And Another Thing...

I'm torn at the moment. Do I want to read the latest Hitchhikers book, Eoin Colfer's And Another Thing, or not?

There are quite compelling reasons to track down a copy - The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is one of the most original and wittiest pieces of writing around. I'm particularly fond of Douglas Adams' last Hitchhikers book, Mostly Harmless. I confess I didn't actually 'get' it properly the first time I read it. I was used to the earlier books, where the plot meandered wherever it fancied going, down all sorts of interesting detours and via a vast array of herring in stunning shades of red. By contrast, Mostly Harmless is really quite a tightly focussed piece of writing. All the silly 'historical asides' which pepper the Hitchhikers books are meaningful here rather than simply humourous, and they earn their keep through progressing the plot or exposition, as well as sometimes tying into the existing Hitchhikers canon - insofar as anything with so many different, contradictory versions can be said to have a canon!

Unlike earlier books, which come with decorative fringes of loose ends and busloads of one-page characters who pop up from nowhere, do something funny and leave again, this book not only wraps itself up neatly but quite a bit of the previous books as well.

Which brings me to the compelling reason to not read And Another Thing. Now that the play is over, the curtain's down, and Arthur and company are apparently dealt with rather terminally by the close of Mostly Harmless, what more is there to say? Can another book really follow that?

And can another author really follow Douglas Adams?

The fast-paced comedy style isn't unique to Adams, but there's something about that breathless, slightly stream-of-consciousness pace that brings through the author's own voice particularly clearly. So, a Hitchhikers book by someone else would have to have a different feel to it, because it's come from a different mind.

The 'hearing a cover of a song you like' analogy doesn't really work, because And Another Thing is an original work, not a cover. And if other classic canon can have writers other than the creator involved (I'm pretty sure Arthur Conan Doyle didn't write the screenplay for the new Sherlock Holmes film, after all) then Hitchhikers can too.

Now, excuse me, I need to run an errand. To the library.