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    Life, the Universe and Everything
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    Life, the Universe and Everything
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    Life, the Universe and Everything
    Audiobook5 hours

    Life, the Universe and Everything

    Written by Douglas Adams

    Narrated by Martin Freeman

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    "HYSTERICAL!"
    --The Philadelphia Inquirer
    The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky above their heads--so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals stand between the white killer robots of Krikkit and their goal of total annihilation.
    They are Arthur Dent, a mild-mannered space and time traveler, who tries to learn how to fly by throwing himself at the ground and missing; Ford Prefect, his best friend, who decides to go insane to see if he likes it; Slartibartfast, the indomitable vicepresident of the Campaign for Real Time, who travels in a ship powered by irrational behavior; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-head honcho of the Universe; and Trillian, the sexy space cadet who is torn between a persistent Thunder God and a very depressed Beeblebrox.
    How will it all end? Will it end? Only this stalwart crew knows as they try to avert "universal" Armageddon and save life as we know it--and don't know it!
    "ADAMS IS ONE OF THOSE RARE TREASURES: an author who, one senses, has as much fun writing as one has reading."
    --The Arizona Daily Star


    From the Paperback edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 4, 2006
    ISBN9780739332108
    Unavailable
    Life, the Universe and Everything
    Author

    Douglas Adams

    Douglas Adams, a legend of imaginative fiction, ushered in the advent of comedic science fiction with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The book developed into a hugely successful series of five novels. The Dirk Gently series—Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul—helped cement Adams as one of the most successful and beloved authors in science fiction.

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    Reviews for Life, the Universe and Everything

    4/5

    4,313 ratings73 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Bistromathics = awesome!
      I <3 Marvin
      Trillion Rocks!
    • 3/5
      It was fun, but the series is starting to feel "more of the same". I like the style, but somehow this book wasn't too original, and it is written like an excuse to exercise the style, not like a novel. The plot seems kind of forced and erratic.
    • 5/5
      I listened to this with my nephew during out 8 hour car trip. He gave the highest praise he gives any audiobook - he only asked to skip ahead twice. At least one of those times was purely to annoy me, so it doesn't really count :)

      Martin Freeman's narration makes a wonderful read even better.
    • 3/5
      Feeling pretty similar to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. The writing quality is terrific, but I sometimes feel drunk when reading the book. Coming back to it a few days later seemingly has no bearing on whether I remember the plot or not, but I suppose that's sort of the point.
    • 3/5
      I didn't enjoy this book as much as the first two books but still very enjoyable.
    • 5/5
      Life, the Universe, and Everything - Another fantastic book in the series. I think the third is just as good as the first two. A highlight is the idea that Arthur has killed reincarnated creatures over and over again to the point that it can't possibly be a coincidence (ie: killing a rabbit to make a bag out of its skin, that rabbit being reincarnated as a fly and Arthur killing that fly with the rabbit bag). It's almost impossible to remember all of the amazing ideas that no one else would have in these books. Adams was one of a kind. It's interesting this book introduced almost no new characters, leaving it mainly to Arthur, Ford, Trillian, Zaphod, Slartibartfast and Marvin the Paranoid Android. As it should be.
    • 5/5
      Just brilliant
    • 5/5
      Another great book."I went mad for a while, did me no end of good" Ford Perfect.The knack of flying is learning to throw yourself at the groin and missing.I love the SEP field. You don't need to make something invisible (that is impossible) just make it Someone Else's Problem.He describes how good a song is by how much money is would have made Paul McCarthy.
    • 5/5
      2nd time listening, still so funny. Read by Douglas Adams himself, and so wonderful!
    • 5/5
      Just as good, if not better, than I remembered.
    • 5/5
      This book is billed on the cover as "The Cosmic Conclusion to the Hitchhiker's Trilogy" but as we all know Adams later published So Long and Thanks for all the Fish so it's not really the conclusion. You've got to love a guy who writes four books for a trilogy.
    • 5/5
      Unsurprisingly, I loved it.I'm not sure what there is to say about it, aside from the fact that it is hilarious and beautiful and a perfect follow up to the first two books.
    • 5/5
      In this third installment, some questions were answered while more questions were added. I found out what had happened to some of the crew and much to my relief, they are all still alive. Poor Arthur and Marvin have found themselves in the middle of things they really didn't want to be a part of.

      This book was also full of laughs, adventure and ideas so far out that they actually made some sense considering this is a book that's about the adventures of Marvin, Zaphod, Arthur, Trillian, and Ford as they travel across the Galaxy and often find themselves pulled into helping save it from crazy creatures.

      Arthur learns how to fly...sort of and manages to land in a way that doesn't leave him too bruised. Then just as he seems to be getting the hang of flying on the second try, he's smooshed into a floating building. Don't worry though, he'll be okay and will just have a few bruises to deal with.

      Marvin has one of the most interesting transformations and despite often being left on his own or as the scape goat, comes through for those that he cares about in a way that shocks Zaphod and saves Trillian.

      There are some things revealed in this particular book that had me stumped and I'm hoping the next book will give some insight into the more crazy schemes.

      I'm anxious to see what next Douglas has up his sleeve for his characters and if they will finally be able to live somewhat easy going lives.
    • 3/5
      Life, the Universe and Everything took me longer to read and held my attention less than the first two books in the series. I think that part of this was due to a complicated plot with mysterious white robots showing up everywhere killing people, and characters appearing at various locations, seemingly at random. So, I guess in many ways it is standard fare for the Hitchhiker series: expect the unexpected.

      You have to pay close attention to the details of this story if you want to know what is going on. The payoff though, is that everything will come together in the end in a moment of revelation, when you will finally realize how all of the parts of the story fit. Of course, as soon as you think you understand everything, some other minute details will be thrown in just to keep you wondering. In the case of this story, you almost get an answer to the question of the significance of the number 42.

      If you liked the first two books in the series (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe) then you should like this one too. It is full of new adventures, but with the same fun characters and off-beat humor.
    • 3/5
      I really enjoyed Martin Freeman's reading of this book. He does different voices and sort of acts out the book. It is off the wall and you must read "Hitchhikers Guide" first or you will be lost. This book doesn't always make sense but it is funny and an enjoyable read.
    • 4/5
      Arthur Dent is fairly infuriating but also lovely.
    • 2/5
      Douglas Adams is an example of someone who achieved something so wholly awesome with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that its really hard for anything he does afterward to be quite as good. The second book was not too bad, but I must pronounce myself quite disappointed in the third installment. While it still had some of the characteristic humor, which makes Douglas Adams so fabulous, the really good jokes were a bit further and farther between.

      The plot, such as there was, seemed incredibly slapdash and weak. And often didn't make sense, even unto itself. I kept having to force myself not to skim read, as many of the sections were so boredom-inducing as to make this tempting. How sad is that? Many of the chapters seemed not to connect to the main plot at all. The last chapter especially.

      Nevertheless, this book does have a really great line, one that I stumbled across years ago in my search for wonderful quotes: "He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife." That quote is made of so much win. Also delightful are a couple of recurring gags, like Arthur's mysteriously misappearing and reappearing bags. Or his unintentional repeated murders of one reincarnated soul. Or his courageous defeat of Thor. Seriously, the god Thor. Way to go, Arthur.
    • 5/5
      Audiobook. As much fun as this series is to read, it is even more entertaining in audiobook format. I love the accents and getting to hear the British pronunciation of the words.
    • 5/5
      In this third book in the series Arthur Dent and the other main characters must stop the Masters of Krikkit from destroying the entire universe with the supernova bomb.I like when Arthur accidently teleports to Agrajag's lair and discovers that he has been killing Agrajag over and over again in different forms (fly, rabbit, newt, oyster, etc.). I also like that the Norse God Thor has a part in the story. I'll be reading the fourth in the series next.
    • 4/5
      "Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."Life, the Universe and Everything begins where The Restaurant at the End of the Universe left off with Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect trapped on prehistoric Earth. Just when Arthur decides he will go mad Ford shows up to inform him about strange goings on in the Space-Time Continuum. And it's not just another game of Krikkit, err cricket.The plot on this one meanders and completely strays off course quite often. Those tangents are still clever and some are laugh out loud funny to read.
    • 3/5
      Though I had really enjoyed the first two books in the Hitchhiker's "trilogy," for some reason or another the appeal seemed to dissipate with this one a little bit. Throughout the series I found that Adams really had a tendency to have events happen without really explaining exactly what was going on, but you usually found out directly after. However, there were lots of things that happened in the beginning of this one that really made little sense, and they weren't explained until many chapters later, which is frustrating as a reader.On the bright side, the same sort of humor is still there. The negative is that you (or at least, I) spent so much time trying to figure out what is happening that I kind of glossed over many of the jokes.On the plus side, the idea for the plot of this one is quite good, and once I finally got a hang of what was going on I really enjoyed it, but it took a bit more time to get into it. We find out that there is an intriguing alien race trying to destroy the world by recovering a number of items, and of course it's up to Arthur Dent and friends to stop them. These aliens, the people of Krikkit, are quite interesting as well. It is their fear that causes them to lash out so harshly against whatever is different from them. We, as humans, sometimes experience something very similar, and as scary as it is, some relations can be drawn here.
    • 2/5
      There were some good jokes in here, but definitely a step down in quality from 'Restaurant at the end of the Universe.' Mostly, this story seems to centre around a satirical take on the game of cricket. As everyone knows, cricket is almost impossible to understand as it is, without being further blurred and manipulated as an instrument of fun. Largely impenetrable as far as I was concerned.
    • 5/5
      These books are incredibly hard to review because how do explain the craziness that goes on. You just have to read or in my case listen and enjoy the ride!I love this series and am enjoying them thoroughly!I listened to this on audio so here is a review of the audio portion of this book:The narrator in this one is Martin Freeman who played Arthur Dent in the movie version of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I'm getting used to him but the first one was narrated by Stephen Fry and I did like his narration better.On to, So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish
    • 4/5
      The title says it all. The third book in the series of Douglas Adams. I have to say the idea for the series and the characters are some of the most original work I have ever read. I just wonder how drunk he was when this whole thing started ;-)Dascienceguy.wordpress.com
    • 4/5
      No idea what this book is about,if anything; perhaps it reallyis about everything. Lots of fun,nevertheless.
    • 3/5
      A lacadaisical lark through the universe with the usual suspects, Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, Trillian and Marvin. However, while I continued to enjoy the entertaining and amusing commentary on the situations, the plot was poor and contrived, and the action, while being credibly off-beat, had a continued lacking that the average sci-fi fan will know, of believability. This was not the case with the previous two in the Trilogy of Four, as their 'plot' structure was much less involved with a single event. While good, the focus on a single plot to drive at dragged down what could have been another classic. Average with occasional flashes of brilliance
    • 4/5
      The third Hitchhikers book, featuring the robots from Kricket trying to destroy the entire universe. Not the best of the books. More plotted then the earlier books, this is both a bonus and a down side. The bonus is that, well, you get a more coherent plot. The down side is that you loose the feeling of helplessness and the wonderful feeling that anything, literally anythough, could happen next. Also, the plot is oddly contrived at times. I mean, Trillian knowing just which piece of history to learn about to solve the puzzle? Contrived. Slartibartfast's entire role in this novel was, essentially, a narator, steering the characters along. I did enjoy the book, particularly the second half, if just felt very lapsidasical, like it was half plotted when when someone needed to know something they just magically did, even if they had no reason at all to know that thing, which rather spoilt it a little. So, yes, fun if you don't think to deeply.
    • 5/5
      Third book in the Hitchhiker "trilogy."The inhabitants of planet Krikkit find out that they are not alone in the universe and so they plan to destroy everyone who is not them. Our heroes (Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Slartibartfast, Zaphod Beeblebrox, and Trillian) must try to save the universe from the white killer robots of Krikkit. A few of my favorite parts: Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, who is on a quest to personally insult every individual in the Universe - in alphabetical order; Arthur's flying lessons, where he tries to throw himself at the ground - and miss; Agrajag, who keeps getting reincarnated, only to be accidentally killed, repeatedly, by Arthur.
    • 3/5
      Life, the Universe and Everything is the third book in the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I read the first two book in the series and totally loved them, so I was looking forward to get to the next one. I pick up these books when I need something light and fun to read, and I had high expectations for the book to be entertaining.The book starts with Arthur and Ford Prefect being stuck in prehistoric earth for a number of years, when they are saved by a Chesterfield sofa that transports them to the future. The two of them end up in England in the middle of a cricket game, just a day before the Earth is destroyed by the Vogons. There they meet Slartibartfast and Arthur and Ford find themselves embarking on a mission to save the Universe. During their journey, planet Krikkit is introduced and the characters delve into Krikkit's history to learn how the Krikkiters became xenophobic and their plan to destroy the entire Universe. Ages ago planet Krikkit was imprisoned in a slo-time envelope, however there is a force behind all this and it wants to set Krikkit free.The beginning was was quite vague, but this is normal for these books and I thought it would start to make sense soon. I am disappointed though that this book never really cut it, it is silly to the point that it started to annoy me. The jumping from one thing to another lost me, sometimes it went on and on about something that doesn't have anything to do with the story until it picked up where it left off. There is not much action going on in this book, and it did seem to drag for a while. I am also not happy that my favorite character, Zaphod Beeblebrox, has been pushed to the side and is turned into a sad, much less interesting character. Having said that, the story still has its funny moments, but nowhere as amusing as the previous books. Oh, and good job Marvin is still there to save the day. I am not sure what Adams was thinking when he wrote this book, the first two books were so much fun but this one just doesn't have the edge. It feels like he ran out of ideas when he wrote this one. Nonetheless I will continue to read this series, and hope that the next book will be better!
    • 5/5
      You have to admire a book that answers the question of life, the universe and everything.Of course it can't _also_ give you the question, because if both the ultimate question and the ultimate answer were to exist in the same reality, they would cancel each other out and take the universe with them._Life, the Universe and Everything_ is another delightful joy-ride through the galaxy, full of the same zany exploits and laugh-out-loud humor as the first two books in the series, the _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ and _Restaurant at the End of the Universe_. It opens with Arthur Dent screaming - but not to worry, it's just his everyday first-thing-in-the-morning screaming which he does every time he wakes up and remembers where he is - stranded on prehistoric Earth, living in a cave. He kills a rabbit and makes it's skin into a pouch to carry interesting stones in, and then finally decides he's had enough of this sort of life and resolves to go mad. Just then Ford Prefect, his alien friend who can never seem to desert Arthur for long, shows up, with a plan to get them back to their own time via eddies in the time stream."Oh, he is, is he?" asks Arthur, on whom the entire concept is completely lost.Nevertheless, after chasing a Chesterfield sofa through a meadow, Ford and Arthur manage to travel through time and wind up at a cricket game on present day Earth (or Earth a few days before it's destruction at the opening of _Hitchhiker's Guide_.) Arthur is overjoyed at finally being home again, but it doesn't last long as lethal white robots from the planet Krikkit attack them. It turns out the planet Krikkit has been waging a bloody war against the rest of the universe, trying to kill everyone, and that the game cricket is really the result of a sort of genetic memory past down through the human race (which the rest of the galaxy believes to be in very bad taste.) Arthur and Ford are reunited with Slartibartfast and reluctantly join him on a quest to save the universe from the planet Krikkit and its vendetta against all of creation.Trillian, Zaphod and Marvin all return to take part in the adventure. As well, _Life_ introduces a series of hilarious new concepts, such as Slartibartfast's space ship which runs on "Bistromathic Drive" - on the premise that math used in a restaurant is so wildly different from any other kind of math used anywhere else in reality that when harnessed, it is, in fact, capable of powering and directing a space ship. There is also an immortal alien who has made it his mission to personally insult every living being in the galaxy in alphabetical order, and another alien with a very big grudge against Arthur Dent. Remember the bowl of petunias from _Hitchhiker's Guide_? Remember the poor rabbit Arthur skinned to make a pouch for collecting interesting stones in? There's a problem with the whole reincarnation thing, and this is it.As with all of Adam's books the writing is cheerful and fun, full of hilarious turns of phrase and analogies and moments of clever insight. This book is a fantastic conclusion to the story started in _Hitchhiker's Guide_, and the next book in the series, _So Long and Thanks for All the Fish_, is the perfect coda (but more on that later.) One of my all-time favorites, 5/5 stars.