Venus on the Half-Shell is a science fiction novel attributed to the fictional author Kilgore Trout (an author character in many of Kurt Vonnegut's works) but is actually written by the non-fictional Philip José Farmer, who used "Kilgore Trout" as a pen-name.

WARNING: At the end of this book you will find the Definitive Answer to the Ultimate Question.

Simon Wagstaff is the Space Wanderer, a seeker of truth and electric banjo player who narrowly escapes the Deluge that destroys Earth when he happens upon an abandoned Chinese spaceship, the Hwang Ho. A man without a planet, he gains immortality from an elixer drunk during a sexual interlude with a cat-like alien queen in heat. Now, with his pet owl, his dog Anubis and a sexy robot companion, Simon charts a 3,000-year course to the most distant corners of a multiverse full of surprises to seek out the answers to the questions no one can seem to answer.