And Another Thing...

EDITORIAL REVIEW: Eoin Colfer, author of the acclaimed Artemis Fowl series, has written a brilliant and hilarious sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Arthur Dent has finally made it home to Earth, but that does not mean that he has escaped his fate. Arthur's chances of getting his hands on a decent cup of tea have evaporated rapidly, along with all the world's oceans. For no sooner has he touched down on the planet Earth than he finds out that it is about to be blown up . . . again. And Another Thing* . . . features a pantheon of unemployed gods, everyone's favorite renegade Galactic President, a lovestruck green alien, an irritating computer, and at least one very large slab of cheese.

DNF

F-ing boring. Eoin Colfer is not Douglas Adams. He tries too much, the absurdity isn't as natural and immediate, I think Eoin lacks Douglas' “innocence”. It just isn't funny.

A decent take on continuing the Hitchhiker's “trilogy,” but a bit too much fanservice and digression for my taste. In all likelihood it fits perfectly, and I'm just being snobby. The author manages to mimic Douglas Adams style fairly faithfully, but there are a few obvious instances where the author pokes his head in and throws things off just enough to remind you you're not dealing with the genuine article.

If you're a HHGTG fan, it's probably worth a read, if you're a purist, you're fooling yourself, and if you're not a fan, you probably won't see past the SEP field in the first place.

If you felt that the fifth book didn't hold up to the usual standards of quality, then prepare for a surprise. This sixth installment manages to be worse. It needlessly continues the story in Mostly Harmless, is entirely derivative, rehashes old jokes, and tells us more about the Vogons than anyone should ever want to hear.
My advice is to re-read the first three books instead.

I put off reading this book for a number of years because I absolutely adore Douglas Adams, and I was terrified that this “sequel” would put an unsettling taste in my mouth. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but unfortunately I didn't feel that it lived up to Adams' works in plot or in prose. I can't fault Colfer for not being Douglas Adams, but I can refuse to accept this book as the canonical ending to the series that stole my heart.

Friends had told me before I read it that I would probably be disappointed, but I had to know for myself. If you're less bothered by the need to consume every piece of literature associated with Douglas Adams than I am, then you probably won't miss much if you don't read this book.

Colfer is to be commended for attempting the impossible and pulling it off so well. He wrote a book which, by its style, certainly fits in with Adams's corpus, but which never gives the impression of trying to counterfeit him. Not quite as funny or heart-moving as some of the original Hitchhiker's books, it was nevertheless an enjoyable read.

I think if I had read this before Salmon of Doubt I might have been disappointed that it was not Adams himself. But Salmon, with its incompleteness and sudden ending, saddened me greatly and drove home that Adams is no more, so I was not expecting his exact voice in Another Thing.

Colfer shocked me. His capture of the Adams voice was good and his grasp of the characters was even better. Granted at time I felt a bit like I was listening to an impressionist, but I never got overwhelmed by that. And I rarely if ever thought that a character was acting in an entirely unexpected way. Hitchhiker fans should feel safe to test these watersz. Some may object that it's an uncanny valley of similarity, but overall I felt that the spirit was there and rather enjoyed it.