October 11, 2025 by A.S. Van Dorston

Favorite book #3. “Don’t Panic.”

The hapless Arthur Dent, Zaphod Beeblebrox, the brilliant Trillian, and depressive Marvin are some of my favorite characters in all of literature, and the first book triggers the most LPM (laughs per minute) than anything I’ve read. Many of the greatest gags have been immortalized in popular culture to the point where many people know them, but have no idea where they came from, like the sage advice to don’t panic, and always bring your towel, the entry for Earth in the guide, “mostly harmless,” and of course Deep Thought’s answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything, “42.” Too bad they didn’t think to frame it as an actual question.

Then there’s the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster invented by ex-President of the Galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox, considered by the Guide to be the “Best Drink in Existence.” Its effects are similar to “having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.” After two of those babies, the dullest, most by-the-book Vogon will be up on the bar in stilettos, yodeling mountain shanties and swearing he’s the king of the Gray Binding Fiefdoms of Saxaquine. Beeblebrox advised that you should “never drink more than two Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters unless you are a thirty ton mega elephant with bronchial pneumonia.

Perhaps my favorite of all is Marvin the Paranoid Android, who is not paranoid, just justifiably depressed due to boredom. Serving in the starship Heart of Gold, he was built as one of many failed prototypes of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation’s GPP (Genuine People Personalities) technology, Marvin is so bored because he has a “brain the size of a planet” which he is seldom, if ever, given the chance to use. Instead, the crew request him to carry out mundane jobs such as “opening the door”. Indeed, the true horror of Marvin’s existence is that no task he could be given would occupy even the tiniest fraction of his vast intellect. Marvin claims he is 50,000 times more intelligent than a human (or 30 billion times more intelligent than a live mattress), though this is, if anything, an underestimation. When kidnapped by the bellicose Krikkit robots and tied to the interfaces of their intelligent war computer, Marvin simultaneously manages to plan the entire planet’s military strategy, solve “all of the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe, except his own, three times over”, and compose several lullabies. My man. Or rather, my bot.