Eoin Colfer

And Another Thing...

And Another Thing ... will be the sixth novel in the now improbably named Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. Eight years after the death of its creator, Douglas Adams, the author's widow, Jane Belson, has given her approval for the project to be continued by the international number one bestselling children's writer, Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl novels. Douglas Adams himself once said, 'I suspect at some point in the future I will write a sixth Hitchhiker book. Five seems to be a wrong kind of number, six is a better kind of number.' Belson said of Eoin Colfer, 'I love his books and could not think of a better person to transport Arthur, Zaphod and Marvin to pastures new.' Colfer, a fan of Hitchhiker since his schooldays, said, 'Being given the chance to write this book is like suddenly being offered the superpower of your choice. For years I have been finishing this incredible story in my head and now I have the opportunity to do it in the real world.' Prepare to be amazed...

Gillian Rose

I probably should have stopped reading the series before this point. It was fine. I felt it went way off the rails with the Thor stuff, and I HATED the little "guide notes" which were never part of any of the previous books, so I'm unsure why Colfer felt they were important. I think Colfer's tone did fit with Adams' so that was nice, but aside from the first book, I was massively underwhelmed by the series.

Matthew Rasnake

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.

Kirsten Simkiss

Many people do not like this book simply on the principle that Douglas Adams did not, in fact, write the book. Seeing as the man has been dead for several decades at this point and the fact that Douglas Adams would have loved the fact that he didn't have to write it, I decided that the book was a lot of fun and a great continuation of the series under Eoin Colfer's practiced hand. I'm mostly just glad that book five was not the end of the series, seeing as I really didn't like that one much at all.

Once again, our intrepid spacers have managed to escape a soon-to-be demolished Earth in the nick of time. This should shock no one as it is a recurring theme even the characters seemed to have picked up on. The story involves a number of immortals and a dramatic change of visuals for Beeblebrox, who apparently did have a good head on his shoulders this whole time and by cutting it loose has freed it from his natural stupidity. It now runs the Heart of Gold and is referred to as Left Brain, or LB for short.

I did think that much of the book was very much in keeping with Adams's original humor style and how he imagined the characters, though I thought that Arthur had changed a lot from the Arthur I remember. To be honest, I felt that Wowbagger, a more minor character in the grand scheme of things, and Zaphod took up most of the focal point of the book when previously Arthur had been center stage for most of the stories.

I also thought that the stories from the Guide were less interesting to me because they related so directly to the current story events. In prior books, the tangental nature of the Guide sections had been funny on their own but had often been especially funny because they only barely connected to the story at hand. This book had stories that were funny, but they were so directly connected that it lost that charm. It sometimes felt like a chore to read those bits.

Does it live up to the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? No, definitely not. I feel like that book has a genius all it's own. Naturally, it's hard to measure up to that. Even Adams had issues making his later books live up to how good that first book was. Colfer took a bad last book and changed the ending for me, which I really value and appreciate because I felt it was an unfortunate place to end: doom and gloom. He'd given the series a renewed life, even all these years later. For that reason, I really appreciate it. It kept the spirit and the characters alive and I value it a lot for that. (I also really appreciated that I could absolutely picture the characters with their radio show voices as I read. I never felt they said or did anything particularly out of character.)

If you're a fan of the series, this book seems to be a hit or miss book for most. I would recommend it to those who didn't like book five much since this book changes that ending. The first thirty to forty pages are a little rough, but it picks up quickly. I know by page 60 I was enjoying myself.

Noah Warner

** spoiler alert **
           screw this. i'm done with this dumb series. this book is defiantly the worst, but it's just another hitchhikers book. i think if adams wrote this one people would like it more. (gave up halfway through, I'm done.)

And Another Thing...

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