Mostly Harmless

by Douglas Adams
by Michelle Lafromboise

“We live in strange times, we also live in strange places: Each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own. Being able to glance out into this bewildering complexity of infinite recursion and saying things like “Oh, hi, Ed! nice tan. How’s Carol?” involves a great deal of filtering skill for which all conscious entities have eventually to develop a capacity in order to protect themselves from the contemplation of the chaos through which they seethe and tumble. So give your kid a break, okay?”
– Excerpt from Practical Parenting In A Fractally Demented Universe

For those of us who have been lucky enough to have read the previous four books in this “trilogy,” Mostly Harmless is one more step in the ongoing craziness of the infamous Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. Once again we are privy to the daily intergalactic lives of Arthur Dent – the last surviving human being (or so he thinks); Ford Prefect – intergalactic employee for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; Tricia McMillan – who has been spending entirely too much time hanging out in the space/time continuum for her own good; and the most disgusting race in the known universe – the Vogons, whose torture technique is to tie people down and subject them to hours of poetry.

Chock full of twisted “coincidences” that will have you rolling on the floor in fits of hysterics, Mostly Harmless is a bizarre and entertaining tale of the utter weirdness that fills our befuddled human brains. Before picking up this crazy piece of writing I would suggest reading these first: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe, and Everything; and So Long and Thanks For All the Fish.