Parody

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a parody of traditional science fiction adventure stories. A parody is a work that takes the conventions and rules of one form and uses them for comic effect. It is distinguished from a satire in that satire usually tries to point out human folly and vices in order to reform them, while the subject of parody is the style of writing itself.

Traditional science fiction takes the reader, often through the adventures of a common person like Arthur Dent, into a world where the universal laws of physics as we know them have been stretched beyond current capacities. Space travel is often associated with science fiction because introducing beings from other planets allows writers to account for the fact that they are able to manipulate reality in ways that are currently unheard of; time travel is often an important element for...