We are introduced to Arthur Dent an ordinary human whose house is about to be demolished. He has a friend named Ford Prefect who looks like human but is from another planet. Ford is hitchhiker who travels the galaxy but has been stuck on Earth for years. He finds Arthur lying in front of his house and takes him away, tells him that aliens called Vogons are going to destroy the Earth in a few minutes!
Vogons destroy the Earth but Arthur and Ford manage to board the Vogon spaceship. Vogons find them and throw them out into space. At the same time, there is a new spaceship called ‘Heart of Gold’, the most advance spaceship of the time using improbability. They are saved by this ship, another important character Zaphod Beeblebrox, a thief, the president of the galaxy and also Ford’s relative is on the ship. Trillian a women we later learn is also human is with him, with a robot named Marvin who acts like a highly depressed human being.
They land on a planet called Magrathea which looks deserted. The planet used to be very rich but it has been sleeping for a long time. We meet an old man called Slartibartfast, he explains the history of Magrathea and Earth.
We learn that some creatures build a computer called ‘Deep Thought’ because they wanted to find out the answer to life and the universe. This takes 7.5 million years and gives the answer 42! They don’t understand this so they design the Earth which is also a computer to find out more…
10 million years past but Vogons destroy Earth 5 minutes before the answer comes out. We learned that mice are powerful and that they want to buy Arthur’s brain. Arthur and his friends escape the book ends but the story doesn’t. The book is followed the second book in the series…
THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY 