The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the sequel to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, picks up immediately where Hitchhiker ends, with our hapless adventurers under attack from the Vogons, despite there being no tea. Having faced imminent death several times before, this causes them less concern that you would expect, and another last minute rescue leads to the party (Arthur Dent, earthling, Trillian, hitchhiker, Ford Prefect, researcher for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Galaxy, and Marvin, the paranoid android) being separated once again.

Zaphod and Marvin are transported to the offices of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on Ursa Minor Beta. Zaphod is determined to trace down whoever left a message in his brain, even if it turns out to be himself. The Guide’s offices are taken prisoner and carried to Frogstar World B. FWB is a benighted planet whose economy has been ruined by a critical mass of shoe shops. The intention is to destroy Zaphod’s mind by sending him into the Total Perspective Vortex, a torture device designed to show people how small they are compared to the size of the Universe. Zaphod emerges unscathed because after all, he is Zaphod Beeblebrox.

Through some trickery with artificial universes, the party is reunited long enough for breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Marvin has to take the slow route, parking spaceships while waiting for the humans to arrive (or is it return?). The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of Adams’s most magnificent creations. I always loved the selectively bred cow that actually wants to be eaten:

“Four rare steaks please, and hurry, we haven’t eaten in five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years.”

The animal staggered to its feet. It gave a mellow gurgle.

‘A very wise choice, sir, if I may say so. very good…I’ll just nip off and shoot myself.” He turned and gave a friendly wink to Arthur. “Don’t worry, sir” he said, “I’ll be very humane”. 

There’s a very special, poetic aspect to the way the end of the universe is described by the show’s host, undercut by the Second Coming of the Prophet Zarquon. We also get to meet Hotblack Desiato at the restaurant, a rock star spending a year dead for tax purposes. After a further narrow escape from imminent death, this time by diving into a star to provide backing effects for a rock concert, which is to be honest a pretty rock and roll way to go, Zaphod and Trillian get to meet the man who runs the universe, while Arthur and Ford discover the origins of life on earth, and why everyone is so bloody useless (which is probably something to do with the fact that we are all descended from hairdressers and telephone sanitisers).

Adams’ commentary on modern life is razor sharp. I especially enjoyed the way the Golgafrinchams (Ark B) make leaves their currency to disprove the argument that money doesn’t grow on trees, and then tackle their galloping hyperinflation by burning down all the forests. Isn’t that austerity economics for you? I was slightly concerned that Restaurant wouldn’t sustain the brilliance of Hitchhiker, but I shouldn’t have worried. Yes there are some uneven patches – I never quite understand the point of Zarniwoop –  but the concepts are extraordinary and the jokes never miss. Marvin continues to be a paradoxical source of joy (“The first ten million years were the worst,” said Marvin, “and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million years I didn’t enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline”). I think it is best not to see ‘Restaurant’ as a sequel but more as the second half of ‘Hitchhiker’, best read one after the other with as short a break as possible. I am minded not to push on with the third, fourth and fifth books of the trilogy – I absolutely understand why they were written, but there is a certain polished perfection to these two novels that might be tarnished by anything that doesn’t meet their sustained genius. What do people think?