The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Douglas Adams.

ISBN 0-671-53264-2

Read in two weeks ending 1993 April 18 on loan fro Vicki Salmon of Lamppost’s at Pasadena Covenant.

The centerpiece of this sequel to “Hitchhiker’s Guide…” is a visit to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe which occurs when Zaphod instructs Eddie (the Heart of Gold computer) to get them to the nearest place to eat. This happens to be, millions and billions of years in the future, right there on Frogstar 2 where Zaphod has been brought to be wrung through the infinite Perspective Vortex, usually fatal, but not in Zaphod’s case since it was all a simulation just for him. Well, anyway, the Restaurant is not at the Edge of the Universe but at the End, the time of the “gnab-gib” (opposite of “big bang”) when it all … ends. Utilizing time turbines, the eatery rocks back and forth across the end of time while all sorts of improbable things happen for the various seatings of guests who have traveled through time for the event. Frogstar itself is in some kind of bubble that keeps it from ending…. Hmmmm….

During the festivities of our seating, we also meet Hotblack Desetic, the lead guitarist of the group Disaster Area whose accountants have written theses on the Special and General theories of hyperincome. He’s not very talkative however, he’s dead for a year, the sentence for some sort of hypertax evasion. Nevertheless, he’s taken to his next concert on some planet far even in our own past. (Before the destruction of the earth by the Vogons, you’ll remember. Actually this was a conspiracy of psychiatrists who, if the Answer were known, would be out of a cushy job). And our party ends up stowing away on a stunt ship destined for their star (and their star surfers). The best way to enjoy Disaster Area, whose speakers are the size of Manhattan and whose instruments are played from orbit… of another planet, is from concrete bunkers 37 miles away.

I should think.

Well, in a daring escape from the stunt ship, which apparently fries our Manic Depressive robot Marvin, Ford and Arthur end up in a spaceship carrying all of the bureaucrats (1/3^rd of the population) of some planet on a self destructive mission. This is because the other 2/3^rds sent them off first, predicting a planetary disaster, then stayed behind in perfect bliss until…

A lot of loose ends are left out there, the biggest of which is that Ford and Arthur manage to figure out the cryptic imprint in Arthur’s brain: “What do you get when you multiply six and nine?”

No, that doesn’t make forty-two. Stay tuned?