Is the book really that Good? Some of the concepts seemed pretty silly to me...
Did you like "The Meaning Of Life"? How about the Flying Circus? People may disagree with me here, but basically DA is one of the best British 'skit' writers I have ever read, and his over-arching plots are essentially just a framework for exposing his humour (rather than the source of it). All of the different H2G2 mediums have differring story-lines without any problems, because so long as they are
funny they are "true" to the spirit of H2G2. The best USA equivilant I usually think of is Dilbert (boring character becomes focal point for ironically funny scenarios).

Think some of the more wackier Doctor Who episodes ('ah, the original Romeo & Juliet, I recognise the hand-writing', "what, shakespeare's?", 'no, mine - he sprained his wrist writing a sonnet the week before'). His books are essentially a collection of excellent thirty second jokes, carefully dove-tailed into a 5 minute scene that took him hours to perfect, then pasted together into a book for convienience. Don't read Dirk Gently for a gripping drama involving time travel, an unorthodox detective, a dashing hero, a fair maiden, a vengeful ghost, an ancient sage and a horse. You read it for the jokes about government spending and protestantism. For example, the whale joke wouldn't be funny if it tried to use it again every other chapter.

In my mind Ben Elton is a good example of the exact opposite, namely a writer who attempts to embellish this massively clever plot only to discover he has to add sex, politics and poop jokes to ever actually get a laugh from his audience.
