The Earth is custom-made for us by Rats

 In the first spiral arm of the Milky Way, there is a star galaxy called the solar system. The most remarkable planet in this galaxy is its third planet because this planet is inhabited by the only intelligent life ever discovered by mankind. But ever since the emergence of “science fiction writers”, the poor planet has endured rather malicious fantasies. 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a novel full of humor. Using extremely witty yet deliberately solemn words, Mr. Adams shows readers his characteristic British humor like a stand-up comedian.  

To make a joke which may potentially induce awkward silence, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is not so much an excellent science fiction as a novel anthropological paper, which demonstrates to us the extent to which human beings can exert humor through a rather personalized approach.

In most science fiction, the earth is an innocent person with a guilty heart, and its blue body always attracts all kinds of extraterrestrials to plunder or destroy. Among these uncountable malicious visitors, the reasons for destruction brought by the Vogon fleet are undoubtedly the most unexpected. Chinese sci-fi readers know for the first time that evil aliens have come to destroy the earth in order to build public welfare facilities, and they have just learned why these aliens look so indecent—because their ancestors climbed out of the water billions of years ago. That's indeed a pretty good answer.

This is a very different kind of science fiction. With his characteristic cynical writing style, Mr. Adams satirizes all the authority and order of the real world to the readers who are between tears and laughter. When the unparalleled supercomputer, after 7.5 million years of calculation, announces that the final answer that human beings pursue is 42, readers who are tongue-tied like the two parties do not know what else in the world could not be made fun of.

Absurd Galactic Empire, weird president, neurotic robot… With the earth customized by rats as the starting point, the protagonist Arthur begins his bizarre roaming of the universe. In a world as bizarre as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderlands, the so-called “logic” is no different from the queen’s rules of the game—even if it exists, it can be modified at will.

Things really got worse when Arthur felt that things couldn’t get any worse. There has been one turning point after another in the meaningless journey. When the protagonist found that the description of the earth was only "basically harmless" in the great Guide which contained countless materials, and Slartibartfast of Magrathea proudly told him that “the earth is custom-made for us by rats”, the world must have crumbled in his eyes like a plastic jigsaw puzzle.