So long, and thanks for all the fish

Is there life on Earth?

This apparently absurd question assumes its most urgent and madcap expression, but is not examined by Douglas Adams, in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, the forth (if you believe that you'll believe anything) book in the Hitchhiker's Trilogy.

Something very weird happens (so what else is new?) to Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and the all new voidoid gang when they return to Earth after eight years of crazed wanderings around the galaxy. Foolishly, young Arthur is glad to be back. (What a nerd!)

Still wearing his bathrobe and carrying his trusty towel, Arthur sets out once again (this time he takes no chances and travels by commercial airline) on a wacked-out quest for the right result...and the answers to these embarrassing questions:

• What really happened the day the Earth was demolished?

• Why did all the dolphins disappear?

• What is God's Final Message to His creation?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is, as has been remarked before, often and accurately, a pretty startling kind of thing. Here and now in the best adventure yet, we mistakenly meet:

• Rob McKenna, an unknown Rain God who has categorized 231 types of precipitation, none of which he likes.

• Wonko the Sane (aka John Watson), a mysterious Californian living in a house on the boffo coast called "The Outside of the Asylum."

• Fenchurch, the lovely and slightly-off-the-floor lady who wins Arthur's heart and turns out to be the girl of his dreams.

• A few odd animals including the Babel fish and the stupidest dog in the Universe, Know Nothing Bozo.

Don't Panic. Douglas Adams has done it again! So put on your Final Message rainhats and live happily ever after. --jacket