This book has been on my to-read list for decades. I am not sure why I thought it was a long novel. I dimly recall my cousin reading it and it being a brick. Perhaps his edition contained the whole series. In any case, this version that I read was more of a novella.
Apparently it was originally a radio show. What happened to radio shows like this? Do they still do this sort of thing?
The story follows an uninteresting and unintelligent who happens to be drinking buddies with an alien who has been stranded on earth for awhile. Earth is scheduled for demolition, and the alien aware of what's about to happen, decides to bring his drinking buddy with him onboard the ship. Unfortunately, they are not appreciated by the captain and are ejected out of the airlock. Fortunately, they happen to get picked up by an improbability ship on its way to rediscover a kind of El Dorado planet.
There, the reason why earth was created is revealed: it is in fact a computer created to reveal the question that goes to the answer of life which is 42. The earth is created by a mice and humans are important in solving the riddle. When the mice discover that a human being is saved from the planet, they seek to extract his brain to see if they can discover the answer that they've been looking for. Ultimately he escapes.
This book is funny. It's like Monty Python meets science fiction. They did a movie, apparently. What a shame they didn't get Terry Gilliam to do it justice. But maybe I'm selling it short: I haven't even seen it!
My favorite quote would be, "The President is very much a figurehead - he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it." It's definitely food for thought.
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