I hesitate to admit it, but this is a “nerdlets” blog, so perhaps it is safe to confess that I am a fan of the late Douglas Adams’s Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s quirky, funny, utterly depressing, and an all-around good read.
It also has a pretty definitive (if rather unhappy) conclusion in the fifth book, Mostly Harmless. So I was surprised to learn that “a new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book will be published next year.” The publisher has apparently tapped Eoin Colfer for the job.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m also a fan of Eoin Colfer. The Artemis Fowl series is very good (I’m kinda a kids-book junky, especially in the summer), but I am having a little trouble believing this is a good decision. Colfer’s books to date are entertaining, and at times edgy, but I am skeptical of his ability to summon up the nihilistic absurdism required for the Hitchhiker series.
But then again, Douglas Adams reinvented the franchise repeatedly, changing its tone and tenor for radio, then movies, etc. And before he died Adams made this comment about Mostly Harmless:
People have said, quite rightly, that Mostly Harmless is a very bleak book. And it was a bleak book. I would love to finish Hitchhiker on a slightly more upbeat note, so five seems to be a wrong kind of number, six is a better kind of number.
And its hard not to be impressed by Colfer’s humble response to the BBC:
“My first reaction was semi-outrage that anyone should be allowed to tamper with this incredible series,” he said. “But on reflection I realised that this is a wonderful opportunity to work with characters I have loved since childhood and give them something of my own voice while holding on to the spirit of Douglas Adams. I feel more pressure to perform now than I ever have with my own books,” he said, adding that he was “determined that this will be the best thing I have ever written”.
So were do I pre-order?
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