Resumo de The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Arthur Dent finds Thursdays difficult, especially this one because he is obliged to lie in front of a large yellow bulldozer in order to save his house from being demolished to make way for a new bypass. He is unaware that within a few hours not only his house but also the whole planet will be demolished by the Vogons to make way for a hyperspacial express route. Arthur discovers that his best friend Ford Prefect is not an out-of-work actor from Guildford at all but hails from a small planet near Betelgeuse. Ford has been stranded on Earth for fifteen years while doing research for The Hitch Hiker?s Guide to the Galaxy. His entry reads, ?Mostly harmless?. He has a device called a Sub-Ether Senso-Matic which can detect passing spacecraft. Using his Electronic thumb, Ford hitches Arthur and himself a lift on the spaceship belonging to the Vogon leader, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. Ford places a Babel fish in Arthur?s ear. This enables him to understand alien tongues and despite surviving Vogon poetry they are thrown overboard. Seconds from certain death a hole appears in the Galaxy and they are transported onto the Heart of Gold. This remarkable starship, capable of travelling vast distances in no time at all, has just been stolen by the twin headed, three armed Zaphod Beeblebrox, the newly appointed President of the Galaxy. They are taken to the bridge by Marvin the paranoid android who has a brain the size of a planet but a markedly depressive personality. Surprisingly Arthur finds himself re-united with Zaphod who, when gate-crashing a fancy-dress party in Islington disguised as someone called Phil, had spoiled Arthur?s chances with Tricia McMillan. Tricia, with degrees in maths and astrophysics and now known as Trillian, decided to abandon the dole queue and, taking her pet white mice with her, joined Zaphod. Ford is amused to be reunited with his semi-cousin but irked that Zaphod didn?t bother to rescue him after the party. The Heart of Gold, powered by its Infinite Improbability Drive, takes them to the Horsehead Nebula and Magrathea, the mythical planet lost for five million years and assumed dead, where luxury planets were made to order. Avoiding the planet?s automated defence system the companions land although Trillian?s mice escape. Arthur and Marvin are left on guard. Zaphod and the others explore a tunnel below the surface and quickly succumb to a gas attack. Arthur wanders off and meets Slartibartfast who takes him in his aircar to the centre of the planet and the factory floor where planets were made. Slartibartfast explains that the Magratheans have been awakened and commissioned to build a replacement for the planet. The clients are actually Trillian?s mice, hyper-intelligent pan dimensional beings projected into our dimension. He explains that they are furious because the Earth was destroyed five minutes before it was due to complete its purpose as an organic computer running a ten million year programme to find The Great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. Slartibartfast shows Arthur, via Senso-tape recordings how, many million years previously, Deep Thought, the most powerful computer ever invented took seven and a half million years to provide the answer to The Ultimate Question to Life, The Universe and Everything. When his answer ?Forty Two? was not greeted with delight he promised to design a computer far greater than he that would be able to calculated the Ultimate Question. The computer would be called the Earth and the programme would take ten million years to run. Meanwhile, reviving from the gas attack, Zaphod and the others spend some time viewing Magrathea?s planet catalogue. Zaphod confesses that he has information he doesn?t understand hidden in his brains and also that it was the previous President of the Galaxy, Yooden Vranx, who encouraged him to steal the Heart of Gold. They find themselves at a banquet organised by Trillian?s mice, Benjy and Frankie. Slartibartfast brings Arthur in. Hediscovers that the mice don?t require a new Earth after all because they can withdraw the information they need from Arthur?s brain. He leaves disgruntled because he had originally won an award for Norway and had been looking forward to incorporating fjords into the coastline of Africa this time. The mice are delighted at being transported to Magrathea because it provides them with a gateway to their own dimension but admit that they had become bored with their research and would have dropped it if they hadn?t been offered a lucrative 5D chat-show and lecture tour. They offer Arthur a simple elecronic brain in place of his own. Zaphod considers this to be a fair exchange. The planet?s alarm bells erupt again warning that another spacecraft has landed. It gives Arthur and the others time to escape into a computer bay where they are ambushed by cops from Blagulon Kappa who are out to apprehend Zaphod for stealing the Heart of Gold. Fortunately and unexpectedly their attackers expire. Slartibartfast has left his aircar to enable Arthur and company to escape. They find Marvin waiting for them and discover he had bored the attackers? ship to death thereby severing the cops? life support systems. The Heart of Gold blasts them far from the Horsehead Nebula. Arthur admits to being a little peckish so Zaphod instructs Eddie the ship-board computer to set course for The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

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