The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (fictional) - Entries

Entries

The Guide's numerous entries are quoted throughout the various incarnations of the Hitchhiker's Guide series. As well as offering background information, the Guide's entries often employ irony, sarcasm and subtle commentary on the action and on life in general. For instance, the entry on the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation describes their marketing division as "a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes", with a footnote to the effect that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking over the post of robotics correspondent. The entry on the villainous Vogons begins, "Here's what to do if you want to get a lift from a Vogon: forget it." The entry on "What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack in the ground underneath a giant boulder you can't move, with no hope of rescue" suggests that first, you "consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your current circumstances seems more likely, consider how lucky you are that it won't be troubling you much longer." Its advice on drunkenness is simply, "Go to it, and good luck", and according to the 2005 film, its entry on love is "Avoid it at all costs".

The Guide tends to focus on certain topics. For instance, if looking for information about sex, the Guide suggests reading "chapters seven, nine, ten, eleven, fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one to eighty-four inclusive, and in fact most of the rest of the Guide." On the Guide's outdated and typo-filled entries (some of which could cause serious injury or death, such as "Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal for visiting tourists," rather than "Ravenous bugblatter beasts often make a very good meal of visiting tourists.") Adams wrote, "...though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does make the reassuring claim that where it is inaccurate, it is at least definitively inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it was always reality that's got it wrong."