This international bestseller is the third installment (of five) in the zany space opera known as the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent have been stranded for five years on prehistoric Earth. They escape from this predicament via a Chesterfield sofa and arrive at a cricket match, where they are immediately faced with their next challenge: preventing the release of an imprisoned race of xenophobic aliens bent on exterminating all other life forms in the universe. Fans of the BBC TV show Doctor Who will be interested to note that the novel is a reworked treatment for a proposed film based on the series. And more detail-oriented types may want to know that the American version of the book has some additional text concerning the galactic rudeness of the word Belgium, which allows Belgium to be used throughout as profanity instead of a four-letter word beginning with F that's used in the British edition