New 'Hitchhiker's Guide' novel to be published

[The Borgified Corpse]

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.

 

[diankra]

If you haven't heard it, track down the radio version of Mostly Harmless (HHGttG: Quandry Phase), which takes the ending and twists it into somethign very different (having earlier managed to find a way to have the second radio series, the TV series and the books all fit into the radio continuity. Sort of.)

I liked the new ending for Mostly Harmless. But I hated the way they reconciled the second radio series with Life, The Universe, and Everything, basically by retconning the whole thing into a hallucination. I thought of a much better way they could've done it. All they had to do was alter the beginning of LTU&E a bit, start with Arthur off by himself sulking after the revelations of the second radio series and then have Ford track him down, and then have them get sucked into an eddy in the space-time continuum and end up at the cricket tournament.

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.

 

[Deckerd]

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.

 

[Christopher]

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.

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

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

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.

 

[Ayelbourne]

This was news to me:

LONDON (Reuters) - Children's author Eoin Colfer is to write a sixth novel in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series, seven years after the death of its creator Douglas Adams, Penguin said Wednesday.

The Irish writer, best known for his Artemis Fowl fairy stories, has the blessing of Adams' widow, Jane Belson, to continue the bestselling science fiction saga.

Called "And Another Thing...," the new novel will be published in October 2009. Colfer said he was a big fan of the original books, which started as a BBC radio serial.

"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," he said in a statement. "It is a gift from the Gods. So, thank you Thor and Odin."

The satirical books tell the story of a hapless Englishman called Arthur Dent who travels the universe after the Earth is demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

The saga centers on the search for the answer to "life, the universe and everything," which after a long wait turns out to be 42. Penguin Managing Director Helen Fraser said she hoped Colfer would attract new readers to the books.

Adams died from a heart attack in California in 2001 at the age of 49. He had hoped to finish the series with a sixth novel.

"Five seems to be a wrong kind of number; six is a better kind of number," he once said.

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.

 

[diankra]

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.

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

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.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

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

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).

 

[RandyS]

^^I think the question was about single-author novel series.

Pretty sure Randy was being flippant.

I was trying, but as usual, I failed.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

the CD has three alternate ones, across the possible universes, one of which pulls the second radio series back into continuity after all.

Which ending is that?