Life, the universe and everything - Douglas Adams

I was looking for the most famous book by the same author - The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy - and as I didn’t find it I left with this one instead, to see what it is about.

It’s a comic science fiction novel. I had already read some science fiction books before, even though it’s not my favorite genre, but never one of the “comic” variant. I didn’t even know it existed as a category, actually.

The missed prophecy

Just a few days to go, then 2011 will be over and the dreadful 2012 will start. Last week I was talking with a friend about the (in)famous Mayan prediction when I suddenly had a doubt: how could the Mayas predict that our civilization would end in 2012 if they could not foresee the end of theirs a few centuries ago?

Had they minded their own business they might have lived longer...

Photo by joiseyshowaa (CC)

2012

They say that in 2012 we will all drop dead. Some deny it or make fun of it, while others minimize it: there won't be any catastrophe, nor a last judgment: it'll be a revolution, a change in social order. At first I brushed it off, laughing with scorn. But little by little I'm changing my mind: I perceive an opportunity in the catastrophe theory. I've been wondering for years what I'll be doing when I'm old, weak, ailing and without a pension. Suicide is a possibility, the intimate solution, but I lack the courage of the great men, or even the discipline of the Samurai. A powerful cataclysm might give me a hand. 2012 is a little early though: if only it could happen a few years later than that...

Photo of The last judgment, Sistine Chapel, Rome, by Michelangelo Buonarroti, from Wikipedia.org