And Another Thing... New Hitch-Hikers Guide in Oct

[WhiteCrow]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today...00/7619708.stm

All the characters have been blown to pieces, and the trilogy is already two books too long.

But the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has never had a problem with highly improbable events.

Douglas Adams died in 2001, having written five of the enduringly popular Hitchhiker books - still inaccurately dubbed a trilogy.

About 16 million copies of the books have been sold worldwide, but fans were left disappointed when it seemed as though Adams' early death ended the series with all the main characters seemingly meeting a grizzly end.

Adams himself said: "I suspect at some point in the future I will write a sixth Hitchhiker book…I would love to finish Hitchhiker on a slightly more upbeat note.

"Five seems to be a wrong kind of number, six is a better kind of number."


Now it seems Adams' wish has come true. Children's author Eoin Colfer has been chosen to write the sixth of the series by Adams' widow Jane Belson. He writes of his joy at being able to continue the series with the new book And Another Thing.

[WhiteCrow]

Okay here's my opinion of this.

It seems to becoming an increasing trend at the moment of books becoming "a franchise", with new authors continuing the story.

One example of this is of course the James Bond books, which have been continued under other authors.

I'm not actually very keen on this. I mean Hitch-Hikers seemed very much Douglas Adams style, his way of story telling, his imaginative ideas. Someone coming along and trying to write using Douglas's characters, trying to emulate his style, it just feels like it won't work, like it's basically nothing more than fan fiction really.

What are your thoughts on this?

[Rob McCow]

Well, it won't be the first sci-fi author that it's happened to.

For me, the perfect conclusion to the HHGTTG occurred courtesy of Dirk Maggs at the end of the radio plays. At the end of Mostly Harmless all possible endings for Arthur Dent and friends to occur, from a meal with Thor and Zaphod at the restaurant at the end of the universe, to a bath with the Lintillas, to flying with Fenchurch. It was brilliant and quite moving.

The comedy of the books would be easy to copy - the science, philosophy and spirit would be impossible to even emulate.

[Paul Monk]

A bad idea for all the reasons Steve stated above.

[Dave Lewis]

What Steve said.

[SiHart]

Well I don't know about the rest of you, but I agree with Steve. This is a bad, bad idea. None of the "written in the style" books have actually been much good.

Si xx

[Dirk Gently]

The only people I could see doing DNA's humour justice would be Lissa or Dave L. Sometimes I think they channel his spirit.



But of course I'll buy it, I'm a prat like that & I'll want to see how it's been done..& then ridicule/praise it.

[WhiteCrow]

Well I don't know about the rest of you, but I agree with Steve. This is a bad, bad idea. None of the "written in the style" books have actually been much good.

Si xx

Excuse me but didn't I say it'd be rubbish first!!!

[Rob McCow]

I agree with Mike... on some things!

Eoin Colfer has form - he did the Artemis Fowl books which I've vaguely heard of. But any writer who would be good enough to 'do' a Douglas Adams style book would want to write their own stuff, surely?

If they bring it back, they should do so as a radio series.

[Antony Cox]

Listening to him on Radio 4 this morning, he specifically said that he wouldn't be writing it 'in a Douglas Adams style', he'd just be using the characters and writing in his own style.

HST, if it's not in the Douglas Admas style, then it's not really going to be Hitch Hickers, is it?

[Dirk Gently]

May be it'll be written in his style but be edited in a Douglas style.

[SiHart]

Written in his style- what several months/ years past the deadline?

Sorry Mike, I didn't read your second post where you said what i said.

Si xx

[Dirk Gently]

Yeah.

[WhiteCrow]

Sorry Mike, I didn't read your second post where you said what i said.

He he he!

Actually when Terry Pratchett started out his style was described as very Douglas Adams, often called "the Douglas Adams for fantasy". Problem is he's not really, now Terry has quite a large body of work to his name, you'd really be hard pressed to say there's much in the way of similarity - beyond the fact that they work in what's roughly described as comedy and put out under "Sci Fi and Fantasy".

I think the problem is for something like Star Trek, there's a series bible which says how everything works, who the characters are, how the universe works etc. Anyone can pick up the bible, and have a stab at writing it.

But for a writer's series, it's all unique to that writer. What made all those characters and the universe tick was in Douglas's head. With even the most skilled writer you're just second guessing him.

And you just have to look at the dreadful mess the Hitch=Hiker Movie was to realise how hard it is second guessing what works with Adams material.

[Captain Tancredi]

I've never read any of Colfer's books, but adding to the Hitch-Hiker series seems to fly in the face of the pretty much accepted view that Douglas Adams was a flawed genius. I sense the hand of publishers realising that there's only so many ways they can repackage the seven novels that Adams completed.

[Andrew Curnow]

Much to my surprise, when I read this on the BBC news this morning I actually didn't hate the idea. Objectively I kind of agree with Mike, Steve, Si et al that Hitch-Hikers WAS Douglas Adams, and it isn't something anybody else could really do... But having said that, most people seem to say the last two books are rubbish anyway (I disagree, certainly in the case of Mostly Harmless, but that's another story). I'll actually be very interested to see what somebody else does with it, and I don't really think it's going to somehow sully or weaken what we already have.

[Jon Masters]

Perhaps they found a load of old cigarette packages a la Alistair MacLean ?

Bad idea (but then I thought the fifth book was too )

[Rob McCow]

There's potential for an ongoing, episodic version of Hitch-Hikers, more like the radio series was trying to be before it became books. So you'd have one book that wouldn't paticularly link into the next and feature a random adventure of Arthur et.al in space.

Perhaps they could find a computer that's gone mad and thinks it's god?

[WhiteCrow]

Hmm.

We kind of covered this subject slightly at the recording session. Personally there's nothing these days I find more restricting and creatively castrating than the idea of writing fiction for someone else's characters and universe. They're not YOUR characters so you don't have freedom to shake things up. You're trying to emulate someone who was very successful, so will always come out second best.

And as some of you know I was very peeved with Robert Jordan for not finishing the Wheel of Time series before his death. I know that seems really petty when you consider "the man died", but he took over 20 years writing that book series, and I invested a lot of time reading it. It's put me severely off such epics in future.

[Paul Monk]

How inconvenient he died. Lets dig him up and force his corpse to sit in front of a word processor until he finishes the damn thing!

And can I point out that, as much as I loved his work, a lot of what Douglas wrote was drivel (although entertaining drivel) and many of the poor ideas in the movie came from Douglas Adams, so its not entirely the producers fault.

[Si Hunt]

I thought the sixth book was "Salmon of Doubt"?!?

Si.

[SiHart]

It turned out that was a Dirk Gently story in the end.

Si xx

[WhiteCrow]

And can I point out that, as much as I loved his work, a lot of what Douglas wrote was drivel (although entertaining drivel) and many of the poor ideas in the movie came from Douglas Adams, so its not entirely the producers fault.

And yet a lot of the the best bits weren't there in that film either.

He was a flawed genius. I know he himself lamented the fact he'd only written a few books. I remember the first time I read Dirk Gentley thinking "isn't this just City of Death and Shada?". He had issues with depression, he had issues with writers block.

But he did put together some wonderful ideas. He'd put together throw-away ideas within Guide Book entries which most authors would struggle to come up for as a main plot.

[Si Hunt]

My impression of him is that he writes brilliantly and wittily, but he's no good at plotting or coherant stories. So his books are just an endless stream of undisciplined good or funny ideas, one after the other...

Si.

[Paul Monk]

That sounds about right. Adams was a frustrated writer stroke/performer who somehow ended up as a novelist which was the thing that he was least suited to.