The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is, as has been remarked before often and accurately, a pretty startling kind of a thing. It is, essentially, as the title implies, a guide book. The problem is, or rather one of the problems, for there are many, a sizeable portion of which are continually clogging up the civil, commercial and criminal courts in all areas of the Galaxy, and especially, where possible, the more corrupt ones, this.
The previous sentence makes sense. That is not the problem.
This is:
Change.
Read it through again and you’ll get it.
The Galaxy is a rapidly changing place. There is, frankly, so much of it, every bit of which is continually on the move, continually changing. A bit of a nightmare, you might think, for a scrupulous and conscientious editor diligently striving to keep this massively detailed and complex electronic tome abreast of all the changing circumstances and conditions that the Galaxy throws up every minute of every hour of every day, and you would be wrong. Where you would be wrong would be in failing to realize that the editor, like all the editors of the Guide has ever had, has no real grasp of the meanings of the words “scrupulous”, “conscientious” or “diligent”, and tends to get his nightmares through a straw.
Entries tend to get updated or not across the Sub-Etha Net according to if they read good.
Take for example, the case of Brequinda on the Foth of Avalars, famed in myth, legend and stultifyingly dull tri-d mini-serieses as home of the magnificent and magical Fuolornis Fire Dragon.
In Ancient days, when Fragilis sang and Saxaquine of the Quenelux held sway, when the air was sweet and the nights fragrant, but everyone somehow managed to be, or so they claimed, though how on earth they could have thought that anyone was even remotely likely to believe such a preposterous claim what with all the sweet air and fragrant nights and whatnot is anyone’s guess, virgins, it was not possible to heave a brick on Brequinda in the Foth of Avalars without hitting at least half a dozen Fuolornis Fire Dragons.
Whether you would want to do that is another matter.
Not that Fire Dragons weren’t an essentially peace-loving species, because they were. They adored it to bits, and this wholesale adoring of things to bits was often in itself the problem: one so often hurts the one one loves, especially if one is a Fuolornis Fire Dragon with breath like a rocket booster and teeth like a park fence. Another problem was that once they were in the mood they often went on to hurt quite a lot of the ones that other people loved as well. Add to all that the relatively small number of madmen who actually went around the place heaving bricks, and you end up with a lot of people on Brequinda in the Foth of Avalars getting seriously hurt by dragons.
But did they mind? They did not.
Were they heard to bemoan their fate? No.
The Fuolornis Fire Dragons were revered throughout the lands of Brequinda in the Foth of valors for their savage beauty, their noble ways and their habit of biting people who didn’t revere them.
Why was this?
The answer was simple.
Sex.
There is, for some unfathomed reason, something almost unbearably sexy about having huge fire-breathing magical dragons flying low about the sky on moonlit nights which were already dangerously on the sweet and fragrant side.
Why this should be so, the romance-besotted people of Brequinda in the Foth of Avalars could not have told you, and would not have stopped to discuss the matter once the effect was up and going, for no sooner would a flock of half a dozen silk-winged leather-bodied Fuolornis Fire Dragons heave into sight across the evening horizon than half the people of Brequinda are scurrying off into the woods with the other half, there to spend a busy breathless night together and emerge with the first rays of dawn all smiling and happy and still claiming, rather endearingly, to be virgins, if rather flushed and sticky virgins.
Pheromones, some researchers said.
Something sonic, others claimed.
The place was always stiff with researchers trying to get to the bottom of it all and taking a very long time about it.
Not surprisingly, the Guide’s graphically enticing description of the general state of affairs on this planet has proved to be astonishingly popular amongst hitch-hikers who allow themselves to be guided by it, and so it has simply never been taken out, and it is therefore left to latter-day travellers to find out for themselves that today’s modern Brequinda in the City State of Avalars is now little more than concrete, strip joints and Dragon Burger Bars.
《银河系漫游指南》，正如先前频繁而准确的评论所说的，是一种相当令人惊奇的东西。它，本质上，正如标题所暗示的，是本指南。问题，或者说问题之一（因为那些问题中相当大的一部分不停地塞满了银河系全部区域的民事、经济、刑事法庭，而且在可能的情况下，特别是腐败的法庭）是，这个。
上一句话有意义。这不是问题所在。
这个问题是：
变化。
再把它读一遍你就明白了。
银河系是一个瞬息万变的地方。说实在的，那里有太多太多的东西，每一部分都在不停地运动，不停地变化。你可能以为，对于一个谨慎尽责的编辑而言，努力让这个庞杂详细的电子书与整个银河系每日每时每分所吐出的所有的变化的情境和状态保持一致，简直是个噩梦。你这就错了，你没有意识到那个编辑，就跟所有的《指南》的编辑一样，从来就没有真正理解“谨慎”、“尽责”或“努力”的意义，而他们的噩梦一般是从一根吸管里吸进去的。
而条目是否能从亚以泰网得到更新则一般取决于读起来是否好听。
打个比方，阿瓦拉斯之福斯的布里昆达的条目是，以高贵神秘的弗洛尼斯火龙的家乡而著称于神话，传说，以及愚蠢无聊的三维电视短剧中。
在远古时代，当弗莱格力斯还在吟唱，昆尼路科斯的萨克森昆统治着一切，当空气是香甜的而夜晚充满芬芳的时候，但所有人不知怎的竟然设法都保持了（或者只是他们这么宣称的，虽然天知道他们怎么会觉得有人真的能相信哪怕是一点点这种胡扯，当然这只是猜想罢了），处子之身，当你在布里昆达上丢块板砖的时候想不伤到至少半打弗洛尼斯火龙根本就是不可能的。
不过你到底想不想丢那板砖就是另一码事了。
不是说火龙本质上不是一个爱好和平的物种，因为它们的确是这样的物种。它们从骨子里喜爱这个和平，而这种批发的喜爱则经常造成一个根本问题：一个人经常会伤害他所爱的人，特别是那个“人”是只呼吸像火箭推进器而牙齿像公园栅栏的弗洛尼斯火龙。另一个问题在于，一旦它们正好在兴头上，它们经常会伤害很多其他人也爱着的人。如果再算上一小撮真的走来走去扔板砖的疯子，你会发现阿瓦拉斯之福斯的布里昆达上有相当多的人被火龙伤得很严重了。
但是他们会介意么？当然不会。
可曾听到过他们抱怨命运的哀叹？没有。
在这片英勇之福斯的布里昆达的土地上，弗洛尼斯火龙因它们野性的美、因它们高贵的行为、因他们喜欢咬不尊敬它们的家伙的习性而得到了广泛的尊敬。
这是为什么呢？
答案很简单。
性。
出于某种未知的原因，当月耀的夜空下低掠过一只喷吐火焰气息的神秘巨龙，加上甜香芬芳的危险空气，此情此景实在是性感得无可救药。
为什么会出现这种状况，浪漫透顶的阿瓦拉斯之福斯的布里昆达人民是不会告诉你的，而且一旦那个劲儿上来了也不会停下来去唠嗑这事儿，因为只要一群绸质翅膀皮质躯体的弗洛尼斯火龙划破夜空，一半的布里昆达人就会带着另外一半人窜进树林，在那里共度过一个忙碌喘息的夜晚，当第一缕晨光射向大地，他们全都微笑，开心，而且依然可爱地宣称自己仍然是处子之身，虽然这是些脸颊绯红身上黏糊糊的处男处女。
信息素的缘故，一些研究者说。
某种声波，其他人声称。
这个地方总是挤满了想把一切搞明白的研究者而且他们总是要耗很长很长的时间。
毫不意外，《指南》所描绘的有关这颗星球基本状况的诱人图景，被事实证明，在搭便车者中惊人的受欢迎，他们都受到这个的指引，所以这个条目从未被撤下，于是当代的旅行者最后发现如今的阿瓦拉斯城邦的现代化布里昆达只是一堆混凝土、脱衣舞，还有火龙汉堡店。