View source for The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

{{Short description|1980 novel by Douglas Adams}}

{{Infobox book
| name          = The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
| image         = RestaurantAtTheEndOfTheUniverse.jpg
| caption       = Cover of the first edition
| author        = [[Douglas Adams]]
| illustrator   = 
| cover_artist  = 
| country       = United Kingdom
| language      = English
| series        = ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|Hitchhiker's Guide]]''
| genre         = [[Comic science fiction]]
| publisher     = [[Pan Books]]
| release_date  = October 1980 (UK)
                  January 1981 (US)
| media_type    = Print (hardback & paperback) Audiobook 
| pages         = 208 (paperback edition)
| isbn          = 0-345-39181-0
| oclc = 33352356
| preceded_by   = [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (novel)|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]
| followed_by   = [[Life, the Universe and Everything]]
}}

'''''The Restaurant at the End of the Universe''''' is the second book in the ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' [[comedy science fiction]] [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (book)#Series|"trilogy of six books"]] by [[Douglas Adams]], and is a [[sequel]]. It was originally published by [[Macmillan Publishers|Pan Books]] as a paperback in 1980. The book was inspired by the song [[Grand Hotel (album)|"Grand Hotel"]] by British rock band [[Procol Harum]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Adams|first=Douglas|author-link=Douglas Adams|title=[[The Salmon of Doubt]]}}</ref> The book title refers to ''Milliways'', the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, one of the settings of the book.

==Plot summary==
[[Arthur Dent]], [[Ford Prefect (character)|Ford Prefect]], [[Trillian (character)|Trillian]], and [[Zaphod Beeblebrox]] leave the planet Magrathea on the ''Heart of Gold''. A [[Vogon]] ship bribed by Gag Halfrunt and a group of [[psychiatrist]]s, fearful that the discovery of the Ultimate Question will end their profession, intercepts and fires at them. Meanwhile, Arthur gets frustrated that the ship is unable to produce any beverages beyond an undrinkable tea-like liquid. He gives a lengthy description of tea, causing Eddie the Shipboard Computer to become jammed and unable to fight the Vogon ship off. Desperate, Zaphod decides to hold a [[séance]] to call up his great-grandfather [[Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth]] to rescue them. The elder Zaphod scolds his descendant and sends him on a quest to find [[The Ruler of the Universe]] in order to solve the political and economic instability plaguing the universe. He transports Zaphod and Marvin to Ursa Minor Beta, the [[Tropics|tropical]] home planet of the offices of the Hitchhiker's Guide's publisher Megadodo Publications, and leaves the others on the depowered ship in a black void.

Acting on a thought from the portion of his brain unaffected by his [[lobotomy]], Zaphod goes looking for [[Zarniwoop]], the Guide's lead editor, though his staff insist he has been out on an intergalactic cruise. A man named [[List of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy characters#Minor_characters|Roosta]] takes Zaphod to Zarniwoop's offices. Frogstar fighters arrive and attack the building, towing it to one of their home planets, Frogstar World B, a planet whose society collapsed through an economic process called the "Shoe Event Horizon" which rendered its economy unable to support any enterprises besides [[Shoemaking|shoe stores]]. The planet eventually became the site of the Total Perspective Vortex, a device that drives those who experience it mad due to showing them their insignificance compared to the infinite universe. Following Roosta's instructions and escaping through Zarniwoop's office's windows, Zaphod is caught by [[Gargravarr]], a disembodied mind undergoing a trial separation from his body, who takes Zaphod to be exposed to the Vortex. However, Zaphod is unfazed by the Vortex, suggesting to a perplexed Gargravarr that it showed Zaphod that he was the most important being in the universe.

Left on his own, Zaphod eventually finds a long-abandoned spaceliner whose passengers have been forcibly kept in 900 years of [[suspended animation]] by the [[autopilot]] after the [[Societal collapse|collapse of their civilization]] until a new one could develop to load the ship with lemon-scented [[paper napkin]]s. On the ship he discovers Zarniwoop, who reveals that Zaphod stepped into a [[computer simulation]] of the universe when he walked into his office, allowing Zaphod to survive the Vortex since the universe was designed for his benefit. Zarniwoop further reveals that the ''Heart of Gold'' had been microscopically shrunk and placed in Zaphod's pocket so that they can use it to find the true ruler of the universe, whom Zarniwoop has located. However, Zaphod abandons Zarniwoop, reunites with Ford, Arthur, and Trillian, and escapes to the nearest restaurant. This turns out to be the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, built atop the ruins of Frogstar World B and existing in a time bubble near the [[Ultimate fate of the universe|end of the universe]], which it offers its guests spectacular views of. At the restaurant they meet Ford's old acquaintance Hotblack Desiato, a member of the rock band Disaster Area, which is known for making the loudest sound in the universe and only perform their concerts remotely from an orbiting spaceship. During their dinner, Zaphod receives a telephone call from Marvin, who has been stranded on the planet for billions of years and is now working as a [[valet]] in the restaurant's [[parking lot]].

Zaphod suggests they leave, trying to steal a sleek, all-black spacecraft next to Hotblack Desiato's limoship. With their ship on complete autopilot and unable to wrest the controls away from it, an agitated Zaphod admits that he still wants to solve the Question to the Ultimate Answer. Marvin abruptly tells them that the question is imprinted in Arthur's [[Neural oscillation|brainwaves]], but they are distracted before they can ask further. They learn that the ship is actually an [[Uncrewed vehicle|unmanned]] stunt ship for Disaster Area, which is programmed to fall into a local sun to create [[solar flare]]s in synchronization with the climax of the band's concert. They discover a partially installed emergency teleporter without a guidance system and Zaphod volunteers Marvin to stay behind and operate it so the others can escape. Zaphod and Trillian find themselves back aboard the ''Heart of Gold'' under Zarniwoop's control, where he is using the ships Improbability Drive penetrate the Unprobability Field protecting the home planet of the Ruler of the Universe. On an unpopulated planet, they find the Ruler who has no idea he is the ruler, is not convinced of a broader universe outside of his home, and is even [[Radical skepticism|skeptical if anything around him exists]]. While an enraged Zarniwoop tries to reason with the Ruler, Zaphod and Trillian strand him and make their escape in the ''Heart of Gold''.

Meanwhile, Arthur and Ford find themselves aboard Ark Fleet Ship B, which is loaded with 15 million passengers from the planet Golgafrincham and is commanded by an inept [[Sea captain|captain]] who is only concerned with taking [[Bathing|baths]]. Although the Golgafrinchans were ostensibly evacuated to escape a planetary disaster, in actuality the disaster was made up by the Golgafrinchans to divest themselves of a useless third of their population, later going extinct from a [[pandemic]] caused by dirty [[telephone receiver]]s after they expelled all telephone sanitizers. The Ark crash-lands into a [[swamp]] on an undeveloped planet. Arthur and Ford leave to search for a signal from any passing spaceship, traveling for hundreds of miles around the continent. Along the way the planet's primitive yet friendly [[Homo|hominid]]-like inhabitants usher them away from their home settlements and leave them fruit. After finding a [[glacier]] with a Magrathean inscription honoring [[Slartibartfast]], they realize they are on [[Prehistory|pre-historic]] [[Earth]] in [[Lower Paleolithic|2,000,000 BC]], that the hominids are [[Neanderthal]]s, that they have traveled across [[Prehistoric Europe|Europe]] from the future site of Arthur's home city of [[Islington]] in [[Prehistoric Britain|Great Britain]] to [[Prehistoric Norway|Norway]], and that the Golgafrinchans are the ancestors of the modern [[Human|human race]].

They return to the Golgafrinchans, only to find that they have been too preoccupied with trying to form council meetings about [[Documentary film|documentary]]-making, [[fiscal policy]], searching for [[hot spring]]s for the captain's baths, and declaring [[war]] on uninhabited continents to bother with trying to [[Control of fire by early humans|discover fire]], invent the [[wheel]], or solve pressing issues. Ford tries to warn them that they will be annihilated in 2 million years, but they ignore him. Desperate, Arthur tries to teach the Neanderthals, who have been mysteriously wasting away since the Ark's arrival, through a makeshift [[Scrabble]] set. When one of the Neanderthals spells out the word "[[42 (number)#The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|forty-two]]" with the letter tiles, Ford realizes that the Neanderthals were part of the [[Matrix (mathematics)|matrix]] of Deep Thought's computer to determine the Ultimate Question and that the Golgafrinchans are interfering with the machination by displacing them. However, they also remember Marvin's claim that the Ultimate Question was embedded in Arthur's mind. Hoping that remnants of the programming exist in Arthur's [[subconscious]], they have Arthur pull out tiles at random from the Scrabble set, only to discover that the Question is "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?" Ford thinks this explains why the universe is a giant "cock-up", and the two resign to make the best of their life on prehistoric Earth. They go on a date with two Golgafrinchan women, and Arthur throws his copy of the ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' in the river.

==Audiobook adaptations==
There have been three audiobook recordings of the novel. The first was an abridged edition, recorded in 1981 by [[Stephen Moore (actor)|Stephen Moore]], best known for playing the voice of [[Marvin the Paranoid Android]] in the radio series, LP adaptations, and in the TV series. In 1990, Adams himself recorded an unabridged edition, later re-released by New Millennium Audio in the United States and available from BBC Audiobooks in the United Kingdom. In 2006, actor [[Martin Freeman]], who had played [[Arthur Dent]] in the 2005 movie, recorded a new unabridged edition of the audiobook.

==Reception==
[[Greg Costikyan]] reviewed ''The Restaurant at the End of the Universe'' in ''[[Ares (magazine)|Ares Magazine]]'' #13 and commented that "''The Restaurant at the End of the Universe'' tries to do much of the same thing, but some of the zest seems to be missing; the ideas are fewer, the happenings less dramatic. The author seems sometimes to be straining for the same effects he effortlessly achieved in ''Hitchhiker''."<ref name="Ares">{{cite journal | last=Costikyan | first=Greg | author-link=Greg Costikyan | title=Books | journal=[[Ares (magazine)|Ares Magazine]] | publisher=[[TSR, Inc.]] | date=Winter 1983| issue=13 | page=43}}</ref>

==Reviews==
*Review by Joseph Nicholas (1980) in ''Paperback Inferno'', Volume 4, Number 3<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1312 | title=Title: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe }}</ref>
*Review by John Sherriff (1981) in ''[[Foundation (journal)|Foundation]]'', #21 February 1981
*Review by Jo Duffy (1982) in ''[[Epic Illustrated]]'', February 1982
*Review by Bud Foote (1982) in ''Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review'', #3, April 1982
*Review by Allen Varney (1982) in ''[[Science Fiction Review]]'', Summer 1982
*Review by C. J. Henderson [as by Chris Henderson] (1982) in ''[[Dragon (magazine)|Dragon Magazine]]'', May 1982
*Review [French] by Stéphane Nicot? (1983) in ''Fiction'', #337
*Review by Alma Jo Williams (1983) in ''[[Science Fiction Review]]'', November 1983
*Review by Don D'Ammassa (1986) in ''[[Science Fiction Chronicle]]'', #87 December 1986
*Review by Alan Johnson (1994) in ''[[Vector (magazine)|Vector]]'' 179
*Review by uncredited (2003) in ''[[Vector (magazine)|Vector]]'' 227
*Review by Bruce Gillespie (2010) in ''SF Commentary'', #80A
*Review by Manny Rayner (2014) in ''Big Sky, #4: SF Masterworks 2''

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{HitchhikerBooks}}
{{Douglas Adams}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, The}}
[[Category:1980 British novels]]
[[Category:British science fiction novels]]
[[Category:Comic science fiction novels]]
[[Category:Fictional restaurants]]
[[Category:Pan Books books]]
[[Category:Novels about the end of the universe]]
[[Category:Novels by Douglas Adams]]
[[Category:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]
[[Category:British comedy novels]]
[[Category:Novels about time travel]]
[[Category:Novels set on fictional planets]]
[[Category:Novels set in prehistory]]
[[Category:Novels set in England]]
[[Category:Novels set in Norway]]