Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams

In the fifth volume of the Hitchhiker series, Random, the daughter of Arthur Dent, leaves her remote home planet on the edge of the universe to set out a cross-galactic odyssey in search of her ancestors' native planet.

This book lacks the lightness and zaniness of the previous Hitchhiker books. I basically read it because I wanted to see how the whole thing ended, and now I know. Probably should have stopped at “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish”.

Of all the books in the Hitchhiker's series, this one seems the darkest. There is a weird cynicism presented throughout which says, yes terrible things are happening in the universe and only the main characters seem to care. In this particular case, it's the wild and crazy Ford Prefect.

I might have forgotten about this book deliberately and pretended the series ended with Life, the Universe, and Everything if only because that would wrap up things for Arthur nicely, taking him from passive tourist to active participant in saving the galaxy.

Still, I like this book. Adams can't really write a bad one; all the humor and bizarre story stuff is there. The bits with Arthur and his daughter are interesting, though I have a lot of questions about the character motivation on Trillian's part that never get resolved. Selfishly having a daughter with Arthur's DNA and without his permission, then sticking the responsibility on him seems out of character, but then we never learned much about her anyway. We get more here, with the story of her life in an alternate reality where she does not go off with Zaphod.

If you're a die hard fan, it's an entertaining book to read. If you're casually interested in the old Hitchhiker's phenomenon, this one's skippable.

Incredibly slow for the first half but eventually picks up and then finishes quite abruptly. Some funny and clever stuff but not on par with the earlier books in the trilogy, imo.