In the interstellar literature of the last decades, two are the authors who best summarize science fiction, entertainment, adventure and various touches that can range from humor to the transcendental intention of the CiFi musings.
The first of those listed is John Scalzi, but justice is to cite his predecessor, from whom he surely involuntary took over in the genre of literature towards the stars. And this initial reference is the one that has already disappeared Douglas Adams that made surrealism, humor and fast-paced adventure a perfect melting pot full of science fiction about the earth and the extraterrestrial.
In the strictly narrative, Douglas Adams is known for his saga "the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy." Although if there was something in this work, it was precisely to recover that point dramatized by Orson Welles on the novel War of the Worlds de HGWells.
In the end, the work surpassed his initial idea for radio and the book version with its five replicas was the great international success of the author.
Top 3 Recommended Books by Douglas Adams
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Even if it is only to revere a work that continues to awaken echoes every May 25 with el towel dayIt is time to put this first plot at the top of the podium.
It never hurts to know that a bad day may come when we ourselves, embodied in Arthur Dent, have to face the forced expropriation of our world, starting with our home to make way for an interstellar highway and ending with an entire planet that hinders the expansionist objectives of the cruel Vogons. Writing a crazy story is pretty easy. Making everything make sense in the chaos, making the grotesque characters from here and there, from more or less distant stars seem endearing or hateful, is already more complicated. And deep down, the idea of ​​the human Arthur Dent in the search for the transcendent, for the meaning of life.
Because the Earth, honestly, will be reduced to ashes as soon as we start, so that we do not immediately think that it is about heroes determined to save the blue planet. And of course, launched on the adventure of a hitchhiker without a planet of his own, surrounded by extravagant characters from all over the cosmos, what happens can only be an uncontrolled adventure to learn the truth beyond the trompe l'oeil of the Universe.
The end of the world restaurant
Considering that all of the above was reduced to ashes, that our world matters not a damn for a gigantic cosmos full of possibilities, the reading order of this saga matters the same.
The point is to get to know Arthur Dent and his band, a group that is constantly growing, pushed by the messianic will of that human determined to achieve God knows what knowledge. Moved by places plagued by magical decadence immersed in the slow rhythm of timeless spaces, we do not stop smiling at the delirious situations that the band faces, to make sense of the nonsense, to discover in the new worlds less and less coherence. It is likely that God does not exist, or anything like him. And then the absurdity of the big bang emerges as the only cause of so many blunders.
In the restaurant at the end of the world, perhaps bordering that black hole where everything is being consumed towards the most logical nature of antimatter, our protagonists will enjoy a last menu before discovering the pathetic essential nature of the human. Because the answers that appeared without questions make it clear that beyond Adam and Eve, it may be that the arrival of humans to the extinct Earth was something worse than the loss of some friends at a bachelor party.
Report on Earth (fundamentally harmless)
Fifth part of the trilogy, as indicated in its promo at the time. In a way it makes sense because the trilogy was turned off before a quarter that weakened something (that «Goodbye, and thanks for the fish«) And was resurrected with this final work that recomposed the volume with its deserved glory.
Because in the insane proposal there was always some reflexive intention (like all CiFi work on the other hand). And in that mix between laughter and the sediment towards thought, Douglas Adams knew how to trace paths perhaps never before explored by other greats of Science Fiction. Or perhaps it is that the starting point of the delirious serves the reader to look out at doubts and great enigmas from another chromatic point of the prism. Much has happened since the Earth was taken out of the way for the stellar bypass of the day.
And the last Earthling we know, Arthur, may no longer be so convinced about seeking revenge or gaining knowledge. But for us readers, new doubts arise about the great characters of what was our world or about the origin of the life that we knew before our planet was tamped to re-pave the cosmos...
