Christian Erkenbrecher

The "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Revisited

Motifs of Science Fiction and Social Criticism

Diplomica Verlag Christian Erkenbrecher The "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Revisited: Motifs of Science Fiction and Social Criticism

ISBN: 978-3-8428-1177-5 Herstellung: Diplomica® Verlag GmbH, Hamburg, 2011

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1. Introduction: Different Medial Realizations of the Hitchhiker’s Guide ……………... 5

2. On Science Fiction …………………………………………………………………...…. 7 2.1 The Struggle of Defining SF ………………………………………………….. 7 2.2 The Most Important Historical Facts, Icons and Events of SF ……………. 8 2.2.1 Is There a ‘First’ Work of Science Fiction? ………………....….…. 9 2.2.2 The Age of Enlightenment ………………………………….….….. 11 2.2.3 Industrial Revolution ……………………………….....…………… 14 2.2.4 Jules Verne …………………………………………....……..…….. 16 2.2.5 H. G. Wells ……………………………………………………...….. 17 2.2.6 Hugo Gernsback and the Genre-Defining Magazine Era ……... 20 2.2.7 From the ‘Golden Age’ to the 1980s ….……………………...….. 22 2.2.8 New Wave ………………………….……………………………... 23 2.2.9 Notes on the Latest Developments up Until the 1980 …………. 24 2.3 Templates of Science Fiction and their presence in Hitchhiker's ..……… 24 2.3.1 Planetary Romances ………………………………………………. 25 2.3.2 Future Cities ………………………………………………………... 26 2.3.3 Disasters ……………………………………………………………. 26 2.3.4 Alternative Histories ………………………………………….……. 27 2.3.5 Prehistorical Romances …………………………………………... 27 2.3.6 Time Travels ……………………………………………………….. 28 2.3.7 Alien Intrusions ……………………………………………….……. 28 2.3.8 Mental Powers ………………………………………………...…… 29 2.3.9 Space Opera ………………………………………………..……… 29 2.3.10 Comic Infernos ……………………………………………….…… 31 2.3.11 Mock SF ……………………………………………………..…..… 31

3. Motifs, Ideas, Conventions of Science Fiction and their usage in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ………………………………………………………..….…. 33 3.1 Alien Life ………………………………………………………………….…… 33 3.1.1 Humanoid Extraterrestrials ……………………………………….. 34 3.1.2 Animal-like Extraterrestrials …………………………………….... 35 3.1.3 Hybrid Aliens …………………………………………….…………. 35 3.1.4 Bodiless Creatures ………………………………...…………...…. 35 3.2 Alien Life in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy …………………….…. 36 3.2.1 Humanoid Extraterrestrials ……………………………………….. 36 3.2.1.1 Ford Prefect ………………...……………………………. 36 3.2.1.2 Zaphod Beeblebrox ………………………………...…… 37 3.2.1.3 Slartibartfast ……………………………………………… 37 3.2.2 Animal-like Extraterrestrials ………………………………………. 38 3.2.2.1 Mice ……………………………………………………….. 38 3.2.2.2 The Babel Fish ………………………………………..…. 39 3.2.3 Hybrid Aliens ……………………………………………………….. 39 3.2.3.1 Vogons ……………………………………………..…….. 39 3.2.4 Bodiless Creatures ………….………………………….…………. 40 3.2.5 Conclusion concerning alien life in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy …………………………………………………………... 41 3.3 Technology ………………………………………………………………..….. 42 3.3.1 General Use of Technology ………………………………….…… 43 3.3.2 The Guide …………………………………………………………... 45 3.3.3 Teleportation and Matter Transmission ………….……..……….. 46 3.3.4 Suspended Animation ……………………………….….…....…… 48 3.4 Space Travel …………………………………………………….……………. 50 3.5 Weapons and Interstellar War ……………………………………...…..…... 53 3.5.1 Weapons …………………………………………………...…..…… 53 3.5.2 Interstellar War ………………………………………………...…... 55 3.6 Artificial Intelligence ……………………………………………………...….. 56 3.6.1 Artificial Intelligence with Ticker Tape ………………...……….... 56 3.6.2 Marvin – Artificial Intelligence With a Little Problem …………… 59 3.7 The Towel …………………………………………………………………….. 61 3.8 Plurality of Worlds/Parallel Worlds …………………………………….…… 62 3.9 Answers to “Big Questions” in Hitchhiker’s? ……………………………… 65

4. Elements of Social Criticism ………………………………………………………….. 70 4.1 Science Fiction as Social Criticism? ……………………………………….. 70 4.1.1 Terminology …………………………………………………...... 72

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4.1.1.1 Social Criticism ...... 72 4.1.1.2 Satire vs. Parody ...... 72 4.2 Criticism of Governmental and Bureaucratic Structures ...... 73 4.3 Criticism of Human Behavior and Character Traits: An Attack on Human Hubris ...... 76 4.4 Does Social Criticism in a Comic SF Novel Work? ...... 80

5. Summary and Concluding Remarks on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy..... 80

6. Appendix ...... 83 6.1 Plot Outline of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ...... 83 6.2 The Three Laws of Robotics ...... 84

7. List of Works Cited ...... 84

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1. Introduction: Different Medial Realizations of the Hitchhiker’s Guide

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy […] not only is […] a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one – more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty-three More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid’s trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway? (Adams 5)

This description of the fictitious Hitchhiker’s Guide in the eponymously titled novel by Douglas Noel Adams reveals elementary details of the work itself but also of its author. The first and most obvious aspect is the humorous tone of the novel which is maintained throughout the story. Another fact that becomes clear from this short introduction is the comic mocking of philosophical questions. For the non-Hitchhiker it may be startling to learn that the The Hitchhiker’s Guide actually was not intended to become a novel at all; It started out as a radio program. The first radio series came from a proposal called The Ends of the Earth; six self-contained episodes, “each of which would all deal with the destruction of the Earth for a completely different reason” (Gaiman 24). Douglas then changed the structure of the stories from six independent episodes to one continuing story, featuring an alien guide as a field researcher for an interstellar guidebook1. On March 8 1978, the first episode of a six-part series of the radio program was aired on BBC Radio 4. Despite its unfortunate broadcasting time (10.30 on Thursday evenings), Hitchhiker’s became an instant success. Driven by the radio program’s triumph, Adams turned the radio scripts into the novels The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980). The first book appeared simultaneously with a double-LP record which contained all the radio episodes. Having been established as a small “franchise” of its own, The Hitchhiker’s Guide had its first visual appearance on BBC 2 in January 1981. Adams, together with producer Alan J.W. Bell, created a total of six episodes out of the material of the first two books. It is remarkable that despite Hitchhiker’s typical British humour, the TV show and the books were also very successful in the USA.

1 It is one of the most prominent anecdotes concerning Hitchhiker’s that Douglas Adams first came up with that idea when he was hitchhiking across Europe in 1971. Lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck, having an edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Europe with him, he imagined a Guide for the whole galaxy. 5

The next medium to be touched by Adams’s creation was the theatre. Altogether, “there have been three major productions of Hitchhiker’s in the theatrical world. Two of these have been successful. The other was a disaster of epic proportions. It is somewhat unfortunate, […] that the disaster is the one that got noticed” (Gaiman 61). The first performance was shown at the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London, in the first week of May 1979. Even though each show’s audience was limited to eighty spectators it can be counted as a success; Even the newspaper reviews “were unanimous in their praise” (Gaiman 62). The next performances were shown in Wales, between January 15 and February 23 1980. This was a production of Clwyd Theatr Cymru, and was directed by Jonathan Petherbridge. The third and least successful stage show was held at the Rainbow Theatre in London, in July 1980; Fans and critics alike condemned the over- production of the material. During the early 1980s, video games became increasingly popular. Accordingly, the next manifestation of Hitchhiker’s came in the form of an interactive video game. The text-based adventure game, distributed by Infocom and co- designed by Douglas Adams, was also very successful. A more graphic approach was tried by D.C Comics’ comic books adaptations between 1993 and 1997. Those attempts, however, did not receive much consideration and were even disgraced by Adams (cf. Shirley,J. “A Talk With Douglas Adams.” 172-176). After years of setbacks and efforts to start the production of a big-screen movie adaptation, pre-production process finally began in 2003, resulting in a movie which premiered in London on April, 20 2005. Sadly Adams was not able to experience this dream of his, on which he had worked for so long; He had died four years earlier as a result of a heart attack he suffered while exercising on May, 11 2001.

Among all the different forms of appearance of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, the literary manifestations must be considered to be the most significant ones. This is due not solely to the fact that the books were big commercial successes (to this day, more than 14 million copies of the first book were sold world-wide), and translations into more than thirty languages exist. Moreover, the first two novels represent the

6 core of Adams’s original ideas and are therefore most suitable for analysis2. In this book, the focus will exclusively be on the first book as it is the most consistent novel in the series and is considered to have had the biggest impact on the literary world. In order to be able to fully understand all the implications of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, the genre in which it is rooted shall first be surveyed. It is important to scrutinize the different facets of the field of Science Fiction because there are various aspects of this mode of writing the Guide refers to. Yet, first of all, it has to be clarified how SF can be defined, and accordingly, what is to be depicted as the genre’s first work.

2. On Science Fiction

2.1 The Struggle of Defining Science Fiction

There is one feature which all works dedicated to the research on Science Fiction share, namely the inconsistency when it comes to defining the term ‘Science Fiction’. Not only have the viewpoints changed on what has to be classified as Science Fiction (SF), but also have the (human) preconditions for understanding this particular style of writing been subject to constant change.

From a modern point of view one could argue that Science Fiction has to do with spaceships in the remote future. However, “not all SF concerns space and space travel, [nor] does all SF concern the future. [Furthermore], not all SF concerns machinery or technological artifacts. Yet, what all SF has in common is that it takes the reader, viewer, listener away from the ‘mundane’ world into radically different worlds or altered worlds” (Pringle 10). Moreover, SF is not exclusively directed “outward” and into the future; its point of view is quite often redirected “inwards”, i.e. towards ourselves. The ingredients of a SF story are so various and inconsistent that it is quite hard to differentiate between what to classify as “real” Science Fiction – if this statement can be made at all – and what to assign to other genres like “Fantasy”. Some claim that SF tries to be rational, adhere to the laws of nature as we

2 The three following books (i.e. Life, the Universe and Everything [1982], So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish [1984] and Mostly Harmless [1992]) were written as sequels to the original, and were less appreciated by fans and critics. 7 understand them and takes the real world as a starting point for extrapolation. The writer J.G. Ballard came up with a brief differentiation: “SF is fiction inspired by science, whereas Fantasy is fiction inspired by fiction” (Pringle 12). As The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy proves, the boundaries between SF and Fantasy are also often blurred. Therefore, it can be said that “SF is not so much a single genre as a cluster of overlapping sub-genres” (Pringle 11). A broader definition is given by the Encyclopedia Britannica’s online version: “[Science Fiction is] a form of fiction that deals principally with the impact of actual or imagined science upon society or individuals”3. However, not all SF is occupied with science, as the variation called “Soft SF” shows4. Another more general definition was put forth by Brian Attebery: “SF is not only a mode of story-telling but also a niche for writers, a marketing category for publishers, a collection of visual images and styles and a community of like-minded individuals” (33). One realizes the different opinions and features that have to be taken into account in order to create a definition which roughly encompasses the various phenomena SF consists of.

What will be shown in this book is that SF is ideally united by its didactic character offering a message for the reader. It can be stated that Science fiction, by attempting a look to the future, it mirrors the present. In order to end this otherwise infinite debate on the definition of Science Fiction, one of the leading authors, critics and historians of the “genre” will be cited; Brian Aldiss flippantly states in Trillion Year Spree that “Science Fiction is whatever is been sold under the label SF” (16).

2.2 The Most Important Historical Facts, Icons and Events of SF

All of mankind’s social, political and - most importantly - technological developments have traditionally been reflected in the arts. Accordingly, the different literary styles and genres that have evolved throughout the centuries must be seen as logical consequences and thus products of their times.

3 http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9066289/science-fiction 4 Soft SF predominantly deals with psychological issues e.g. connected to space travel, other worlds and alien races. 8