A book
never published on Earth, and until a terrible catastrophe occurred in an alternate probability in 1979,
never seen or even heard of by any Earthman.
Nevertheless, a wholly remarkable book.
In fact, it was probably the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor- of which no Earthman had ever herd either.
No only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one- more
popular than "Celestial Home Care Omnibus,"
better selling than "Fifty-three More Things to Do in Zero Gravity," and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters, "Where
God Went Wrong," "Some More of
God's Greatest Mistakes," and "Who Is This
God Person Anyway?"
In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, The "Hitchhiker's Guide" has already supplanted the great "Encyclopedia Galactica" as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least widely inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.
1. It is slightly cheaper.
2. It has the words
DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.
