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Maybe you have to read it at the right age? I think it's a good fit for a geek teenage boy but not sure what I'd've made of it these days.
Meh! What am I saying? Humour is subjective. It makes me laugh and that makes it funny for me.
What is interesting is that whilst I read it when I was younger and mostly just laughed, these days I find I admire how insightful and clever it is. Even prophetic. As I struggle with my gesture-based UI on my mobile phone I'm reminded of his line about how the more HiFi technology improved the more subtle the controls became until you just vaguely waved your hands and the general direction and hoped (something like that).
I just read a novel that centred around the hero trying to stop a bad guy from creating a device that extrapolated a view of the universe from a single particle of matter and the potentially devastating effect this might have. This was done straight and the book was not bad, but the author had either never heard of the Total Perspective Vortex (and the fairy cake) or chosen to ignore it.
Also I have to give Adams credit for introducing me to my favourite joke. I say 'introducing' because he was notorious for nicking stuff. That joke, since you ask, was:
"It's at times like this I wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young"
"Why what did she say?"
"I don't know, I wasn't listening!"
bum-tish!
I do have sympathy with the OP however. When I was young, a little after I discovered H2G2 probably, I read several Stainless Steel Rat books. I enjoyed them as light, mildly surreal, SciFi adventure romps. I was slightly shocked to find out later that they were supposed to be funny! Thing is I did enjoy them - I just never found them funny.
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