Sorry for having to state the obvious here: This is not a book by Douglas Adams.
The main difference is that Douglas wrote SF with a portion of (wonderful) humor, while Eoin Colfer has written a comedy with SF elements. Still a really entertaining read, and the many references to the other Hitchhiker books made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, so much that the fourth star is for merely sentimental reasons.

The last book in the series will now be "Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion" by Neil Gaiman.

This is the last book in the Hitchhiker Trilogy pentalogy, and it was supposed to be a bad book, according to several reviews that I read. It was even described as depressing, not worth the read and that one would be better off by reading So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish as the final installment and then stop, in order to keep the series in good memory.

I shouldn’t have listened to those reviews, because saying that this book was bleak or even sad is utter BS. Granted, the undertone may be a bit less cheerful than in the other books, but nevertheless the story is brimful with the crazy funny stuff I adore Douglas Adams for.

Here are some examples – without spoilers or further explanation – to pique your interest, if you have refrained from reading the last Hitchhiker book until now:

• a Grebulon ship tries to find out why its system does not work properly
• Tricia realizes that there are actually two rules about going back for your bag
• the Hering Sandwich experiments
• the anti-Marvin
• the welcoming planet of NowWhat

All of these examples are only from the first eighty pages; I stopped taking notes afterwards. So stop giving me that “Oh, he had a bad year when he wrote it” stuff. I know, Douglas said so himself, but still!

If you can’t see the loads of humor in this book, then, dear reviewer, you’re a Vogon.

"An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of speech - not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary - six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam - that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each inclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses which reinclose three or four of the minor parentheses, making pens within pens: finally, all the parentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it - after which comes the VERB, and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking about; and after the verb - merely by way of ornament, as far as I can make out - the writer shovels in "haben sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden sein," or words to that effect, and the monument is finished."

Heh. I have read newspaper articles like that.

Dear author,

demons don't die, they simply return to hell or the dark dimension they came from. Here's how to resurrect Ix'thor:

Gather the souls of 7 cockroaches, 13 ants and 3 jellyfish. Add them to a copper saucepan. Gently muddle with a wooden spoon. Put the saucepan on Ix'thor's altar, and set the souls on fire. While they are burning, proclaim the following incantation three times:

YTINIRTYLOHNUEHTFOEMANEHTNI

KOOBDNAREDAERROHTUA

MLAERKRADEHTTRAPEDOTUOYDNAMMOCI

EREHTHGIRRAEPPADNA

Use the ashes of the sacrifice to write his name on your forehead, over your heart and on the palm of your writing hand. Complete the summoning with the words "So be it".

Ix'thor will be there in no time, and you can start writing another story about him.

Dear readers,

this short story is about a little girl who wanted a pony for her birthday, but all she got was a miniature demon. The story is hilarious, heartwarming and a little bit sad. You can read it for free at Tor.com, and, when you enjoyed it, purchase it afterwards at Amazon for 0,75€ / 1,03US$ / 0,64£ to let the author benefit a bit as well.

Read it.

IX'THOR DEMANDS IT!

I still don't get those between-the-chapters-things, but the story itself is hilarious and so much fun. I'm really enjoying this!