"Hitchhikers" 6 - And Another Thing...

[Ham Denture]

I haven't read any of his (Colfer's) books but...I just can't see it being as good. Possibly OK in itself, but since it'll be constantly compared to DNA it stands no chance.
By the way, someone fan-fic'ed a sixth book. It's 42 chapters long, and not all that bad...
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3758466/...ly_Wild_Things

[shMerker]

The whole thing reminds me a lot of this.

[Ham Denture]

Necropost!

The book's out now, I saw it in stores. It pretentiously announces itself as the 'sixth part of the trilogy', which, I'm sure, would annoy many fans.
I haven't read it - nor shall I, probably - but has anyone here? I'm interested to know how bad it sucks, so I can fully quash my curiosity before I sin.

[CPFace]

I haven't read the new book, and I might.

But I have three thoughts about it in my head which coexist in peace and harmony.

First, there is nothing inherently wrong with multiple authors writing about the same "world". That's the model that gave us all sorts of interesting classic legends and mythologies. Frankly, I think we could stand to see more of it nowadays.

Second, the new book is going to be a disappointment. As others have said, the thing that made the first five books appealing was the fact that Adams wrote them and everything he writes is at least a little bit clever. He can't be imitated, and it's a mistake to try.

Third, if Douglas Adams himself rose from his grave and dropped off a manuscript at the publisher's office tomorrow morning, it would be a disappointment. Nobody liked Mostly Harmless. The fans I talk to feel like the series was in a decline anyway and it was just as well that it stopped before everyone really got sick of it. I know one guy who refuses to recognize Mostly Harmless as part of the series in any way.

The earlier books raised fans' expectations so high that I don't think any sort of continuation could possibly satisfy them. And maybe, even if Adams had the opportunity to write a sixth book, it would be best to say, "This concept has been turned into five books, and they're pretty good. Let's leave it at that."

So I don't hold any particular hostility toward the idea, but I don't have any high hopes about it either. I admire Colfer's courage if nothing else.

[Usernamehere]

Colfer is a pretty popular writer, I think. He wrote those Artemis Fowl books everyone (?) loves. I don't care for 'em, but the kids at school do, and I read about 5 books a year so what would I know?

I just thought some context on the new guy would be nice. (Also, damn, I love Hitchhikers. I've borrowed this omnibus edition 4 times, and it's pretty muc hthe book I look for when in the library for longer then I'd normally like. Brockian Ultra-Cricket is the best game in the world. "The winning team is the team that wins.")

[CPFace]

There! Now I've read it.

There are bits that I'm happy about and bits that I am unhappy about. The story has some interesting ideas, but it also has that fanficy quality to it where there's a lot of callbacks to ideas and events from the first five books, like Colfer is trying too hard to fit his story into the canon. The pace of the story just feels so much slower and kind of padded out. I didn't laugh very much reading it. There's an awful lot of time spent talking about the relationships between the characters, which is just so weird to see in a Hitchhiker's book. I just didn't feel like Colfer saw these characters the same way I did. And there were a handful of spots where I just winced in my seat because I felt like what was happening was just completely against the spirit of the series.

Having said all that, I am glad that it was made and I'm glad to have read it. I don't see this as any kind of rebirth or reinvigoration of the series, but it's interesting as a sort of "What if?" take on it. I appreciate Colfer's humility in the preface, where he sort of suggests that he's presenting this more like an appendix to the proper work. Like you could take it or leave it as you see fit.

If you can accept the idea of someone besides Adams writing a Hitchhiker's book, then it's worth checking out of the library at the very least.

[Ham Denture]

Originally Posted by CPFace

Third, if Douglas Adams himself rose from his grave and dropped off a manuscript at the publisher's office tomorrow morning, it would be a disappointment. Nobody liked Mostly Harmless. The fans I talk to feel like the series was in a decline anyway and it was just as well that it stopped before everyone really got sick of it. I know one guy who refuses to recognize Mostly Harmless as part of the series in any way.

I liked Mostly Harmless, and I think Adams' writing ability improved dramatically the more he wrote. Hitchhiker's and Restaurant at the End of the universe were quite sparse on details, and the events slightly more contrived. You can guarantee that whatever he did to revive the characters/Earth* it would be clever and awesome, or else lampshaded by the ubiquitous 'improbability' excuse. People adding to works of fiction is fine, but in certain cases it should be kept in the realms of fanfic. Publishing it makes it canon, and I don't think people have the right with this franchise.
But now I'm wondering if that's an excuse not to read it...

*How did Colfer do that?

[CPFace]

Originally Posted by Ham Denture

I liked Mostly Harmless, and I think Adams' writing ability improved dramatically the more he wrote. Hitchhiker's and Restaurant at the End of the universe were quite sparse on details, and the events slightly more contrived. You can guarantee that whatever he did to revive the characters/Earth* it would be clever and awesome, or else lampshaded by the ubiquitous 'improbability' excuse.

Yeah, fair enough.

People adding to works of fiction is fine, but in certain cases it should be kept in the realms of fanfic. Publishing it makes it canon, and I don't think people have the right with this franchise.

I would argue that canonicity tends to be fairly democratic. In the absence of approval by The Author Himself, I think most fanbases sort of come to their own consensus about what counts as part of the story.

What I like about this book is that, in spite of saying "Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Part Six of Three" on the cover, Colfer seems to realize what he's doing and the way people are going to take it. There's a two-page forward that tells this little story about what happens if you look up the subject of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in your copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the electronic handbook, not the first book in the series). Supposedly, it will tell you that three matches were found and then list five lengthy articles accompanied by hours of audio and video and dramatic reconstructions. Scrolling past the articles takes you to a line in tiny font that reads, "If you liked this, then you might also like to read..." And this link would take you to a text-only appendix, which is Colfer's story.

This says to me, "Yeah. You know and I know that this isn't really a part of the series." I read it as fanfic and I enjoyed it on that level. It didn't wow me in any way, but he's got a couple cute ideas. Even as fanfic, it isn't great, but it is decent.

But now I'm wondering if that's an excuse not to read it...

Well sure it is. You care about this series and you don't want to see it done badly. Why should you be compelled to read it just because someone decided to commission a new Hitchhiker's book?

If you want your curiosity to be extinguished, no, you're not going to miss anything important by skipping this story. It's just a long-time fan going "What if?" for 273 pages. Neither the fact that he's the fan who wrote Artemis Fowl nor the fact that it has a publisher's endorsement changes the fact that this story is optional in the same way that watching Without a Clue is optional to Sherlock Holmes fans.

*How did Colfer do that?

You're not going to like this. I didn't.

Colfer milks the "no body, no death" rule and posits that there was a brief period of time between the moment that Arthur Dent realized that everything was finally over and the moment when the Earth was finally destroyed in all possible dimensions. There are a lot of little details to how Dent and his companions finally escape from the Earth before its destruction, but ultimately they're rescued by Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged.

You know. The guy from Life, The Universe, And Everything who accidentally became immortal and made it his business to insult every living thing in the universe individually and in alphabetical order. Yeah, he's a central character to Colfer's book. And he wants to be loved.

If you felt your blood grow cold with despair when you read that, then rest assured that the rest of the book is basically that sort of stuff. Callbacks to things that Adams alluded to for one-off gags and expanded ideas that don't quite sit right.

[Ham Denture]

Awesome, thanks for the advice. Callbacks and expansion of things mentioned in passing is, as you say, very fanficcy. I'ma give it a miss.