The Witchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

Eoin Colfer (right, just after stepping out of the Total Perspective Vortex) is currently on the road promoting AND ANOTHER THING …, which is the sixth in the increasingly improbable Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. The pic comes courtesy of the Bookwitch (and by ‘courtesy of’ I mean ‘borrowed without asking’), who was in attendance when Eoin did his schtick in Manchester earlier this week, when – among other things – Eoin announced that his first impression of THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY was ‘Monty Python meets Pink Floyd, in space’. Hyper-jump on over to the Bookwitch for lots more in that vein …
  As for yours truly, and acknowledging that you care not a whit about my opinion, I’m about two-thirds of the way through AND ANOTHER THING … and enjoying it immensely. It’s close enough to Douglas Adams’ style that it’s a bona fide Hitchhiker’s book, and yet it has enough of Eoin Colfer to make it more than slavish imitation. And Eoin Colfer, although it shouldn’t need to be said, is a very funny man.
  The only downside is the continuing absence of Marvin, the Paranoid Android, who gave voice to what is probably my favourite line in all sci-fi: “Why stop now, just when I’m hating it?” Oh well, you can’t have everything. But if you are in the mood for some depressing whining to get you through the weekend, here’s Radiohead with a particularly mournful live version of Paranoid Android. Altogether now: “When I am King / You will be first against the wall …”. Roll it there, Collette …

Why Stop Now, Just When We’re Hating It?

Gosh, Dan Brown, eh? Bless his cotton socks. As Norman Mailer once said of Jack Kerouac, “That’s not writing, it’s typing.” Or words (and people) to that effect. Anyway, never mind the symbollocks – the sixth, and Eoin Colfer’s contribution, in the increasingly improbable Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy is coming to a mostly harmless planet near you. To wit:

You may not have noticed, but there’s something stirring in the Galaxy…
  Despite the efforts of the Vogons, and even those of a more-than-typically troubled teenager, the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy continues, much to the delight of its fans (and to the annoyance of the Vogons).
  AND ANOTHER THING, the 6th book in the Hitchhiker’s trilogy, or rather ‘double trilogy’ as it has now become, has been written by the brilliantly funny Eoin Colfer, international number-one bestselling author of the Artemis Fowl novels. Colfer is not unaccustomed to strange going-ons and far-fetched story-lines with his celebrated Artemis Fowl novels. Widow Jane 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.”
  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.”
  Colfer, a fan of Hitchhiker since his schooldays, said:
  “I have decided to embark on a very different project. Something unique that I hope will interest you as much as it does me. I have written the official 6th book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Series. Most of you have probably already read Douglas Adams’ insanely brilliant space series. If you haven’t then you don’t know funny. Take it from me, the Hitchhiker books are bar none the funniest sci-fi books ever written. People have laughed so much reading Hitchhikers that they have had to have organs removed. One guy in France popped an eyeball. I kid you not.”
  “So, what’s it all about, this Hitchhikers, I hear you cry. Actually I don’t hear you, if I did I would be sitting outside in your driveway, which would be a bit freaky and show how few friends I have. What’s it all about, this Hitchhikers, I imagine you cry. It’s about Arthur Dent, one of the last humans left alive after the Earth has been destroyed by the remorseless Vogons. Arthur manages to hitch a ride on a spaceship and go planet-hopping with his friends Ford Prefect, the Betelgeusean journalist. Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed president of the galaxy, pirate and worst dressed man in the universe, and and Marvin, the paranoid android.
  “All this hitching and adventuring went on for five books and then Douglas Adams passed away before he could write book six. Hitchhiker has been heard on radio, seen on TV and enjoyed on the cinema screen; there was even a musical version. But the story could never end, until now. I am going to continue on where Douglas left off.
  “Unfortunately for me, he left off on rather a large cliff-hanger. Everyone was dead. Which means I have rather a large challenge ahead of me, but it is one I am looking forward to.
  “The book will be out later this year. It will be called AND ANOTHER THING. And I really hope you will board the spaceship with me so we can travel through Douglas Adams’ hilarious galaxy together, which will save me having to hang around in your driveway.
  “See you at Barnard’s Star.”