I've recently picked up The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy again in an attempt to actually finish out the series. Now, I'm more-or-less familiar with the way the story works out, to a certain extent, mostly because I've listened to a majority of the radio series. However, with Restaurant officially finished I've crossed the threshhold from radio-based to originally-book storylines.Just to add a little context, the first Hitchhiker's storyline came out through a radio series in 1978; a second season/series aired in 1980. These two together form the events found in the pages of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. The books were released in 1979 and 1980, respectively.
In the interim between the radio broadcasts and the books' publication, Adams tweaked the storyline a bit. Admittedly I was a bit nervous when I first heard that the radio and books weren't the same in all spots. Would it be possible to keep the stories straight? Would one potentially ruin the other?
Of course, as the case usually seems to be with Adams, it all works out for the better. While I love the radio medium, and all the creative insanity it allows, the first two Hitchhiker's series got rather jumbled rather quickly. After the revelation about the mice and Earth's purpose (I'll try not to give anything away) the story gets very confusing. It's difficult to keep track of who's where and when, how people get from point A to point B, and even what's going on at points A and B, and how point C fits into everything. And, at times, it almost lacks in comprehensible detail. Something might be explained, or not, and even the explanation doesn't make sense in the whole grand scheme of the inaptly-named Trilogy in Five (now Six) Parts.
I'd like to think Adams picked up on this as well, and he had a chance to reorganize the story a little bit. He expanded and developed certain parts that were working well, reshuffled the characters to give more of a believable sequence of events, and indeed reorganized and trimmed out parts of the plot. In other words, certain parts appear only in the book, and other parts appear only in the radio series. All in all, though, they shake out and join up to meet Life, the Universe, and Everything. It's like Adams' own description of history, as spoken by Ford Prefect: "History is never altered you see, it just fits together like a jigsaw."
As far as which I prefer: honestly, both are fairly equal in merit. On the one hand, I'm a purist and wholeheartedly support a work in its original medium. I love audio, and the voices fit perfectly with the characters. I know there was a movie that came out a few years back, but as far as I'm concerned the only Arthur Dent is Simon Jones, and the only Ford Prefect is Geoffrey McGivern. (to hear both more-or-less side by side, take a listen here)On the other hand, the books are much more detailed, especially in visual nuances that are unfortunately impossible in an audio-exclusive medium. Besides, Adams just has a way of describing things in an offbeat, deadpan, occasionally sensitive, and overall epic manner.
[Zaphod's grandfather's] two small wispy-haired heads looked so ancient that
it seemed they might hold dim memories of the birth of the galaxies
themselves.
Arthur Dent was grappling with his consciousness the way one grapples
with a lost bar of soap in the bath.Nevertheless, like every other parking lot in the Galaxy throughout the
entire history of parking lots, this parking lot smelled predominantly of
impatience.I mean, where else would you find that sort of thing?
Ideally, I would mix the auditory awesomeness of the characters with the detail and description of the books, but as that's not exactly possible, I'm perfectly content with giving equal merit to both and with going between the two for froody satisfaction.
