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Space Fiction: |
 Home  Stars  Planets  Satellites  Galaxies and Nebulae 
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What was it all about? Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked from the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, an alien in human form and researcher for the revised edition of the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. They hitch a ride on a Vogon spacecraft (Vogons from the Galactic Hyberspace Planning Council are handling the demolition job) and embark on their adventures just as Earth is destroyed. So no, it's not based on a true story. Who were the main characters? Arthur Dent; Ford Prefect; the two-headed Zaphod Beeblebrox; Trillian (real name Tricia Macmillan), Zaphod's girlfriend whom Arthur tried to pick up once upon a time zone; Marvin, the paranoid android; and the elderly Slartibartfast. Who wrote it? Douglas Adams, former member of Cambridge Footlights, one-time bodyguard for the Arab royal family and a man determined to come up with something new in the world of science fiction. 'My house is full of sci-fi books,' he once said, 'and I've read 15 pages of lots of them.' How did it come about? In 1971, Douglas Adams, then aged 18, was hitch-hiking his way across Europe armed with a copy of, appropriately enough, The Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe. By the time he reached Austria, he was too drunk and too broke to afford a room at a youth hostel and was reduced to spending the night in a field near Innsbruck. While gazing up at the stars, he thought: 'Somebody really ought to write a Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.' He forgot about the experience for five years until he set about writing a radio science fiction comedy which was going to be titled The Ends of the Earth. Trying to think of a legitimate reason for an alien to visit Earth, he remembered Innsbruck 1971 and decided to make the alien a researcher for The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And the rest, as they say, is history. What's all this about towels? According to the guide: 'A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch-hiker can have.' Special towels were later sold as merchandising to promote the books.
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