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 …

Around The Web In 80 Seconds*

Crumbs! There’s nothing like eBay to give you a sense of perspective. An ARC of THE BIG O just went over there for $3, which is a long, long way from the heady heights of the $195.36 it was selling for on Amazon not so long ago. Talk about a credit crunch …
  Anyhoos, on with the more interesting stuff. Over at The Blog of Revelations, Peter Murphy reports that David Simon will be in Dublin on September 19 for a special screening of The Wire, which will be followed by a public interview. Jump on this for all the details …
  Brian McGilloway’s BORDERLANDS hits the U.S. shelves this week, and Brian’s blogging his heart out over at Moments in Crime all week, with today’s instalment concerning itself with why he picked up the quill in the first place. To wit:

“It was as a fan of these series that, four or five years ago, I had a strong sense that many of them were nearing an end: Rebus was reaching retirement; Morse had died; Robicheaux thought he was taking a heart attack in LAST CAR TO ELYSIAN FIELDS. I decided that, in case these series should stop, I would need a new book to read, featuring that sense of place and central character linked. And so I wrote BORDERLANDS …”

  Which is nice. Meanwhile, over at the Book Witch’s impossibly glamorous lair, the Witch is talking up Oisín McGann’s SMALL-MINDED GIANTS, which Eoin Colfer recommended to her. Quoth la Witch:

“The cover of SMALL-MINDED GIANTS says this is a book for older readers, and there may be some truth in this. It’s a violent story, in a way, and the future looks bleak. Oisín has written a thriller with lots of action, and none of the clever gadgets or the backup that Alex Rider enjoys.”

  If it’s good enough for Eoin Colfer and the Witch, it’s good enough for us. Finally, Sam Millar gets in touch to let us all know that BLOODSTORM has reached American shores, complete with a funky new cover, and that the early reviews have been very positive indeed. First our good friends at Publishers Weekly:

“BLOODSTORM is the first in a powerful new crime series from Irish author Millar. Extremely original, it is a chillingly gripping book, and the consistently tough prose should help gain Millar more fans in the U.S. with a taste for the hard-boiled.”

  Nice. And then there’s the folk at Booklist:

“Irish crime writer, Sam Millar (THE REDEMPTION FACTORY) is back with a brand new anti-hero, Karl Kane … crime noir doesn’t get much darker or grittier than this shocking tale of corruption and revenge …”

  Nicer still. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – it’s always Millar time at Crime Always Pays.

* Providing you don’t click any of the links, of course

An All-Too-Swift Pure Cry

We mentioned in passing yesterday that there was a memorial service being held in Oxford for the late Siobhan Dowd (right), a wonderful person and a marvellous writer, and when it comes to Siobhan it really doesn’t matter in which order you put those attributes. Ann Giles is a long-time friend of Crime Always Pays, and she’s posted her thoughts on the service over at Bookwitch, some of which runneth thusly:

“I felt compelled to go. So I went, and I’m glad I did. There was a memorial service for Siobhan Dowd in Oxford yesterday. The Holywell Music Rooms was a beautiful place to have it. The weather was beautiful. And the celebration of Siobhan’s life and work was beautifully put together. Siobhan’s husband Geoff and friends started it off by singing Gypsy Rover. Then David Fickling (“the Lancashire Comedian”) and Fiona Dunbar did their Oscars-style presentation. Siobhan’s sisters Denise and Oona talked about their childhood, and read from a favourite book. Bella Pearson read from A SWIFT PURE CRY and Phil Earle from THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY, which just showed us again how good these books are. Geoff read a poem by Siobhan, and Meg Rosoff read an extract from Siobhan’s next book, BOG CHILD. There was a lot of music and singing. Nick Gill played Scott Joplin. Daryl Wells sang Nina Simone. And we had real Bulgarian Gypsy music from Mike Limmer and Morski. There were readings from James Joyce, Irina Ratushinskaya, Henrietta Branford, Ezra Pound and Dylan Thomas …”

It’s all very sad, especially given Siobhan’s talent – she was feted as a future ‘literary lion’ by the Sunday Times earlier this year. Still, they need storytellers in heaven too, don’t they?

The Embiggened O # 297: Which Witch? Bookwitch!

We’ve never been compared to Roddy Doyle before, possibly because he’s a devilishly handsome cove who happens to write bestsellers, but the Bookwitch – aka Ann Giles – has remedied that omission in no uncertain fashion, to wit:

“I’ve just read The Big O. It’s rather like The Commitments, hardboiled … The Big O is about an interesting group of people, who are all more or less into crime of some sort. It’s not so much black and white, as various shades of grey. But they are very likeable, even though they use the f-word most of the time … I’m not going to give away the plot, which centres on kidnapping, but I can tell you it all builds up to a hilarious ending.”

Bleedin’ rapid, as Jimmy Rabbitte might – and in fact does – say himself. Why not hitch a ride on a broomstick all the way over to Bookwitch, folks, and tell Ann we said she’s the sweedest Swede we know …