New 'Hitchhiker's Guide' novel to be published

When I first read this thread title, I was crossing my fingers hoping that it would be Neil Gaiman. I'm currently halfway through "Anansi Boys" and the writing style feels like Douglas Adams resurrected (although more his "Dirk Gently" style than his "Hitchhiker's" style). I don't have any particular faith in the guy who did the "Artemis Fowl" series but who knows? I may be surprised. I agree that this is a difficult if not impossible task. As many others have said, the appeal was always Adams' prose, not his plots or characters. But I'll read it. It'll be worth a try.

As to Adams' existing "Hitchhiker's" books, "Mostly Harmless" is my favorite. I like the sandwich-maker stuff and the woman in the cave with the solar powered xerox machine. Random is a believable teenage girl. Ford's storyline is exciting. And I have never found the ending as depressing or as confusing as everyone else seems to. (You want confusing? I point to "Life, the Universe, & Everything." I had absolutely no clue WTF was happening for most of that.)

The worst book in the series was "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish." It's sappy & romantic without being particularly funny or feeling particularly like a "Hitchhiker's" story. I can understand the personal reasons why Adams may have wanted to write it but I can't find any valid, artistic reasons for anyone to have published it. The best part of the book is when Adams takes a time out and acknowledges that a lot of his fans aren't going to like it so they may as well skip ahead to the bit at the end with Marvin in it.

 

Which version of the radio Mostly Harmless have you heard? The broadcast version only has one ending, but the CD has three alternate ones, across the possible universes, one of which pulls the second radio series back into continuity after all.

 

Even Adams himself admitted none of his subsequent versions of the original radio show agreed with each other or anything else for that matter.

I say what harm can it do? It might even be quite readable, which much as I liked DA, he frequently wasn't. The film was terrible. I don't think he would have been at all impressed.

 

I only heard the broadcast version. I wasn't interested enough to buy a CD even if I'd been aware that one existed.

Which is exactly why I think it was a mistake to make the radio adaptation of book 3 so slavishly exact. If it had to be consistent with anything, it should've been consistent with the prior radio plays. Also, as I've said, it didn't work very well as a radio play because it was too narration-driven. It felt more like a book on tape.

 

Uh-Oh.

I mean...didn't they all die at the end of Mostly Harmless?

Also, I just can't see any other writer reproducing Adams' unique humor. And I'm not even sure, I'd want that.

 

Ah! Well the extended version.... let's put it this way - we finally get to find out what Arthur did get up to on the Heart of Gold with only Marvin, the Lintilla clones, and a lot of chatty doors for company.

 

Like I said upthread, read Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. It's not as outlandish as much of Adams' Hitchhiker's books but it has the same keen eye for the absurdities of day-to-day life in the real world the way that Adams specialized in (moreso in the Dirk Gently books but much of the outlandish stuff in the Hitchhiker's series was really just exaggerations of real life).

 

I was trying, but as usual, I failed.

 

Which ending is that?