Life, the Universe and Everything is the third book in the five-volume Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy science fiction series by British writer Douglas Adams.
The title refers to the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
The story was originally outlined by Adams as Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen to be a Tom
Baker Doctor Who television six-part story, but was rejected by the BBC.
It was later considered as a plotline for the second series of the Hitchhiker's TV series,
which was never commissioned.
A radio adaptation of Life, the Universe and Everything was recorded in 2003 under the
guidance of Dirk Maggs, starring the surviving members of the cast of the original Hitchhiker's
radio series.
Adams himself, at his own suggestion, makes a cameo appearance; due to his death before
production began on the series, this was achieved by sampling his character's dialogue from
an audio book of the novel read by Adams that was published in the 1990s.
The radio adaptation debuted on BBC Radio 4 in September 2004.
Plot summary After being stranded on pre-historic Earth
after the events in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur Dent is met by
his old friend Ford Prefect, who drags him into a space-time eddy, represented by an
anachronistic sofa.
The two end up at Lord's Cricket Ground two days before the Earth's destruction by the
Vogons.
Shortly after they arrive, a squad of robots land in a spaceship in the middle of the field
and attack the assembled crowd, stealing The Ashes before departing.
Another spaceship, the Starship Bistromath, arrives, helmed by Slartibartfast, who discovers
he is too late and requests Arthur and Ford's help.
As they travel to their next destination, Slartibartfast explains that he is trying
to stop the robots from collecting all the components of the Wikkit Gate.
Long ago, the peaceful population of the planet of Krikkit, unaware of the rest of the Universe
due to a dust cloud that surrounded its solar system, were surprised to find the wreckage
of a spacecraft on their planet.
Reverse engineering their own vessel, they explored past the dust cloud and saw the rest
of the Universe, immediately taking a disliking to it and determining it must go.
They built a fleet of ships and robots to attack the rest of the Universe in a brutal
onslaught known as the Krikkit Wars, but were eventually defeated.
Realising that the Krikkit population would not be satisfied alongside the existence of
the rest of the Universe, it was decided to envelop the system in a Slo-Time envelope,
allowing Krikkit to survive long after the rest of the universe has ended; the Wikkit
Gate was the key to the envelope.
However, just before it was activated, one ship, that had been presumably lost, carrying
a troop of robots appeared and began to retrieve the pieces of the Gate after they were dispersed
about space and time.
The three transport to an airborne party that has lasted numerous generations where another
Gate component, the Silver Bail, is to be found, but Arthur finds himself separated
from the others and ends up at a Cathedral of Hate created by a being called Agrajag.
Agrajag reveals that Arthur has killed him countless times before, each time reincarnating
into a new form that is soon killed by Arthur, and now plans to kill Arthur in revenge.
However, when he realises that Arthur has yet to cause his death at a place called Stavromula
Beta, Agrajag discovered he took Arthur out of his relative timeline too soon, and that
killing him now would cause a paradox but attempts to kill Arthur anyway.
In his insanity, Agrajag brings the Cathedral down around them.
Arthur manages to escape unharmed, partially due to learning how to fly after falling and
missing the ground while catching sight of a piece of luggage he had lost at a Greek
airport years before.
After collecting the suitcase, Arthur inadvertently comes across the flying party and rejoins
his friends.
Inside, they find Trillian, but they are too late to stop the robots from stealing the
Bail.
Arthur, Ford, Trillian, and Slartibartfast return to the Bistromath and try to head off
the robots activating the Wikkit Gate.
Meanwhile, the Krikkit robots steal the last piece, the Infinite Improbability Drive core
from the spaceship Heart of Gold, capturing Zaphod Beeblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid
Android at the same time.
The Bistromath arrives too late at the gate to stop the robots, and transport to the planet
to attempt to negotiate with the Krikkit people.
To their surprise, they find that the people seem to lack any desire to continue the war,
and are directed to the robot and spaceship facilities in orbit about the planet.
With Zaphod and Marvin's help, the group is able to infiltrate the facilities and discover
that the true force behind the war has been the supercomputer Hactar.
Previously built to serve a war-faring species, he was tasked to build a supernova-bomb that
would link the cores of every sun in the Universe together at the press of a button and cause
the end of the Universe.
Hactar purposely created a dud version of the weapon instead, causing his creators to
pulverise him into dust, which thus became the dust cloud around Krikkit, still able
to function but at a much weaker level.
Trillian and Arthur speak to Hactar in a virtual space that he creates for them to explain
himself.
Hactar reveals that he spent eons creating the spaceship that crashed on Krikkit to inspire
their xenophobia and incite them to go to war, also influencing their thoughts.
However, when the Slo-Time envelope was activated, his control on the population waned.
As he struggles to remain functional, Hactar apologises to Trillian and Arthur for his
actions before they leave for their ship.
With the war over, the group collects the core of the Heart of Gold and the Ashes, the
only two components of the Wikkit Gate not destroyed by the robots, and returns Zaphod
and Marvin to the Heart of Gold.
Returning only moments after the robots' attack at the Lord's Cricket Grounds, Arthur attempts
to return the Ashes, but is suddenly inspired to bowl one shot at a wicket that is being
defended using a cricket ball in his bag.
However, in mid-throw, Arthur suddenly realises that the ball he had was created and placed
in his bag by Hactar and is actually the working version of the cosmic-supernova-bomb, and
that the defender of the wicket is one of the Krikkit robots, ready to detonate the
bomb once thrown, all this causing him to trip, miss the ground, and allow him to fly.
Arthur is able to throw the ball aside and disable the robot in mid-throw.
In the epilogue the characters are taking Arthur to a 'quiet and idyllic planet' when
they come across a half-mad journalist.
He tells them that he was at a court case and a witness there was given too much of
a truth drug and started to tell all truth, which was driving everybody there mad.
They go to the courtroom in the hope of learning the question of Life, the Universe and everything
is from him.
They discover he is finished and he has forgotten it all.
He then attempts to tell Arthur where God's last message to his creation is, though dies
seemingly before Arthur is able to memorise the location.
In the end Arthur goes to live on the planet Krikkit where he becomes a more skillful flier
and learns bird language.
Origins The creation of Krikkit originally comes from
Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen, a film treatment of the Doctor Who series.
The treatment did not get far and was eventually scrapped.
Elements of Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen were put into Life, the Universe and Everything.
According to Nick Webb, the writer of Adams's official biography, he claimed that, "Douglas's
view of the Krikkitmen would be similar to his view of people who resolutely decline
to learn what science can tell us about the universe we inhabit."
References to the sport of cricket Several of the names and items in the story
are references to terms associated with the sport of cricket, with the effect that the
sport is jokingly portrayed as having cosmic antiquity and significance.
These include the name of the sport itself, the wicket with its three pillars and two
bails, the ball, and The Ashes.
Censorship This book is the only one in the Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy series to have been censored in its US edition.
The word "asshole" is replaced with the word "kneebiter", and the word "shit" is replaced
with "swut".
Possibly the most famous example of censorship is in Chapter 22, in which the UK edition
mentions that a Rory has an award for the Most Gratuitous Use of the Word 'Fuck' in
a Serious Screenplay.
In the US edition, this was changed to "Belgium" and the text from the original radio series
describing "Belgium" as the most offensive word in the galaxy is used.
Audiobook adaptations There have been three audiobook recordings
of the novel.
The first was an abridged edition, recorded in 1984 by Stephen Moore, best known for playing
the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in the radio series, LP adaptations and in the
TV series.
In 1990, Adams himself recorded an unabridged edition, later re-released by New Millennium
Audio in the United States and available from BBC Audiobooks in the United Kingdom.
In 2006, actor Martin Freeman, who had played Arthur Dent in the 2005 movie, recorded a
new unabridged edition of the audiobook.
Stephen Moore and Douglas Adams used the uncensored UK edition of the text, while both the censored
and uncensored versions of the book are available read by Freeman, depending on where they are
purchased.
References