In all of the sci fiction novels i have read, I must say Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy is one of the very few which combines sci-fic with humor. Douglas Adams has the ability to combine or compare (or for that matter use in the same sentence) something huge like the universe and something very very ordinary like a 'towel'. Where else have we heard of a chronically depressed android?? We are all familiar with the Viki, Sonny,C-3PO, R2-D2, T-800, T-1000, Gnut, Gerty and even the Bicentennial Man. But a 'Paranoid robot'??? Its something only Adams can come up with. Mavin, is one of my favourite androids. I mean which other android do we know of writes a lullaby? which goes by:
Another funny episode would be the one when the crew of Heart of Gold are teleported from the planet Magrathea into the future to the 'Restaurant at the End of the world' which in fact, was constructed on the ruins of the planet they had just left, and, while there, they find Marvin, who had been waiting patiently for their return for 576,000,003,579 years (he counted them). According to Marvin, "The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline." Apparently, the best conversation he'd had was over 40 million years ago, and that was with a coffee machine.
Now the world has gone to bed
Darkness won't engulf my head
I can see by Infra-red
How I hate the night
Now I lay me down to sleep
Try to count electric sheep
Sweet dream wishes you can keep
How I hate the night
According to Marvin He was created by 'Sirius Cybernetics Corporation' which the corporation's marketing division defined as "Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With". Nevertheless he was made against his own wishes: "I didn't ask to be made: no one consulted me or considered my feelings in the matter. I don't think it even occurred to them that I might have feelings. After I was made, I was left in a dark room for six months... and me with this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side. I called for succour in my loneliness, but did anyone come? Did they hell. My first and only true friend was a small rat. One day it crawled into a cavity in my right ankle and died. I have a horrible feeling it's still there..."
Darkness won't engulf my head
I can see by Infra-red
How I hate the night
Now I lay me down to sleep
Try to count electric sheep
Sweet dream wishes you can keep
How I hate the night
According to Marvin He was created by 'Sirius Cybernetics Corporation' which the corporation's marketing division defined as "Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With". Nevertheless he was made against his own wishes: "I didn't ask to be made: no one consulted me or considered my feelings in the matter. I don't think it even occurred to them that I might have feelings. After I was made, I was left in a dark room for six months... and me with this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side. I called for succour in my loneliness, but did anyone come? Did they hell. My first and only true friend was a small rat. One day it crawled into a cavity in my right ankle and died. I have a horrible feeling it's still there..."
So even with "all the diodes down his left side," which have been giving him severe pain for the whole of his existence..... he always makes me smile :-)
