Life, the Universe, and Everything

After plowing through Kvothe's adventure, Douglas Adams' Life, The Universe, and Everything was just the palate cleanser I needed before moving back into more dense literature.

This book was a lot of fun. I liked it way more than The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I think a big part of this was that this book actually had a plot. The universe is about to end. So Arthur Dent and friends must reconvene in order to save it.

Okay, so Dent spends the majority of the book majorly confused and sort of passively going along with anything that happens to him. But since I was almost as confused, it was nice that people kept stopping to explain things to him. The convoluted history of one war-mongering species inadvertently leading to the extreme xenophobic tendencies of a second species many years later was lots of fun to read about. And the way this ancient war manifested itself as Cricket was the icing that made this a Hitchhiker's cake.

I was a little disappointed that we got the answer to why the bowl of tulips thought "Not again" back in the first book. I didn't expect that mystery to ever be solved and part of me wishes it hadn't. Knowing the answer, I'm not sure I understand anything more than I used to. But this is ultimately a silly book and details like that don't matter too much.

At any rate, I liked this installment a lot more than the last one. I may have even liked it more than the first book. Maybe.

And this series continues to be just what my brain needs after a marathon of epic fantasy.

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