`HITCHHIKER'S' TRILOGY EXPANDS TO 5 VOLUMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 21, 1993                   TAG: 9302210316
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: F-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Reviewed by PAUL DELLINGER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
`HITCHHIKER'S' TRILOGY EXPANDS TO 5 VOLUMES
MOSTLY HARMLESS. By Douglas Adams. Harmony Books. $20.00.
This is the fifth book in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" trilogy, which gives you some idea of how serious it takes itself.
Like its predecessors, "Mostly Harmless" follows the adventures of Arthur Dent, the man who was whisked off to space by an alien called Ford Prefect in "Hitchhiker" just before Earth was demolished to make way for a space highway. "Hitchhiker" began as a radio series featuring an increasingly astonishing array of characters Arthur encountered in his wanderings.
Arthur and Ford are back again in this installment, as is Trillian, Arthur's fellow human survivor, each having his own set of adventures this time around and crossing paths infrequently. They end up back on Earth (yes, Earth was destroyed in the opening volume, but there are more Earths in other parallel universes, you see), and then what has been a light-hearted yarn suddenly gets serious - so serious that future sequels seem doubtful, although nothing is ever totally out of the question in Douglas Adams' universes.
Ford has been a data-gatherer for the Hitchhiker's Guide for space travelers, but, in this story, he finds his employer taken over by less enlightened bosses with whom he has some dangerous differences. He overcomes most of them with the help of a robot he has re-programmed for total obedience and happiness under any circumstances. Arthur, meanwhile, has wound up as a sandwich-maker among a tribe of primitives of a planet where they worship a god named Bob. Trillian is around in several guises (there is more than one universe, remember), including that of an interstellar TV reporter. Imagine the possibilities.
Which is exactly what Douglas Adams does, in yet another send-up of science fiction cliches that are episodic but a lot of fun.

Paul Dellinger is a reporter for the Southwest Virginia bureau of this newspaper.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB