"Ursa Minor Beta is, some say, one of the most appalling places in the known
Universe.
Although it is excruciatingly rich, horrifyingly sunny and more full of
wonderfully exciting people than a pomegranate is of pips, it can hardly be
insignificant that when a recent edition of "Playbeing" magazine Headlined
an article with the words "When you are tired of Ursa Minor Beta you are
tired of life," the suicide rate there quadrupled overnight.
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
Not only is "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" a wholly remarkable book
it is also a highly successful one - more popular than the "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?...