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Good things come in threes. While reading Great North Road I found out that my wife was pregnant! While reading And Another Thing... I got offered a promotion at work! Things are looking good :-) What will the next book bring?

How many other H2G2 fans saw this release and went “Woah! That’s so... No. �� *shakes head*

I loved the Hitchikers Guide passionately as a child, and Dirk Gently too �� I’ve got Starship Titanic (and the PC game) �� as well as The Salmon of Doubt and The Meaning of Liff. The only Douglas Adams book I haven’t read is Last Chance to See (his non-fiction book about Madagascan animals).

I hadn’t heard anything about this book �� I knew of Eoin Colfer as the Artemis Fowl writer, but I hadn’t heard anything about him continuing Adam’s work. Then boom! I got off a train and it was all over a billboard. And the very idea gave me a bad taste in my mouth (like eating a sandwich in the dark, and then discovering the bread was mouldy).

So I waited four years before eventually deciding I had to know what he’d done with it.

It’s not a bad book �� Colfer is a good writer �� but he’s not Adams, and he shouldn’t have continued Adam’s story.

Have you ever seen Monty Python? It’s silly... but underneath the absurd is more than a dash of venom. Have you ever seen The Meaning of Life? That film is quite dark and disturbing under the lighthearted veneer (Mr Creosotes who eats until he bursts? The live organ transplants?) Without the sour, there’s no contrast for the sweet.

H2G2 has some of the same flavors �� many of the ‘silly�� tangents are actually bitterly angry rants dressed up in whimsical clothes, and it’s the balance of light and dark which makes it so good. Do you remember the aside about the planet destroyed by its shoe industry? Women kept buying shoes, so more shops sold shoes, so the economy became geared towards shoe production, everyone was farming cows for leather, it all got more and more extreme until the whole ecosystem and economy collapsed and the whole planet became a desert wasteland, and the population evolved into birds that didn’t need to wear shoes. Does that sound like a man who enjoyed shoe shopping with his wife?

There’s nothing like that in And Another Thing... Colfer has a great imagination and has a lot of fun in the H2G2 world �� arguably he gets a better handle on the zaniness of Zaphod than Adams ever did –but he doesn’t get Arthur. He doesn’t get the core of creative whinging that powers the story. This book is fun and light and breezy �� not necessarily a bad thing, but not a fit continuation of Adams work.

Do you know what I think they should have done? Set the book in the H2G2 world �� maybe give the old cast cameo appearances �� but do it as a new, book within that world. Let it have it’s own life and set its own tone within the existing framework. That would have allowed Colfer to riff off the universe he clearly adores, but without alienating the fans who jarred with his reinterpretation of beloved characters. I honestly think it would have worked better all-round.

Despite all these complaints, I still gave it three stars (probably like, 2.7 rounded up, diggit?) because there are a lot of fun ideas and scenes. The phrase “Appease the cheese or you shall bring Edamnation upon us all�� quote out of context at my wife, while she was brushing her teeth, elicited baffled and delighted giggles. The graceful Vogon at the end resonated nicely. Interviewing Cthulu and Gaia for the job of a plant’s deity was done well.

Overall, I’m pleased that I read it, and it was nowhere near as painful as feared.

After this I read: The Magic Faraway Tree