• Life, the Universe, and Everything

  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Book 3
  • By: Douglas Adams
  • Narrated by: Martin Freeman
  • Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (8,084 ratings)

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Life, the Universe, and Everything  By  cover art

Life, the Universe, and Everything

By: Douglas Adams
Narrated by: Martin Freeman
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Publisher's summary

“Wild satire.... The feckless protagonist, Arthur Dent, is reminiscent of Vonnegut heroes.” (Chicago Tribune)

The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky above their heads - so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals stand between the killer robots of Krikkit and their goal of total annihilation.

They are Arthur Dent, a mild-mannered space and time traveler who tries to learn how to fly by throwing himself at the ground and missing; Ford Prefect, his best friend, who decides to go insane to see if he likes it; Slartibartfast, the indomitable vice president of the Campaign for Real Time, who travels in a ship powered by irrational behavior; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-president of the galaxy; and Trillian, the sexy space cadet who is torn between a persistent Thunder God and a very depressed Beeblebrox.

How will it all end? Will it end? Only this stalwart crew knows as they try to avert "universal" Armageddon and save life as we know it - and don't know it!

“Adams is one of those rare treasures: an author who, one senses, has as much fun writing as one has reading.” (Arizona Daily Star)

Listen to the rest of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy".

Want to learn more about the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie? Listen to this interview with Robbie Stamp, close friend of Douglas Adams and executive producer of the film.

©1982 Serious Productions, Ltd. (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

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What listeners say about Life, the Universe, and Everything

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

It was pretty good

Maybe I just am more familiar with the first book and was possibly not paying as much attention as I could have, but I didn't think it was quite as good. Also, I understand that it's a performance, but it is really hard to understand what he's saying when they put some weird filter for some of the robots.
Still, it had a lot of Douglass Adams' genius wit, so I'm not really complaining about it on the whole.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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good

this is good. dont believe me though. read it for yourself. im just doing the 15 word thing

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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  • R
  • 04-25-15

Worth It

The book is a classic. Martin Freeman is an excellent narrator with many distinct voices

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Has everything that makes this series great.

Not far into the book, I literally laughed out lout wearing my headphones in public and then had to nervously apologize. I embarrassed myself over a very brief description of the wind that I'm pretty sure I would've overlooked in written text yet the line was expertly delivered by Martin Freeman and it made Adam's comedy come alive to me.

There so many absurd elements driving this story, it takes you by surprise when everything seems to come together towards the end. This one picks up where Restaurant at the End of the Universe leaves off. Although there is a brief recap, you should probably make sure you've read that one first as it leaves the characters separated from each other and doesn't have much of a wrap-up.

Highly recommend this book, I didn't want to give any book a perfect score but I couldn't help it.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Best Narration Ever

Martin Freeman is brilliant. The story is wonderful. I will listen to this again and again!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Martin Freeman is brilliant as a reader!

Have always loved this series, but listening to Martin Freeman read it takes it to another level.

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absolute classic

book was amazing, really enjoy the writing and the narrator, just don't forget your towel

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • BG
  • 12-18-22

One of the great books

The four book trilogy of the guide are one of the great books.
The best recording was by Stephen Moore about 25 years ago.

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Bravo for Martin Freeman. Best man for the job.

If you perfer mono-readers rather than a group of people reading the script, then Martin Freeman is your guy. The voices for each character are constant and hardly ever change. Ever. Thank you Martin Freeman.

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    3 out of 5 stars

Great performance, fine story

A lot more cynical then i remember. Still a great satire. Worth while performance above all

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