Wondering what Neil Gaiman meant when he wrote that the new Stephen Fry audiobook of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reads like “an alternate universe version of the story,” I discovered this:
Together this dynamic pair began a journey through space aided by a galaxyful of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod’s girlfriend, whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; and Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student obsessed with the disappearance of all the ball point pens he’s bought over the years…
Veet Voojagig? A quick Google search reveals he probably was a minor character mentioned in one of the books somewhere. But, for the life of me, I don’t see how he wound up in the plot description, much less elevated to main-character status.
Is this some kind of weird parallel story, a la Orson Scott Card’s book Ender’s Shadow?