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Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams was born in Cambridge in March 1952. He was creator of all the various manifestations of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Douglas died unexpectedly in May 2001 of a sudden heart attack at the age of 49.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Synopsis
The second book in Douglas Adams's "trilogy in five parts" picks up with Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, and the perpetually gloomy robot Marvin still hurtling through a hostile and ridiculous universe. Hungry, hunted, and short on options, they set their sights on Milliways — the Restaurant at the End of the Universe — where diners enjoy a five-star meal while watching all of creation come to its spectacular finale.
Getting there is another matter. Between a stolen spaceship, an encounter with the man who secretly rules the galaxy, and Zaphod's tangled quest to understand his own scrambled memories, the crew stumbles from one cosmic absurdity to the next. Along the way Adams skewers bureaucracy, celebrity, marketing, and the very idea of ruling anything at all.
Sharper and even stranger than its predecessor, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is comic science fiction at its most inventive.
Collected in
Genres
Characters
Arthur DentProtagonist
The last surviving Earthman, still baffled by the galaxy around him.
Ford PrefectSupporting
Arthur's alien friend and Guide researcher.
Zaphod BeeblebroxSupporting
The two-headed ex-President, chasing the secret of who really rules the universe.
MarvinSupporting
The Paranoid Android, brilliant and endlessly despairing.
TrillianSupporting
Earth refugee turned astrophysicist and the sole other human survivor, part of the crew aboard the Heart of Gold.
Frequently asked questions
Is The Restaurant at the End of the Universe a sequel?
Yes. It's the second book in Douglas Adams's "trilogy in five parts," continuing directly from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was first published in 1980 and follows Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, and Marvin as they head for Milliways, the titular restaurant at the literal end of the universe.
Do I need to read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy before this one?
Yes. The story picks up immediately where the first book left off, with the same crew fleeing the same immediate danger (a Vogon attack after escaping Magrathea), so it's best read as book 2 rather than on its own.
Who narrates the audiobook?
Martin Freeman, who also played Arthur Dent in the 2005 film adaptation, narrates the unabridged audiobook editions of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
