Re: FILL

>      Can someone please fill me in on this hitchicker thing?  What exactly is
> it about? I wanna know.
>                                                   Sentinel

     The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy began as a radio play on BBC radio
written by Douglas Adams.  Douglas Adams, writer of humorous books, teacher
of computers at Cambridge, user of a Mac, former script editor for Dr. Who
says he originally thought up this series whilst lying, mildly drunk, in a
field in Innsbruck.  He had bee travelling thru Europe with a copy of the
Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe and was thinking, why didn't someone write a
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Anyway, years later he wrote, it aired,
people liked it, it became a series of books, television series, record
album, and soon to be motion picture (soon to be since 1979) which all more
or less contradict each other.
     The basic layout is as follows: Arthur Dent. A somewhat less tha average
englishman knows a friend, Ford Prefect, who Arthur thinks is from Guilford
but is actually from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelguese.  Anyway
amid the Earth being demoloshed to make way for a new hyperspace by-pass,
Arthut and Ford hitch a ride on a ship with the Vogon Destructor Fleet and
get spaced, stranded, well fed, confused, and generally ignored.
     It's probably one of the most satirical books ever written and is the
cornerstone for all sci-fi comedy.  If the Introduction in the book doesn't
get you hooked or at least curious, you probably won't get the rest of the
series, which incidentally is comprised of:
     The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
     The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
     Life, the Universe, and Everything
     So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish
     Mostly Harmless
     and the forthcoming Salmon of Doubt

...also by Douglas Adams:
     Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
     The LonG, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently)
     The Meaning of Liff
     The Deeper Meaning of Liff (both with John Lloyd)
     Last Chance to See with Mark Carwardine
     and The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts

     also included in the More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
(the hardback compilation of the 1st 4 books in the trilogy) is the short
story "Young Zaphod Plays it Safe" which involves one of the major characters
from the trilogy (though I don't actually know where it goes in what may pass
for continuity).