Just learnt that there is to be a sixth Hitchhiker’s book: obviously not written by the late and great Douglas Adams.
I’ve not read anything of Eoin Colfer’s work but based on some of the things he writes in the above article he doesn’t seem a terrible choice. This bit made me smile -
Imagine if Messrs Hawking and Fry were locked in a room with the entire cast of Monty Python and forced to write a book which would subsequently be edited by Pink Floyd, then the result would need a lot of work before it could be cut from Douglas Adams’ first draft.
Also made me think of the sad departure of Richard Wright of the Floyd - but that’s covered in another thread.
Meh, I’m not looking forward to it. When will they learn to let things like this die with their creators? (I’m looking at you, horrible new Dune novels!)
I’m not dissing Colfer. I read many of the Artemis Fowl books to my kids, and he’s a good writer. But the kind of acerbic satire that characterized (especially the later) Hitchhiker books isn’t what stands out in his writing. He’s great at the occasional broadly humorous insertion into what are essentially fantasy-infused spy thrillers.
I would have thought Jasper Fforde would have been a better choice. Or Stephen Fry. Or Terry Pratchett.
I can’t imagine even taking on a task like this, though. The outcome is never going to be pretty. I hope the money’s good, because he’s going to be excoriated by everybody, no matter how it turns out.
Alzheimer’s aside, Terry Pratchett would have been a great choice.
I suspect, though, that had he been approached, he would have politely declined on the grounds that he has his own stories to write, and his own universe(s) in which to set them.
I read the series once when I was younger, but I have a feeling I missed most of the funny…they’ve been on my reading list for a while, partly because they’re classics, and partly because all the small quotes I’ve read from the books are hilarious.
I don’t think I’ll read it, even if it’s translated to french. To me, books 4 and 5 weren’t as good as the first ones so I will stop here to prevent me from bigger desapointment.
In France, we have a novel character called “Le poulpe” wich is kind of “in the public domain”. Several people wrote “le poulpe” books and still do at that time. It works pretty well since no writer really incarnated this character paternity.
But In this case, H2G2 universe belongs to Adams and should not be stolen from him. Death is not an excuse for robbery
+1 Jeremy Clarkson’s books are hilarious! And Stephen Fry is great.
I’ve never read the Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy books before, I’ve only seen the films, saying that I’ve been meaning to get some of the books for a while.
