Don't Panic!as these are nowhere's as simple a set of the Four Noble Truths as Innocent children might be misdirected to not fully appreciate.
Know Where You Towel Is!!!
Mostly Harmless.
So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish.
So the singularly MOST important thing in understanding the Fullness of the Most Holy Of All Texts, Ever, the five novels, and one story, Young Zaphod Plays It Safe, not to mention the obligatory inclusion as an Over Arching Clarification, which is the Salmon of Doubt, is to understand that it is not merly one story, but the most holiest of all Holy Crusades to understand why it is that there was a Potted Petunia asserting, "oh no, not again." Such Deeply Significant Holy Tomes should not be left lying around for mere children, who create a fetish of the first one, without actually going into the full on rigors of actually Understanding The Truthier Truthineff of the Whole of the Texts!!! As a unifying Field Theory, with no anchovies.
Which is in a way, a part of a response to The Generation Gap (Aimed at Drieux, but not exclusively) since another facet in the process here is actually understanding the shifting role in the nature of "sciFi" as a literary Genre, and it's place in the ZeitGeist - a point well worth investigating on it's own, ESPECIALLY with the current Rise of so call Post-CyberPunk, which my daughter, and some of my co-workers, are aware of, and well, Gosh, Golly, Gee Whiz, yes, there is fun to be found in Tank GIrl and the movie thereof not to mention the Ironic Irony of Spider Jerusalem as the Graphic Novel Manifestation of the Post-Noir Transmetropolitan even if that is from the Devil Worshipping DC the Puppet Toadies of the Ideological Revisionist Repressors of the Totally Groovey...
So yes, there is a great dialog that needs to be had about what DOOO we want in the way of Science, and/or Fiction, as a way of doing the very public thot experiments about what is worth doing in the world.
Ah yes, working on which is the question to which clearly 42 is the answer?
Or are we in it merely for the Fame, Glory, and the money....