him/her out of the fictional dream. Die-hard Adams fans are the only people who will really want this, and then purely as a conversation piece. If you are new to the world of the Guide, you would be better served by getting The Ultimate Hitch-Hiker's Guide, which has the text of this book plus the other four in the series and a short story, and no pictures.

As we all know, the story of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is fantastic, very entertaining to read, and all of that. Since almost everyone who will have arrived at this page will probably have read it alerady, I wil instead comment on the "Illustrated" part of this edition.

First of all, the story was not illustrated with drawings, as one might think. Instead, it was illustrated using pictures taken of elaborate scenes that were set up, with different actors (and puppets, for the Vogons; I don't think anyone would have wanted to be in a Vogon costume) playing the various characters. Douglas Adams even has a part as one of the two policemen that appear near the end of the book. Anyways, the pictures all are very well made, and I think that they illustrate the different scenes very well. The images and the different graphics can be a bit distracting, so it might be better not to have this be the first version of H2G2 that you read. However, once you have read it, and you know that you like it, this is a represntation of the story that is very fun to read. In short, I would not recommend this book as your first introduction to H2G2, but it is extremely fun to read once you already know what is going on, if such a thing is possible.

The story :

It's a thursday when the earth get's destroyed to make space

for a new hyperspace highway. The human Arthur Dent and

his friend, Ford Prefect from the Planet Beteigeuze, are

flagged up to the Vogon spaceship. From now on begins a

crazy travel through the Universe (and beyond) ...

Specials about this book:

If you are a real Douglas Adams fan, you MUST own this book.

The whole story is described with funny looking pictures,

and even Adams itself has a guest-role.