Having picked up Robert Rankin's early stuff again and realised it is mainly a load of old toot, I then turned to Douglas Adams. Now, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a kind of subset of 'Doctor Who'' and if you know that it makes more sense, with Ford (possibly) as a Doctor figure who has flunked out on his responsibility to the galaxy - or so he thinks. I was reminded of it by the whole Terminator shtick where the Terminator decides to help humanity, rather than thinking 'You lot are complete bastards, you can all die and the sooner the better'' ... which is something you would get at least one character thinking in HHGTTG. 
It's complicated ... it certainly is, as a varied cast has adventures around the Galaxy in a story that may well have been influenced by Robert Sheckley's "Dimension of Miracles" (1968), but has massively overshadowed it. 
Yes, it's the Vogons and their awful poetry, Earth as a computer built by mice, er, pandimensional beings, the Infinite Improbability Drive, the two-headed Zaphod who steals the ship containing said drive, the Krikkiters (i.e. Daleks with the serial numbers slightly filed down), and the answer to the Ultimate Question which as we all know is 42.
The 'varied cast of characters' is very much "It's complicated" as including two humans, two aliens of the same species one of whom has two heads, a paranoid robot, bird people, etc, etc, however almost all (apart that is from one of the two humans, i.e. Trillian) are perceived as male. Or at least not female. 
The series went on rather longer than it should have (which you could also say for Robert Rankin's Brentford novels) but at this early stage it's quirky and entertaining.
Do you know where your towel is?