Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, is clever, whimsical, and masterful in its humor. It is the funniest book I have ever read, lampooning such topics as human nature, while bending the laws of reality and story-craft in its cosmic lunacy. The humor is dry, but the wit is readily apparent. It is a story in which houses, as well as entire life-bearing planets, are unfairly demolished by fat bureaucratic slobs in order to build highways, where probability and improbability are equally probable, where a narcissist ex-hippie with two heads and three arms is the president of the galaxy. The book parodies both the mundane aspects of Earth life and the fantastic clichés of science fiction, at once. It is comedy with a brain, however. It is the greatest example of speculative fiction I can imagine, juxtaposing familiar attitudes and situations against the fantastic novelty of space. The story is charming and likely to stick with you, fondly. If you enjoy science fiction, but are interested in a book that brazenly sets itself apart from the genre, or maybe merely interested in a good laugh, this is a book I would recommend for you...
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