The Original Hitch Hiker Radio Scripts (1985)

     Douglas Adams The Original Hitch Hiker Radio Scripts (1985) The whole lot, including bits snipped to shorten the scripts to the mandatory 29 minutes 30 seconds. I bought this book in 1986, and it promptly disappeared into Jon’s library in the spare bedroom. Marie found it recently when she was dusting the book shelves, so I finally got to read it. It was worth the wait.
     As we all know, Arthur Dent and his friend Ford Prefect (actually an alien from a small planet near Betelgeuse) manage to hitch a ride minutes before a Vogon space constructor fleet demolishes Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass. The subsequent episodes detail their rescue by a ship powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive, meeting Ford’s semi-cousin Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian (an astrophysicist and the only other Earth survivor), Marvin the depressed robot, and so on. The central trope is the search for the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. Throughout, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy informs Arthur (and us) of various background stories needed to make what sense we may of the impossible events that the five adventurers survive (but only just).
     The first six episodes were made into the TV series that introduced me and (probably) millions of other people to the Guide. Adams used the latter six when he wrote the Hitch Hiker’s trilogy of four books. The different media versions differ in detail, and occasionally in story-line, but throughout we have the picaresque quest, and Adams’ amazing ability to make deep philosophical and scientific conundrums intelligible via jokes. And it all makes the kind of absurd logical sense that only the English, it seems, are able to convey.
The book includes notes on each episode by the producer Geoffrey Perkins with interpolations by Adams. ****