Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable part of Middle Earth lies a small unregarded green land.
In this land lives an utterly insignificant race of short, hairy people who are so amazingly primitive that they still think sundials are a pretty neat idea.
This land has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the creatures living there were unhappy most of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of them were largely concerned with the consumption of large amounts of alcohol, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the alcohol that was unhappy.
And so the problem remained: lots of the creatures were angry, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with sundials.
And then, one Thursday, one creature sitting with his brother in a fishing boat suddenly realized what the problem was, and finally knew how Middle Earth could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and nobody would have to lose a finger.
Sadly, however, before he could tell anyone about it, a terribly stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost forever.
This is not his story.
But it is the story of that terribly stupid catastrophe and some of its consequences.
It is also the story of a book, a book called the Hitchhiker's Guide to Middle Earth. A wholly remarkable book. In fact it was probably the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing houses of Middle Earth.
Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one - more popular than the Elvish Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty More Things to Say in Elvish, and more controversial than Alfred Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters: Where Saruman Went Wrong, Some More Of Saruman's Greatest Mistakes, and Who Is This Saruman Person Anyway?
In many of the more relaxed civilizations in the Eastern part of Middle Earth, the Hitchhiker's Guide to Middle Earth has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Elvica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many ommissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scorse over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.
First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words "Don't Panic" inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.
But the story of this terrible, stupid Thursday, the story of its extraordinary consequences, and the story of how these consequences are inextricably intertwined with this remarkable book begins very simply.
It begins with a hobbit hole.
In this land lives an utterly insignificant race of short, hairy people who are so amazingly primitive that they still think sundials are a pretty neat idea.
This land has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the creatures living there were unhappy most of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of them were largely concerned with the consumption of large amounts of alcohol, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the alcohol that was unhappy.
And so the problem remained: lots of the creatures were angry, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with sundials.
And then, one Thursday, one creature sitting with his brother in a fishing boat suddenly realized what the problem was, and finally knew how Middle Earth could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and nobody would have to lose a finger.
Sadly, however, before he could tell anyone about it, a terribly stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost forever.
This is not his story.
But it is the story of that terribly stupid catastrophe and some of its consequences.
It is also the story of a book, a book called the Hitchhiker's Guide to Middle Earth. A wholly remarkable book. In fact it was probably the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing houses of Middle Earth.
Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one - more popular than the Elvish Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty More Things to Say in Elvish, and more controversial than Alfred Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters: Where Saruman Went Wrong, Some More Of Saruman's Greatest Mistakes, and Who Is This Saruman Person Anyway?
In many of the more relaxed civilizations in the Eastern part of Middle Earth, the Hitchhiker's Guide to Middle Earth has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Elvica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many ommissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scorse over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.
First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words "Don't Panic" inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.
But the story of this terrible, stupid Thursday, the story of its extraordinary consequences, and the story of how these consequences are inextricably intertwined with this remarkable book begins very simply.
It begins with a hobbit hole.