Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Different, and superior to the rest
This book, the fourth in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy, is, hands down, the best. You probably wouldn't think that were true from reading some of the reviews on this page. However, I was astonished and amazed by what this volume had to offer. For starters, if you read Douglas Adams just for the zaniness and offbeatness of it all, you may be disappointed by this novel. While those elements are not absent, they are severely toned down for this installment. The amazing thing, though, is that Adams manages to mix in his humor at all with a very touching romance and somewhat serious quest of rather epic (rather than episodic) proportion. The best part about this novel is that it virtually almost entirely features Arthur, and that's it... at least out of the main characters. Ford shows up a bit, and Marvin is in the last chapter, but Zaphod and Trillian are missing, but don't worry, it hardly matters. Adams more than makes up for it by introducing a marvelous character named Fenchurch, who becomes a love interest for Arthur. A love interest for Arthur? Yes, you heard me correctly. This book, in my mind, establishes Adams as a serious heavyweight. The levels of humor, romance, irony, wonder, and adventure are consistently high throughout, and one never detracts from the other. Besides, we finally get to take a really good look at Arthur (who had been shortchanged in the last two books), the most human character I believe I have ever encountered anywhere, and we get to see a bit of the earth, which Adams makes us realize is rather a funny place in itself. Do not miss out on this book. Please. Read it for Arthur. Read it for Fenchurch. Read it for the Rain God. And definitely, definitely, read it for the most wonderful love scene ever written. Besides, if you make it to the end, you'll be rewarded with God's final message to His creation, written in letters of flame thirty feet high (quite the tourist attraction). It's worlds above all the others.
Rating: - Keep reading till this one, definitely the best.
So Long is the best in the "trilogy of four" of the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, after the unexpected surprise of the first, and the two funny yet low-paced sequels. There, Adams finds out a solid thread to elaborate upon, even if a classic one and at the detriment of his zany humor (there's still the rain god, though).Arthur gets back on earth where he falls in love with that lady who had a glimpse of the ultimate truth, of the meaning of it all, but just when the earth evaporated under a giant laser beam to make way for an hyperspace bypass. Now she forgot it, and they manage to find it back together. The love story is touching and incredibly realistic, while of course still and always narrated in this weird, delightful, illogical---or may be too logical for literature---funny D.G.'s free wild style. But most of all, there is a real overall meaning. Whereas 42 means nothing, God's last message to His creation bears a genuine message of tolerance and encouragement to keep satisfied with life and all that comes with it. The allegory of the otter pulling the raft is deep and couldn't explain it best. The laughters of Prax about Arthur illustrates simply how ludicrous can be the metaphysical wonders. This last book is full of metaphors like these. I'd like to point out also how close to Monty Python's Meaning of Life it seems to me, with a development of the whole story before the "secret" much the same, full of idiocies and funny details of life. That shows another connection in this regards (and if we are to believe Yoakum, even 42 stems from Pythons, somehow). There was a point to this review, but it has temporarily escaped the reviewer's mind.
Rating: - Good, but very different from the rest of the series
My theory is that Douglas Adams had 2 worries after the first part of this whole series. First of all, jeez louise, he sure was giving poor Arthur Dent a hard time... couldn't he at least maybe let him have a girlfriend? And second of all, how about the dolphins? Douglas Adams is really into animal rights, the environment, etc, and it just seemed a little perfunctory to have them all totally obliterated along with the Earth just because of that whole business about the interstellar hyperspace bypass. In this book, dolphins, Arthur, and Arthur's (surprise) girlfriend somehow come together, with a variety of mutant plot twists along the way.As usual with these books, I envy anyone coming to them for the first time. Watch for the "Rain God", he is quite hilarious, and sort of a stand-in for Marvin in some ways. Ford Prefect has sort of a guest appearance, he isn't exactly central to the plot, but he becomes important in some ways at the very end. I would tell a new Douglas Adams fan to read this as a love story, Adams' gift to the hapless Arthur Dent. The wackiness is MUCH lass omnipresent here than it is in the other books, so be warned. Basically good stuff, but very distinct in tone from the rest of the series.
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