[Book] “And another thing…” by Eoin Colfer
It is always hard to fill someone elses shoes. In the case of Douglas Adams I guess we can safely assume that it is almost an impossibility. Yet, Adams’ wife gave permission to Eoin Colfer to write the sixth book in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy. The book was published in early October 2010 and it is… Well, we’ll get to that in a moment.
Firstly I have to say that I have not read any other of Colfer’s books, though I have been told that the Artemis Fowl books are actually quite good, I guess this was why he was given permission to write the sixth book.
On second thought though, high book sales numbers do not necessarily equate with a talent in writing, I am looking at you Dan Brown.
“And another thing…” picks up more or less where the last book left off and tries to bring the story to an end. I am saying here tries because the end is still somewhat open and it would be conceivable that someone else could be tasked with a third trilogy… But let’s hope not.
The problem with Colfer’s book is not so much his writing. He is a fine wordsmith in his own right, but he cannot escape the comparison to Adams’ writing wit and his unique style. This is exactly where Colfer’s book falls short. The way Adams saw and the way he described it was unique to him and Colfer’s attempts at cpying them are, to me, cringe inducing.
This isn’t necessarily Colfer’s fault. As I said, he can write well and if this wouldn’t be the sixth book in a series that was established by a different writer over the course of almost 30 years it would come off as a rather decent, at times even funny book.
The problem though is that the book is based on a series of five books that has been around for close to 30 years and that people are very well aquatinted it with it. It is hard to conceive anybody would start the series by reading “And another thing…” first.
The book reads and feels more like a homage to Adams and “The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy” than a continuation. It is a bit like the new Star Trek movie by JJ Abrams, the movie did not bring anything new to the Start Trek franchise, instead it rehashed the tired and old story elements, put some new shine on it and added some explosions for excitement. It was for all intents and purposes a fan movie with a mega budget.
“And another thing…” is the book version of this fan movie approach, but it lacks the shiny images and the explosions. Instead it is just a somewhat half-hearted retelling of former elements of the Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy and, unfortunately later on of the Dirk Gently world but it never really reaches the level of either of them.
I know this is probably unfair towards Eoin Colfer, but the book is really one that should not have been written. it is not funny if you know the previous books and there isn’t enough of a “Oh, I remember that” moments in the book that would make it amusing for the fans of the series. All it did for me was asking myself “Why?” and feeling the urge to go back and re-reading the original books (which I briefly did after I was done reading and I had more laughs in the first two chapters than I did in pretty much all of Colfer’s book).
If you like Adams work I suggest that you re-read him and avoid this last (latest?) book in the trilogy, the book should have never been written, much less been published.
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Tags: And Another Thing..., Artemis Fowl, Dan Brown, Douglas Adams, Entertainment/Culture, Eoin, Eoin Colfer, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Human Interest, JJ Abrams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Hitchhikers Guide, writer