Thursday, 1 July 2010

Not Another Thing

Oh, Douglas Adams... how we miss you... and yes, we all loved the Hitchhiker's Guide. And one particular we are the publishers, who decided that we need another volume in the Guide series.

Hence: And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer. Unfortunately... ... it's hard to say bad things about this because it's written to honour DNA... and yet... I didn't like it. Fine, it's never going to be DNA writing it, but...

I think the worst thing is... it's not funny. Okay, I wasn't always splitting my sides reading the Guide, but hey, I did enjoy it. AAT is, well, a chore to read. Since I had invested so much in the Guide, I did want to read this, but...

One aspect of why this doesn't work is that it doesn't really add a new story so much as revel in the continuity (as much as the word could be used for H2G2) and bring back previous characters. Wowbagger, Thor, references to Magrathea, Hooloovoos... (yes, DNA did bring back Slarti, but at least he went on to tell a different tale using that character. Indeed, Slarti's history of being a Magrathean is completely incidental to LTUAE.) When the main characters aren't on the page, there's usually a reference to some item of previous books.

Which, I guess... makes this fan fiction. And not brilliant fan fiction. Maybe if I read the Artemis Fowl series? But I haven't so...

Let me know if you enjoyed it, 'cos it's not something I'm recommending...

[END]

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