And Another Thing (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Maybe my expectations were to high but I felt the book wasn't that good. The writing seems to drag on. The almost 300 page book seems to cover about what Adams would have covered in 50 pages. If you feel you need to read it go ahead, just do not expect much.

I was surprised by how much I liked this book. I was skeptical that anyone could do a decent job with Douglas Adams' series, but this actually "felt" the same. I think it almost could've been written by Douglas Adams. However, I did kind of like the ending Adams wrote for the series. I thought it was perfect. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book.

Not nearly as good as the originals. Works WAY too hard to make fun of Christianity and religion in general. I'm a great fan of irreverence in the right time and measure, but jeez, give it rest already!

Someone allowed this book to be written. This was widely regarded by many as a bad idea.

Reads like poor fan fiction and the footnotes of pithy things about the galaxy are mostly dumb. There are so many of them you can't even read the dang book. Nearly every page has one or two and instead of enhancing the book (ala Adams) it makes reading it a disjointed, frustrating exercise. It's like having my wife coming in every 2 minutes while I'm reading and ask me where the sugar or light bulbs are. Again and again and again.

If you loved the other Hitchhiker's books, do not read this one. Colfer's humor cannot hold a candle to Adams's. Where Adams is witty, Colfer is fart jokes. The end of the the 5th book was great, Colfer ruined it. I wish this was never written.

...and trying really hard not to be too gushy about...but for who's sake? Mr. Adams is dead, I really don't think he will care if you say you like Mr. Colfer's version. No, it was not written by Douglas Adams, but the concept was taken from his notes and was adapted by a greatly accomplished writer. Most of you have never even read Colfer's other books and are judging him based on the fact that he writes childrens books. Unfair!

As a person who has read all of Mr. Colfer's previous books and is an adult (ahem) who is also a fan of HGTTG, I am going to say that this book is brilliant. It is sad that Mr. Adams did not get the chance to complete it himself, but we really do have to think about how Mr. Colfer felt stepping into this particular arena especially since there was major (negative)hoopla about Colfer writing it in the first place long before he even began!

Stop comparing Mr. Colfer's style to Mr. Adams' style because they are just simply two very different styles...however, I still hold my opinion that Mr. Colfer was indeed the best choice to complete Mr. Adams work.
Get the book, read it, laugh your butt off, and simply enjoy it knowing that it was not written by Adams, but definitely competently written by Colfer and get over your flamboyantly bloated selves.

So long, and thanks for all the fish ;-)

This book is an absolute rip-off of Doug Adams' stories and characters. It has nowhere near the humor and depth of Adams' work. It is difficult to follow, has no plot or direction, and is a complete waste of money. The author has only written for children in the past. This work is just sub-par.
I am an avid reader and appreciate good writing. I tried this book, but gave up half-way through. Go back and read the real Hitchhiker's Guide series for creative writing and wit.

Tough for Mr. Colfer to step into this, and he certainly captured the witty verbal gymnastics of Ford and Zaphod, but Arthur, Trillian, and Random seemed almost unnecessary to the plot.

Could it have been better? It could have been different. In fact, there's another whole 6th book out there.

[...]

There's a relatively in-depth comparison of the two books there.

This book is a fanfic. It is amazing the inconsistency of this book. The most egregious is how the author say's there is no such thing as a happy ending, but then everyone gets a happy ending. I miss Douglas and now his series is dead with him.

This sequel to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe increasingly poorly named trilogy is a fun fast paced read. Mr Colfer gets Douglas Adams "voice" right and uses similar warped turns of phrase that made the originals, well, original. It doesn't stay with you long, but is a fun way to remember how fantastic HHGTG was to discover those many years sago.

If you are expecting to step back into the hitchhiker's guide world as so beautifully created by Douglas Adams then this book is not for you. Go back and reread the series again, you will find something new each time. However, with this book you are getting a sad attempt at trying to copy his humor which at its best is difficult to get comfortable with and seems a bit patronizing and at its worst reads like fanfiction. Save your money and read everything else by adams, the genius is gone and there is no recreating him but his work still entertains and inspires.

The whole Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy franchise is huge enough to allow room for new "entries".
Seems to me, Mr. Colfer, a great writer in his own right, had a lot of fun writing "And another thing...", just as I had a lot of fun, reading it.
I has been great to have a new, and fresh, opportunity to visit the galaxy with the beloved gang of HHGG one more time. Zaphod is particularly insane in this book. Thor and the deities, hilarious, creative, so Adams like.
Froody book, to say the least!!!!

Let me begin by saying that I suffer from OCD. One of my "things" is that I never stop reading a book mid-way. Even when something is awful, if I start it, I have to finish it. That being said, this book was just so bad that it became the first book I ever stopped reading halfway through.

Even being truly objective and not comparing it to the other books in the series (i.e., taking the author and his writing on their own), it is putrid. The characters are thinly written (in fact changing their basic personalities from what they should be) with no depth, the story is SLOW and not particularly interesting, Colfer's writing style is pretty bad (I guess it's okay for his usual young adult stuff, but he doesn't write well for adults) and the worst feature is that he inserts "guide notes" (they're supposed to be similar to the guide entries from the previous books) every other page or so, breaking up the story constantly with completely irrelevant and non-funny "notes" (which typically take up half a page or more).

It is tempting to pull out a thesaurus so that I can list all of the synonyms for "bad" in reference to this book.

There are plenty of negative reviews of this book here, so I won't repeat the criticisms that have already been expressed by many others. Add me to the list of those who couldn't stomach finishing this book.

If you're craving more of the H2G2 universe, get yourself a copy of the complete radio series instead of buying this book. The final "phases" of that production, published in 2005, provide a different and very satisfying ending while staying true to Adams' humor, intelligence, style and characters.

I have used the store for years and have never written a book review... until now. The reason being is that this book was so disappointing and lame that I felt it would be cathartic to write a review expressing my displeasure.

As I read all the other 1 star reviews here, I realized they pretty much beat me to the punch in terms of describing all that is wrong with this book, so by all means please read those reviews next. It is a unfunny, poorly written, rambling mess. The insertion of meaningless "guide notes" breaks up any flow the author attempts to establish. There is a whole new set of characters introduced -- transplanted humans living on a nano-planet elsewhere in the galaxy -- that is dull beyond belief. And Colfer insists on extending scenes far longer than necessary (there are pages and pages devoted to dry exchanges between the Vogons and some incomprehensible discussion between Zaphod Beeblebrox and some heretofore unknown representative of the Nordic gods.

Worst of all, though, is the authors insistance that every other sentence (or so it feels) is a babbling non sequitor. Descriptors that come out of nowhere or parenthetic comments that make no sense whatsoever. Really, this technique truly makes the entire book feel like the ramblings of an idiot.

Sorry, Mr. Colfer. I think you're best off sticking with children's books.

I finally decided to get my grandson a book that he mentioned that
he would like for Christmas (after I had already shopped for him)
but decided that I could get a almost new book at a reasonable price
so I went to the store.com to order the book.

I really wanted to like this book. A lot. I promise I did. I even pre-ordered the book, so I would be among the first people to get it. I even got into fights with friends about how this could be sort of like having Douglas Adams back, and we should at least give it a chance, especially those of us who felt that the series deserved better than "Mostly Harmless".

It stinks on ice.

I'm sorry. That's not very objective, is it? But it's just terrible. And in the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I couldn't finish it. I'm not even sure where it is now. I put it down somewhere in the house, and can't be bothered to find it.

The whole thing (or the whole part of it that I read, possibly it gets better.) reads like someone went on a three-day Douglas Adams bender and just read EVERYTHING he'd done. All of it. Dirk Gently, Hitchhiker's, maybe even Salmon of Doubt. Maybe even Deeper Meaning of Liff. Maybe even watched the movie, and those incredibly mid-80s BBC videos.

And then woke up incredibly hung over two days later and shouted, "Wouldn't a sequel be an **awesome** idea?! Jelks, bring me pen, bring me paper. Ha!! That was a Dirk Gently joke! Nothing to it!" And off he went, with nobody able to stop him, or make him see reason through his alcoholic haze.

It isn't even that I have a quarrel with the writing, it's just the execution of what was, on the surface, such a funny idea. Colfer keeps throwing references from other books at you, but not in any sort of order. To me, it seemed his primary purpose was to make you remember that you laughed at that the first time. And when he got to the part about Thor and the gods? I admit I didn't do my due diligence on this: I did not realize that the idea was to bring the Dirk Gently series and the Hitchhiker's series together and end them that way. The thought never even crossed my mind. But it was done in what I feel was the least amusing way possible, and it just made me long to go read Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul again. (And click on the kindle request button. Why are those not available?!)

Also, I'm astonished that this book isn't available on kindle. Really? Amazing. And more than a little ironic. On the other hand, at least it's not taking up space there. If I get rid of this version, it will be like it never really existed.

I was extremely excited to read the next chapter in the Hitchhiker series. I pre-ordered the book from the store and eagerly tore into it upon arrival. However, after finishing the book, I can only summon the energy for one emotion: disappointment. This book was an utter travesty and was a waste of the money. Rather than continuing the interesting storytelling method pioneered by Adams, Colfer seemingly weaves poorly-written irrelevant threads together and breathes a sigh of relief at the end when they happen to coalesce into a "book". I had to put the book down several times just because I was too disgusted to continue. With the hope that it *might* get better, I eventually staggered on, but cursed the writer for wasting my time and for polluting Adams' memory.

From endless tracts about depressed Greek gods to pages upon pages of stupidity while describing a lost human colony to mangled and poorly-written characters, Colfer does Adams a disservice. To be fair, the first 1/3 of the book was an interesting way to wrap-up the supposed death of the characters by the Grebulons, but it got mind-bogglingly dull after that. Reading this book was a waste of time and I implore you not to buy it and feed the notion that Colfer can capitalize on the success of Adams by producing this piece of garbage. Adams' estate should have left the dream of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy intact and not sold-out to such mediocrity.

I was particularly angered that this ENTIRE BOOK seemed to be one criticism after another of religion. I will be the first to admit that religion has done much damage over the centuries, but to constantly mock it as a central theme of a novel seems to be more of an agenda that a plot device.

I bought this book excited and nervous at the same time. I really wanted a new Hitchhikers book but was worried another author would mess things up. I was 100% correct. This book is pure nonsense. None of the characters act like themselves, and there's basically no plot at all. you literally turn the last page of the book expecting to find another chapter and end up at the 'About the author' notes instead. Eoin Colfer has ruined just about everything good about the hitchhikers series and clearly had no grasp of the source material. And the ending?? What ending??? The book just stops with no resolution or anything. it's the weirdest damn thing I have very experienced in a novel. It's literally like he just stopped writing in the middle. I have no idea what he was thinking with that ending and I hope for God's sake he does not decide to do another one. This is like the worst fan fiction ever. Just enjoy the other books and avoid this one at all costs unless you want your Hitchhikers experience to be tarnished for good. It's going to take a while to get this bad taste of out my mouth. Yech!

I am a longtime HHGTTG fan, first hooked on the radio series back in the late 70s when you had to listen in real time. Then, came the first book in the trilogy on through book 5. And then we had Douglas Adams tragic early heart attack. Adams was nothing short of a comic genius who had a unique voice. To try to add a new book into his brilliant universe is very risky. I could only make through a third of the book. The characters do not sound right. They lack Adams voice. They don't behave the way you expect them to. And then there is the premise. Earth hasn't been destroyed by the Vogons, but now it is going to be destroyed by someone else.

Colfer's writing feels like drinking a Pangalactic Gargle Blaster while listening to a recitation of Vogon poetry. You are overwhelmed by his use of the absurd. Instead of Adams light touch dancing around your head, it is a full-on nonstop blast. Colfer is not a bad author, but he is not Douglas Adams, and that is the problem.

Although it would have been fantastic if Adams had lived and written more, there was no reason to add more to the HHGTTG opus.

I really wanted to like this - a satisfying and less downbeat ending to the hitchhiker books is certainly called for, since the original series ends extremely depressingly. And I don't think Adams intended to leave it like that.

Colfer occasionally, but not nearly often enough, captures some of the absurdity of the series, but never got the idea that the Hitchhiker's books (and in fact all of the late Douglas Adams' outstanding books) weren't so much science fiction, as a satire of literally everything, while loosely wearing a science fiction costume. This book fails to work on just about every level. In brief, avoid.

Well, it has finally happened! That most remarkable book to ever come out of the great publishing corporation of Ursa Minor has a sequel. Can a non-linear dimensional book comprised of five interlocking parts that contradict each other have a sequel, you ask? An excellent question, and one that will not be answered by purchasing this book! Don't be a Cyphroles, read the book!

Guide Note: The Cyphroles of Sesefras Magna, a gas giant in the Pleiades system, are tiny invertebrates free-swimming gastrogoa who absorb the hostile energy emitted by their predators and use it to power their own systems. This makes the predator angry and so the Cyphroles swim faster through the gas ocean. Sesefras Magna gas dragons have learned to approach the Cyphroles casually, whistling a little tune or pretending to search for a few coins they have mislaid. The Cyphroles always fall for these tricks, as nature gave them large energy filters and tiny bulls*** detectors.

"And another thing..." is Eoin Colfer's part six of three to Douglas Adam's double eagle, otherwise known as The Great Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Do you miss Arthur Dent, Random Dent, are you Mostly Harmless, do you distrust mice and the number 42, are you froody enough to hang with the Glactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox, you do have your towel, don't you?

Well, if you remember how to fall and miss the ground, then come join Ford Prefect and the whole gang back on the Heart of Gold for an entirely improbable (would you expect anything less from the Infinite Improbability Drive?) adventure that will undoubtedly wind up destroying the Earth once again. Oh, those poor Magratheans... Grebulons, Vogons, Planetary Catastrophes and Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters... could anything be more fun? Though I hear Douglas Adams was somewhat hesitant of anyone writing a sequel to the greatest disaster in this or any other dimension, Eoin Colfer's sequel is so flawlessly written that it reads as if Douglas Adams wrote it himself! Which is undoubtedly NOT what an author wants to hear when one reads her book. "Oh, we loved the book, dearie! Who are you again?"

Ms. Colfer's looming self-esteem issues not-withstanding, this is an EXCELLENT book for fans of the Guide of all ages! I can not recommend this book highly enough, you know, so long as you have read the first five books in the series. If not, then this book is total tripe, a waste of time and money and the souls of little dead trees. But, if you're a Hitchhiker like the rest of us... screw the trees, pay the money and BUY THIS BOOK!!!

This book endorsement was brought to you by the coalition to re-elect Zaphod Beeblebrox and by the number 42. No mice were harmed in the making of this endorsement.

The Earth is about to be destroyed, again. To save it, Zaphod Beeblebrox and friends need weave together a web of improbable conditions including getting Bow Wowbagger--the immortal alien whose pastime is insulting every person in the universe—to take him to Asgard so that he can get Thor to “dissuade” the tirelessly bureaucratic Vogons. Fortunately, the possibility that a genuine god might prove up to the task of smiting the immortal insult-slinger once-and-for-all is enough to gain his compliance. Thor, on the other hand, will take some convincing after Zaphod’s high jinx resulted in the mighty god’s abject humiliation.

Facing precarious business conditions, the publishing industry is reluctant to let anything as trivial as the death of a popular author derail the gravy train of a successful series. James Patterson, having proven that an author’s involvement can be an inconsequential factor in the selling of books, paved the way for wave of books written by authors who who’ve passed on (e.g. Eric Van Lustbader has already written three times as many “Bourne” novels as Robert Ludlum, and a new author is taking on the “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” series that was immensely popular a few years back.) The problem is that not all novels are James Patterson’s formulaic “Alex Cross” crime novels; some writers have a unique voice—if not a genius. Some authors do matter.

It’s hard to imagine a better example of an author who mattered to the success of his books than Douglas Adams. It’s not that no one could be as funny as Adams, but rather that his brand of funny isn’t so easily to emulate. This is the nature of humor. Consider standup comedians. Among them there are some who could be fed material written by anyone about anything and they would be funny in the same degree (for good or bad.) However, there are others whose funniness is tied to their voice and the material that they either developed or molded to their peculiar nature. Adams had a peculiar nature.

It seems to me that there are two possible outcomes for someone trying to emulate Douglas Adams. The first is that they try to be original, but copy the style of Adams. That book seems like it would be impossible to make worthy of more than one star. The other possibility is for the author to use Adam’s own tropes and ideas to provide the humor and then to stick heavily to Adam’s original material with respect to story. Such a book would be derivative in the highest degree, but might not suck entirely.
The best I could rate such a work would be mediocre, which is where I think “And Another Thing” is. It’s not that Colfer isn’t a good writer or a sharp guy; it’s that he took on a task that was doomed. Perhaps, I should say kudos to him for challenging himself to such a daunting task.

Personally, I think H2G2 should have been allowed to be laid to rest. (Frankly, having read all five of the original series books, I thought the stories began to drag as the series progressed relative to its original greatness. In other words, I’m not sure whether Adams, himself, could have added anything worthy to franchise.) However, having said all this, I must admit that I would’ve found this book an enjoyable read if I didn’t know that the best of it was just the result of standing on the shoulders of a giant.

Read it or don’t. It’s readable, enjoyable, derivative, and utterly unnecessary in equal proportions.

Mostly harmless. I just finished reading it and as much as I enjoyed revisiting the characters and laughed out loud at some parts it just felt hollow; and that's no slam to Mr Colfer. Had Douglas Adams churned the book out written just this way (and I understand this was based partly on notes of DA) my opinion would not have changed. I've read several reviews that slam the interactive HHGTTG, but it IS a newer version and I thought it was annoyingly froody. A must-read for true fans of the "trilogy", but I can all but guarantee there will be no re-reads of it.

If you are a huge fan of the series do not read! The author misses the entire theme of the series and I can't believe it was allowed to be published. I didn't expect it to be on par with Douglas Adams, but I was excpecting it to be some what good. Sadly it was not.
He spent way too much time blabbering about inter personal relationships and inner monologues of characters but still they lacked depth. He tries to match DA's seemingly haphazard and aloof tangents on the guide entries but they lack meaning and is truly all just gibberish.
But really, shame on me for picking up this book. DA did the right thing at the end of the series because it above all demonstrated that the universe is an incredibly random, careless, ruthless place filled of luck, misfoutune, and chance all imperceptibly connected. Why did we need more?

Someone else reviewed this as "A froody read for fans"... I have to disagree. I own this, I read it. To be sure, I read it twice. This is a HORRIBLE attempt to conclude THHGTTG series... Colfer reads nothing like Douglas Adams... The plot was muddled and hard to follow (And I have read "Heart of Darkness")... He treats the characters cavalierly, with little regard to how they should act and speak.

Having said that, I must admit to some bias. I read Artemis Fowl just after it came out because my children were interested (I always keep aware of what they are being exposed to, although I rarely disallow anything), and I have to say I disliked it intently. I like to think my enthusiasm for a Hitchhikers book kept my bias against him to a minimum, but I am aware there is a possibility.

Unless you are seriously a fan AND a completlist, and are already a fan of Colfer, I advise leaving this one alone.

I didn't want to write this review with endless comparisons to Adams's five-book trilogy, but at the same time, it's impossible to really write a review without comparisons, so I'm not going to try to avoid them. My overall one-sentence review of this book, though, would boil down to this:

Nice fanfiction, Mr. Colfer.

I love Eoin Colfer's other work and I was jazzed to hear that he'd been selected to create a sixth volume from Adams's notes and intentions, with the help of remaining family. There's generally no one better to continue a tradition than someone who is both a fan of the original AND a very good writer himself, and Colfer is both. That said, there are a few reasons I did not enjoy this volume as much as I enjoyed any of Adams's creations, and I'll discuss those as I also discuss what I liked.

The good:

Colfer had a definite understanding of the types of subjects Adams loved to fictionalize and intellectually mock in his work, and he continued that tradition well. He invoked absurdist interpretations of religion, framed immortality in an appropriately jaded perspective, and took potshots at human nature. There were frequent references to jokes and characters Adams coined in his original series--I liked seeing Eccentrica Gallumbits invoked, and I caught the amusing reference to an alternate-version of Arthur Dent getting killed in a deluge as a direct result of insulting a truck driver, ho ho ho--and he firmly grasped the Gargle Blasters and froody language of the universe. I was amused to see Tenacious D quoted at the beginning (I love them!), and Arthur's personality was well preserved . . . "How could the beach be real when no one is trying to kill me?" indeed. I particularly liked that the invented religion in the book discussed determining "which forms of sex are pleasing and which are just wrong and gross." And I must say the fact that Random's life mate was a small furry creature called a flaybooz was really amusing.

The reasons it only gets three stars from me:

I thought the "interruptions" by the "Guide" were far too frequent and also often not relevant enough. The times Adams would interject with a Guide note containing some ridiculous anecdote were usually used sparingly, which made them hilarious when they turned out to have importance later. Hillman's "Nano" devotees needing a god to worship (and taking applications) were sort of reminiscent of the Golgafrinchans in a way that made me feel like it had already been done in a previous book, and there was a surprising amount of Norse mythology inserted in this book (which felt a bit odd to me since very little of Adams's work explored the explicit mythology of real cultures and religions).

Sometimes the references felt like they were reaching--like throwing out names just to be crowdpleasers for an audience that will cheer just to hear a mention of something they miss--and occasionally the characters behaved like caricatures of themselves. Zaphod came out pretty well, I think (especially since the times he seemed off could be explained by the fact that he'd had his second head removed), but Ford seemed less resourceful and more simply obsessed with getting drunk--I think he lacked the layers he originally had--and Arthur actually had little play in the story. I was also surprised that we never saw Marvin, especially considering what a fan favorite he is. I did like that Colfer brought Wowbagger in as a major character, because he was such a hilarious idea in the original, and it was pretty funny that he fell in love with Trillian in a fast-forward sort of way because of the dark matter exposure. I liked the imbalance Random was dealing with--that she had been President of the Galaxy in her virtual world, and now had to return to being a sulky teenager--and I also liked how the Vogons were portrayed (with the invention of a son for Jeltz; Mown's character was kind of adorable).

BUT, despite all the amusing bits, I think there were too many characters and too many of them were stand-ins for the versions of themselves that I loved. I don't think I would have enjoyed this book on its own if it wasn't a continuation of a universe I already had an attachment to. Colfer did what he was supposed to do here, and I think there's not a lot he could have done better; an author taking such a beloved franchise and trying to add to it is always going to be between a rock and a hard place. You can't take it and make it your own because people will hate you for it, but you also can't BE an irreplaceable author and do what he did, so the closest you can get is this: fanfiction.

And there's a reason I don't really read fanfiction. It is what it is and I couldn't have expected anything else. Colfer entertained me, but I think in the future I would rather he do so with his own characters, who he understands more comprehensively and can represent more convincingly.

My wife gave me this book for my birthday which was quite surprising given that she knew nothing of my love for the original trilogy. Anyway, I was not even aware of its existence, but I was excited to return to the world(s) of Arthur Dent and rejoin him in his search for a decent cup of tea, along with the other usual suspects: Zaphod, Trillian, etc...

Others here have gone into great lengths to explain why this book is a worthy continuation of the series and I am glad that they found enjoyment but, for me, it just did not have the same magic as Douglas Adams' own works. It sometimes felt like the author was trying too hard to write in Adams' style. It's possible that time has faded my memory of the original trilogy, but AAT seems to go overboard with the tangential information, to the point of disrupting the flow of the story. I remember how the original books bounced around a lot, but certainly not to this extent. It ultimately felt as if it were written for a young adult audience rather than an adult. If I envision it being made as a movie, like the original BBC version of HHGTTG, the image I see is more Jim Carrey/Will Farrell than Eric Idle/John Cleese. I'll pass this along to my local library and will be curious to see if they put it in the Young Adult or the Adult Fiction section.

Though I have not read his other books, I am sure that Eoin Colfer is a good writer and its an unenviable task to try to continue a classic story, but for me it just didn't work. The same thing happened with Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy when the "Killer Bs" (Brin, Benford, and Bova) created a second trilogy. While they are all great authors, the books just didn't feel like a continuation of the original series. And Another Thing is the same case of not being up to the highly loved original. In the book's defense I will say that perhaps it actually isn't so much intended for the same people that originally read it but for today's younger audience, a group I must admit I know little about.

I've recently completed reading all the Douglas Adams "Hitchhiker's Guide" books so the story was fresh in my memory. I was thrilled to see Eoin Colfer's book hoping that he would tie up the loose ends from the last Douglas Adams book. I have enjoyed Colfer's Artemis series so had high hopes for this book. But I was sadly disappointed. The story seemed to be all over the place. I still never found out what happened to Arthur's girlfriend who just disappears in the last Adams book. But most of all Colfer keeps interspersing information about creatures, sayings, or places as though they are from the Hitchhiker's Guide itself. They seem forced & they are boring to read. Someone else said they had to force themselves to finish the book & I found I had to do the same. And I skipped over so much of the book because it was just plain boring. As a Librarian I love to read & encourage reading. Unfortunately, this is one book I could not encourage someone to read. But I do highlyi recommend Colfer's other books. Those are worth the time to read.

I found this sequel to the original work by Douglas Adams to be about average. It retains all of the major characters with exception of one. All of the characters retained their original traits. The characters themselves become relatively developed during the course of the book, some more than others. The storyline was written in the typical Douglas Adams style of random happenstance and odd coincidences and unexplained impossibilities. The humor is reminiscent of Adams, though at times only UK readers may understand. The plot resumes around the end of book 5, Mostly Harmless. Earth is destroyed, but all the main character manage to survive with the help of the version 2 of the Hitchhikers guide, when placed them in a VR state for several decades, but reverses once it ran itself out of battery. Also some Earthling managed to survive the Vogon attack and resettled on an artificial planet. Arthur et al. avoid being blown up by escaping in a dark matter powered spaceship. The new Earth is looking for a god to rein in the populace, there is a sympathetic Vogon, Trillian falls in love and it Zaphod seem to be in control of the entire story.
It was a pretty cool read, nothing that was mind blowing, it does adequate justice as sequel to Hitchhiker's guide.

I have to admit, I got this with some trepidation. I'm only twenty pages in, and already I feel like throwing it against a wall. Or two. It has none of Adams' goofy charm. The opening pages read like someone name dropping at a very posh party: "Did I mention the time I had no credits whatsoever for a Gargle Blaster? I didnt? Well, let me tell you...." It's like he had this little list of things he knew had to be at least mentioned but he had no idea why.

I dont think I can handle finishing it.

This is the first book for adults written by Eoin Colfer, writer of the Artemis Fowl series; This is the first sequel to the Hitchhiker’s Guide that has been written since Douglas Adams’ death in 2001.

As fans of the series know, Douglas Adams writes with a singular voice, distinct, I think, from any other writer I’ve read. It’s astounding to me that Colfer has been able to channel Adams’ tone and wit to such a degree that I find the differences to be imperceptible. I don’t know if Douglas Adams left any notes behind about future Hitchhiker’s novels, but this one nestles in perfectly with the series.

I don’t think this replacement author gets enough credit for attempting to fill the shoes of the original creator. This has to be a difficult and cosmically unfair task, but Colfer nails it. This is a great book, and worthy to be part six of three.

While this is quite definitely a "Hitchhiker's" book, it is quite definitely not a Douglas Adams "Hitchhiker's" book. That's not a criticism but a description. Keep that thought in your head and you might actually find this book to be largely enjoyable. Eoin Colfer is a competent writer with a good sense of humor, and this tome did elicit some genuine laughs from me as I read it. To Colfer's credit, he finds his own rhythm and style rather than trying to mimic the inimitable Adams, but he does toss in a few too many unnecessary references to the earlier novels, as if to say, "No, really, I did read the other books!" His frequent use of irrelevant "Guide Entries" are also rather jarring and interrupt the flow of the story rather than being seamlessly worked into the narrative (one of the Guide entries towards the end more or less admits that it's doing this, so apparently Colfer was aware of it on some level but kept doing it anyway).

Apart from that, Colfer stays mostly faithful to the absurd rules of the "Hitchhiker's" universe established in Adams' earlier writings, and while the characters aren't exactly spot on they're close enough for the purpose, even if they are slightly more self-aware, as if for the first time they're in on the jokes (at one point, Ford mutters something to the effect of, "Humans always did like digital watches," an observation that doesn't really make sense in the context). And true to the spirit of the melancholy Adams, the novel can not be said to have a happy ending, though certainly not as macabre as the conclusion of MOSTLY HARMLESS. Although it does seem that Colfer has his eye on a sequel, ending the story with the words "The End of One of the Middles" which is a reference to an earlier joke and implies that there is more to come.

If you're a fan of the Hitchhiker's universe then Colfer does a decent enough job of continuing the series in a way that I think most fans will find inoffensive and fun. That is not to say that all of the jokes are inoffensive, just that Colfer's book can be enjoyed by all but the most diehard Hitchhiker's purists. While it's nowhere near as good as anything written by Adams, I think there are enough interesting new ideas and interesting new takes on old ideas to make it worth your time.

I was kind of scared to read this book. Actually, I was very scared, but I was also very excited--and then I read the forward. It was wonderful. Eoin Colfer knows he's not Douglas Adams, and he knows that his contribution to the trilogy won't be the same or mean the same thing to the readers. But he also clearly knows and appreciates his Hitchhiker's Guide, and he's funny.

So I read the book. It was nice right away, because the characters weren't all dead. Then the story took off on its own interesting and funny direction, and I was happy to go along in whatever really cool ship they could hitch a ride on. It clearly wasn't written by Douglas Adams, but it's also definitely part of the Hitchhiker's Guide--much more so than Terry Jones' Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic, which felt like it took place in another universe (in which they use "translation blisters" instead of babblefish).

I was afraid Colfer wouldn't include the random, hilarious, interesting, and sometimes thought-provoking tangents that Douglas Adams used to fill a lot of the pages of the previous books in the trilogy, but they were in there, diverting us from the main story as always. There were a lot of things in there from the previous books that I'd worried wouldn't make it in, or things that I'd kind of forgotten about (there was another Vogon poem, although I actually don't think it was half bad). There were also plenty of new things, some of which I thought were great, some of which...well, let's just say I got tired of the word "buffa."

Still, bringing in new stuff is not only not bad, it's necessary. Books that come after other books have to add new stuff so that they won't be the same as the first books. I'm sure had Douglas Adams written another Hitchhiker's book, there would be new stuff in it. And the new things and characters in this book were good new things and good new characters. Plus, the old things and old characters were done well. Unfortunately, there was very little that was actually about Arthur. My guess is that Colfer felt more comfortable making more minor characters his own (including fleshing out the backstories--not to mention current stories--and personalities of some people only mentioned briefly in the first five books) than trying to take on Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect. And hey, apart from what I assume were his fjords, where was Slartibartfast? And where was any mention of Marvin? Just curious.

But I don't want to end on a complaining note. Other characters like Agrajag did get nice mentions. So did Douglas Adams himself--or at least an episode in his life, which I thought was a really nice touch, and actually made me a little misty, before I kept reading and got to something funny. Also, interestingly, this was the second book I read today (well, the first one I just finished today, this one I read completely)--AS WELL AS the second book I've ever read--that included the word "philately." I'm not sure what that signifies, if anything, but I wanted to mention it.

Thanks, Eoin Colfer, for bringing the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy back for a while, but most of all thanks to Douglas Adams for bringing it to us in the first place.

Part 6 of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy is surprisingly enjoyable. It carries on with the lives of Adams' hilarious set of characters after the "final" destruction of the earth (nothing is ever final when you have an infinite improbability drive at your disposal). Eoin Colfer keeps all the features that make the other books in the trilogy so entertaining and seamlessly continues the story of our favorite intergalactic heroes and bumblers in a direction of which the late, great, Douglas Adams would have approved. Quite often when a new writer takes over a story from another writer's fictional universe, the results are less than stellar. This is definitely an exception.

The story begins with how the lives of the different characters have panned out. Arthur Dent is happily making sandwiches in a beach hut, Ford Prefect is livin' it large at a big leisure and pleasure resort, Trillian is flying around the universe being a famous reporter, and Random has become the President of the Galaxy. However, they soon realise that it's all an illusion, created by the Guide Mark II. In fact, they've never left Stavro Mueller's Beta restaurant, and the Earth is still under attack. The bird-shaped book is running out of batteries, however, and can't sustain the virtual reality any longer. Also, it's not happy with the way things are working out.

Luckily, a most improbable thing happens - Zaphod Beeblebrox arrives with the Heart of Gold, whisking them all away to outer space, leaving the Earth to bubble away into space. They end up sharing a ride with Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, who has started to find the whole buzzing around the galaxy insulting people not having the same appeal as it used to. In fact, he'd rather die. Good thing Zaphod knows a deity with a reputation management issue ...

The big question anyone would ask about this book is naturally, "is it any good?" or "is it funny?" Yes, on both accounts. "Does it live up to the original trilogy in five parts?" Yes, I think it does. I enjoyed it the first time I read it (last year), and I enjoyed it even more now. It's very funny, and it's clever (the whole cheese cult on Nano is hysterical - "Appease the Cheese!").

Even more importantly, "Can Eoin Colfer compare to the genius that is Douglas Adams?" and "Can he make it justice?" Yeah, kinda. Granted, it's different. He's not Douglas Adams, and I think the novel works best when he's not trying to be Douglas Adams. Adams used Guide notes sparingly, and when he did, they were at least half a page long. Here, they're common and normally just a short paragraph, and not as satirical somehow.

The way he could turn a phrase is legendary, and Colfer misses the point a bit with them. Adams rarely used phrases along the lines of "actually, that's just what the *ians on planet X do", but when he did it, it was remarkably clever. Here, they're over-used and not as brilliant. You don't read them and go "hah, that's amazing!" but more "oh, another one" and well, it's different.

Don't get me wrong, it's a very funny book, and I thoroughly enjoy it, and I will be reading it again. It's a great way of continuing the story and I love how the characters are accurately portrayed. The plot is light-hearted and it references back to the original "Hitchhiker's" books constantly. Colfer knows his Adams, clearly. He is also more skilled as a novelist - the prose flows freely as does the plot; it's well-paced, well-structured and it fits in with the previous books. While "Mostly Harmless" was dark and depressing, this is much lighter. Where "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" didn't work, this one does.

Adams isn't here to continue writing (or procrastinating, to be fair), but Colfer has taken the characters we've known and loved for over 30 years and made them his own, and I love it, I really do. The only thing I'm waiting for is for him to write another one, because I want more, zark it!

This book is spectacularly average. So amazingly average, in fact, that I would be hard pressed to repeat back the plot to you if a gun were held to my head. It's all a bit muddled and involves Random's abandonment issues with her father Arthur while Trillian falls in love with an annoying and insulting immortal who was a minor character from a previous book. During this time, Ford's old buddy Thor (yes, the deity) gets thrown into the mix in an attempt to confuse you into believing that you are, in fact, reading a Dirk Gently novel.

Okay... maybe I DO remember some of the plot. It seems the hypothetic firearm aimed between my eyes worked.

The problem with this book is the elephant sitting in the room: Douglas Adams didn't write it. To his credit as an author, Eoin Colfer does a commendable job trying to pick up where the late Mr. Adams left off. It's hard to be TOO hard on him because, let's face it, Mostly Harmless was a less than stellar read. Nonetheless, bad Douglas Adams is still better than the best fan fiction - something And Another Thing... winds up feeling like.

This book seems slightly askew from the rest of the series to me. In fanboy jargon, And Another Thing... feels the same way Buffy the Vampire Slayer - The Complete Sixth Season (Slim Set) did when it went from the WB to UPN. I know it's the same thing, but it just doesn't feel right.

Hopefully the publisher will let this franchise be. Star Wars didn't need any prequels and we really didn't need another HHGTTG book. Both creative endeavors merited some pretty things to see (on screen and in the mind's eye, respectively) but they should both serve as cautionary tales to just leave well enough alone.

When I read, years before this book's publication, that Douglas Adams's wife had chosen Eoin Colfer to write a new, and sixth, Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy book, I had the strong feeling that Adams's literary legacy, especially with regards to the Hitch-Hiker's books, should be left alone. Surely no one else could write with the creativity run amok that was Douglas Adams's trademark? Could anyone else blend the profound and the preposterous, the scientific and the silly, the poignant and the playful like Douglas Adams? The answer is...yes and no. For the first hundred pages of the book, I felt that Colfer was trying too hard to write like a Douglas Adams clone, and not succeeding. Thick and fast were his attempts at humour, but they rarely hit the spot. Then something changed: it was as if Colfer relaxed and got into his groove, writing using his own voice instead of attempting to channel Douglas Adams. From that point on, I enjoyed the book infinitely more.
The story really comes into its own when Thor (yes, the Norse Thunder-God) is introduced into proceedings. There are points at which the plotline smacks of Tom Holt's 'Valhalla'. Plagiaristic? Not quite. Derivative? Definitely. Ideas, however, have to come from somewhere, and the arrival of Nordic deities in the already-insane Universe created by Douglas Adams drags the story up by its bootstraps. Colfer writes dialogue well; conversations are funny and believable, and the familiar figures remain true to their characters, although Arthur's speech seems less quintessentially English than in earlier books, perhaps the result of being written by an Irish writer rather than the Englishman that was Douglas Adams. In the final fifty pages, Colfer really hits his stride, writing with fearless confidence and beautiful descriptive power. He didn't create the Hitch-Hiker Universe, but he stepped into it and did a good job of making it his own. If the whole book had been as well-written as the closing pages, I'd have given it a five-star review. As it stands, the book was good enough to merit a second read.
Eoin Colfer took on a momentous challenge: trying to fill the literary shoes of Douglas Adams. When Colfer writes in his authentic voice, rather than trying to emulate Douglas Adams, his writing has a beautiful flow of energy, and literary flourishes that lend themselves to repeated re-readings.
Before reading this book, part of me wanted to dislike it, as I felt that to enjoy it would be on some level disloyal to Douglas Adams. I have changed that view now. Wherever his soul is in this Universe, I suspect Douglas Adams is looking down on 'And Another Thing' and smiling.

Okay, so, it's not the brilliance of Douglas Adams, but once I figured out what was going on (though, *SPOILER* hello, "It was all a dream?" *END SPOILER*) I got into the spirit of thing. Which is just... fun. Are there issues with the plot? Yes. Are they meandering story lines that go anywhere? Yes. Do the guide notes interrupt the flow of the story, and sometimes feel like they were stuck in just to do that? Yes. Are the characters completely one-dimensional? Yes.

But I still enjoyed it. I enjoyed the language and the tongue-in-cheek humor. And I enjoyed visiting that world once again, even if it was a pale shadow of its former self.

Nobody, but nobody, writes like Douglas Adams wrote. His Hitchhiker's books are rife with logical leaps of impossibility, wry wit, and seemingly-random turns of events that somehow all come together in the end. 'Improbable' doesn't even begin to describe it.

Eoin Colfer's effort in 'And Another Thing...' to continue the story of wayward Earthling Arthur Dent (who keeps getting planets blown up from underneath his feet) and his spaceborne companions Trillian, Ford Prefect, and Zaphod Beeblebrox is a solid attempt to continue in the tradition Adams left. When I bought it, it was described to me as 'fan fiction - but GOOD fan fiction,' and that description fits just fine. It works. Even though it is missing the real belly-laugh moments and the passages that make me read and re-read them to fully grasp the elegance of the wit from the previous books, it still works. It's entertaining and fun to read.

The basic premise follows Arthur as he continues to try to find his place in the Universe and a decent cup of tea. The Vogons are still trying to destroy the Earth and finding it difficult as different versions of it keep cropping up. Meanwhile a small colony of Earthlings on another planet is recruiting gods, and the interview process is a real killer. Zaphod is no longer President of the Galaxy and Arthur's daughter Random wants to be. Ford is feeling pretty froody in general. Trillian is trying to connect with Random and falling for rude aliens (again). Arthur, meanwhile, just wants to find a place where he can relax.

These characters and situations come across in 'And Another Thing...' and they feel familiar. Eoin Colfer deserves a lot of credit for that. But there's still something missing - because nobody writes like Douglas Adams did.

Like a lot of people, i reacted to the news that Eoin Colfer had been tapped to write a follow-on to Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" quintrilogy with equal amounts of "That might be cool" and "What the holy heck?" Having finally worked up the courage to approach And Another Thing with what I hoped was an open mind, my status report changes to "That was definitely cool" and "What the holy heck?"

Colfer does a fairly amazing job of channeling the spirit and storytelling style of Adams, creating a tale that nicely balances the funny with the self-referential absurdism that raised Adams' work above the level of mere comedy. There's no question that And Another Thing fits well into the the ongoing series, and the open ending leaves hope that Colfer has more to say regarding Adams' characters (and that Adams' estate wants to let him say it). However, a part of that fit stems from the book being of a piece with Adams' last two HHG efforts, "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" and "Mostly Harmless" -- which means that it holds up less well in comparison to the original "Hitchhiker's Guide" and "Restaurant at the End of the Universe", and positively pales in comparison to "Life, the Universe, and Everything".

That third book in the series marked the first time that Adams delved into original storyline for the HHG saga, and it remains the best and freshest of the books for that reason. With books four and five, Adams seemed to be working from the perspective of being afraid to continue to push in the wholly new directions of "LtUaE", creating amazing new ideas but then scaling them back from some apparent lack of trust of his own instincts. "And Another Thing" carries that feeling of uncertainty, and though the book is funny and enjoyable at every turn, it feels a little too familiar in the end.

To take up the mantle of one of the most beloved series of books of all times (written by one the most beloved authors) is DAUNTING, to say the least. Expectation can only exceed the finished result. And, in some ways, it does with "And Another Thing." But in other, important ways, high expectations are met. -- Colfer, to his credit and admirable talent, does not try to re-create a Douglas Adams novel. He plays in the world of HHG but uses his own toys and this brings a fresh take on characters we all know (and, let's face it, "And Another Thing" is far better than "Mostly Harmless", which was a rather dispiriting read). Colfer is true to the spirit of HHG without resorting to imitation. I agree with one reviewer who pointed out that Adams' began life as a script writer and so the first couple of HHG books are almost insanely quotable. Adams' forte was dialogue and his books read like the most interesting people you'd ever know talking to each other ... in outer space. Colfer's talent lies in playful prose and high-low-brow humor (that is, a fair amount of potty humour as generated by a Cambridge scholar ... kind of). He makes great use of his skills and produces a book that has some laugh out loud moments (the exchange between the two warring factions that were going to pit their Gods against one another is as classic as any Adams scenes). The plot is irrelevant, because the point is that we get to visit with characters we love and have missed for several years. Which brings up the point of how accessible this book might be to a first-timer to the Hitchhiker's world. It won't be. This book is clearly for fans who remember and can quote all the stuff that came before. If you're new to this world (or are just an Eoin Colfer fan looking to read his latest book) you're best advised to begin at the beginning, where it all began. I hope Colfer gives us another one. Or revives Dirk Gently. That would be Froody, indeed.

And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer
All of the main characters that have formed The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy over the years are back once again for an hilarious adventure through space. An altered Zaphod Beeblebrox attempts to become a god for a newly acquired planet, (or at least represent the recently chosen.) The reader gets to be present when an interview with Cthulu for the new job of God is arranged. Arthur Dent once again finds his Earth wife Trillian and together they try to deal with the amusing complications of their daughter Random, and of course Ford Prefect provides the glue to hold it all together. As the group is formed once again, jeopardy is bestowed upon them, This beginning cliffhanger is solved by an alien named Bowerick Wowbagger who happens to appear in the nick of time. Wowbagger doesn't care about these new hitchhikers, he has his own mission - to insult everyone in the universe in alphabetical order -. So with the Vogons on their tale destroying everything in site, the hi-jinx begins!
Eoin Colfer has taken on the challenge to pick up where Douglas Adams left off. The celebrated Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy gets new life thanks to Colfer. It's impossible to create a universe, or to develop a comedy style that Douglas has, but Colfer succeeds using his own brand to combine with Adams. The result is worthy and satisfying. I'm sure Douglas Adams is delighted where ever he may be. So lets all raise a glass of Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and celebrate! (by the way, according to the Hitchhikers Guide, the effect of this drink is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick.)

I grew up loving Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As a kid the novel clicked perfectly with my sense of humor (and twisted it further). I read every book in the five book trilogy and enjoyed them all (even though I had some disappointment over books 4 and 5). I remember hearing of Douglas Adams' death and mourning the loss.

I was thrilled when I heard another book would be coming out, despite not knowing who Eoin Coifer was. Coifer's addition to the trilogy is wonderful, uncannily similar to Adams' style, and extremely faithful to the original series (well, with the possible exception to the headcount).

Pros:
- Almost as funny as the original
- Very faithful to the series and the characters
- Stylistically very similar to Adams
- An enjoyable story
- Guide notes are frequently awesome
- Cthulhu!

Cons:
- Didn't recap enough initially. A quick two paragraph summary of the previous book would have been fine. It had been too long since I had read the last book and I was slow to remember that it ended up with the earth(s) being destroyed by the Vogons (again) or the circumstances therein.
- Guide notes were occasionally distracting

Overall:
I give "And Another Thing..." a 4.2 out of 5 and rank it as a very welcome 3rd favorite in the series behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 25th Anniversary Edition and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

I love Douglas Adams, and when I heard that there was a new installment of Hitchhiker's, I was ecstatic but a little wary. I knew before I started that Eoin Colfer was an amazing author, and now knowing that he wrote this with the permission of Douglas Adams' widow, I like him even more. He writes that he's a fan of Hitchhiker's, and I think that he captured the randomness that all fans of Douglas Adams loved.

Eoin Colfer continues in the sixth installment with a different writing style than Douglas Adams, which is to be expected. Little `Guide Notes' are inserted here and there-random breaks in the writing to explain something, sometimes unnecessarily but it's all in good fun. Eoin Colfer writing is full of humor and wit, but almost nervous seems serious, which makes this novel a fast and fun read.

I'd recommend And Another Thing . . . for any fan of Hitchhiker's, Douglas Adams, Eoin Colfer, or someone just looking for a book that'll make them laugh. And Another Thing . . . gets 5/5 stars from me.

I had no idea this book was in the pipeline, and was shocked, not to mention wary, when my husband bought it this week. Recent additions to the H2G2 oeuvre, from Mostly Harmless through to the film, have been disasters. All these years after Douglas Adams' death, how good could someone else's attempt at a new Hitchhiker's book possibly be?

Reasonably good, it turns out. Eoin Colfer has produced a book that very nearly satisfies the longtime Hitchhiker's fan. I really didn't think that was possible, but somehow he managed it. The characters are recognizably themselves, and it's great to see them again. The story itself works, carrying the reader along with several related plot threads that tie together rather well. There are many semi-amusing references to familiar people and planets and creatures - too many, really, enough to skirt the edges of pastiche territory. But no matter. It may not be quite an Adams Universe (of which there are several), but it's close enough.

Best of all, And Another Thing... goes a long way toward redeeming the travesty that was Mostly Harmless, credibly rescuing our cast from Certain Death. Eoin Colfer's solution to their predicament affects Arthur, Trillian and Random in interesting and life-changing ways, far beyond the fact of their mere survival. Arthur gets a few moments of near-happiness, something the character surely deserves. Colfer also finds new things to do with Zaphod, particularly his business relationships and extra head. Minor characters Wowbagger and Thor make a triumphant, non-gratuitous return.

This will never be my favorite Hitchhiker's book. How could it be? But it's not my least favorite, either, and that's saying quite a bit. I am prepared to accept this as the real, canonical continuation of these character's stories, and by extension, finally make my peace with the ending of Mostly Harmless. All things considered, that makes And Another Thing... a real triumph.

Granted I am a fanatic when it comes to all things HG2G2, I went into this read with the highest of hopes and had them dashed in the most confusing and disappointing way. Every incarnation of the story follows the trials and tribulations of Arthur Dent and is at least tangentially about the guide itself. SPOILER: the Guide M2 is literally dead by the end of chapter 2 and Arthur himself appears on approximately 40 pages of a nearly 300 page novel. Not to mention Colfer's Arthur is constantly calling everyone mate and he bares little to no resemblance of the character that Douglas Adams created. And even though Adam's work is never afraid to be blue, it was never so skatalogically based as it is here. So if Arthur is little more than an extra in who you may well ask is the main character of the book? The incredibly important cameo character of Wowbagger the infinitely prolonged (who hilarious first name is Bow). The second but far more jarring flaw of the book is the incredibly predictable plot which to me is absolutely unforgivable in a Hitchhiker's story; there was almost never a moment in the story where it wasn't absolutely clear what would happen next. The book made me chuckle here and there there is clear respect for the material in all formats, but I'm really glad I got a copy in the remaindered bin.

Eoin Colfer's addition to the HHGTTG series held, for me, the hope that perhaps Douglas Adams had left behind sufficient notes about his own intention for the series that someone would need only to flesh it out and finish the job. Somehow, this doesn't seem likely to have been that volume. Prominent among my disappointments were: What I saw as slow pacing; Reduction of some of the characters to caricatures of their former merely somewhat shallow selves; Rampant overuse of the "Notes from the Guide" in a manner that was often tedious, and at the same time; Failure to capitalize upon opportunities for expected gags that would have readily lent themselves to a terse Adamsian Guide Note entry. Douglas managed to destroy the Earth very swiftly, and propel Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect into the thick of things, with an amazing economy of prose; I suspect that part of the reason that this one *seems* so much longer is because of the choppiness. On the other hand, due to its lack of the gloom that surrounded "Mostly Harmless", it does come off somewhat better than that particular entry, at least in a few regards.

I won't say that dedicated HHGTTG fans ought to avoid this book; it's certainly not that bad. But it has some significant shortcomings in my opinion, and might be worth reading the local library's copy prior to deciding whether to acquire one for yourself.

If you read this expecting an exact clone of Adams' style, you will be disappointed. But if you approach it more realistically as a tribute to and continuation of his legacy, then it is a worthwhile and entertaining read. Adams original work had me in stitches, literally falling off my chair laughing. This one brought me only a few smiles and occasional chuckle. But it was obvious that the author was a fan, and took the time to understand the rich legacy of the Guide.

this is fanfiction. Approach it as such and you will be pleasantly surprised. The author makes the Vogons a bit too sympathetic, the Guide Notes a bit too interactive, and never quite reaches the level of absurdity of the original. But the quality of writing is good, often funny, and a fitting continuation of the never ending series.

Was this a good book? Well, yes. It's a faithful recreation of Adam's style and humor. I would even go so far as to say I got more chuckles out of it than I did the previous two books in the series, and it was arguably much better written.Was it strictly necessary? No. I think Hitchhiker's got played out after three books. Sacrilege? Possibly. But, anyone who holds the original as gospel is going to see this as mere fanfic to be buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as fire-lighters anyway. I would, of course, buy volumes seven and eight if they were published, but I sincerely hope this is the final coda, no fault to Colfer, who I hope takes a crack at Dirk Gently 3 next.

Good thought but poor execution. I felt like this book was trying to hard to live up to a fantastic legacy and in the process was more of a parody than an homage I'm glad I borrowed it rather than bought it because the disappointment would have been doubled. I was happy to go back to the universe I loved, quoted, laughed over but this continuation was a sad, sorry mess. I can't recommend it.

I'm one of those hardcore Douglas Adams fans, the type who has read everything written by -- or about -- the man, and for whom no one else will ever come close. It may sound ironic, considering Adams' "radical atheism," but to me he was a god. So it was with a heavy-heart that I picked up Eoin Colfer's And Another Thing..., the sixth installment in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, and started to read. Prior to its publication, I signed petitions against its very existence, and planned to boycott it by staying as far away from the finished product as possible. But when it finally arrived, I knew there was no way I could ignore anything involving Arthur, Ford, Zaphod and the gang -- even something (sacrilegiously!) written by someone other than DNA, himself. Unfortunately, the final result is just as I'd feared.

Colfer tries his best to emulate Adams' style of writing (in spite of the claim that he wasn't going to), but there's something decidedly forced about it. Instead of coming off as brilliantly chaotic, as Adams did, it seems formulaic -- as though, Colfer had some sort of outline directing him step-by-step. That would explain the overuse of GUIDE NOTES, which appeared so frequently as to distract one from the main storyline... what little there was of that.

And none of the characters seemed right; it was as though Colfer took the names and general descriptions and then created all new personages in the guise of the originals. Arthur, the story's main protagonist, through whom we -- the reader -- experienced the story, was a mere shadow of himself. Ford and Zaphod, arguably the trilogy's two most popular characters, were nothing like they were as written by Adams' hand. Nor was Arthur's fellow human, Tricia McMillan (a.k.a. Trillian), who had little more to do than interact with her and Arthur's annoying snot of a daughter, Random (an unpopular character introduced by Adams, in what was also the final and least popular of the H2G2 books, Mostly Harmless).

While there were a few moments of enjoyment to be had, and even a couple of chuckles, And Another Thing... mostly reads like glorified fanfiction. While I sympathize with Colfer's plight -- he had enormous shoes to fill -- there's nothing about this installment that feels canonical to the series. Mostly Harmless may have been a dark final chapter to the trilogy, one that left fans wanting more -- but isn't that better than have an inadequate impostor try to fill the hole DNA left behind? I think so.

Chapter 11 begins with the following image: "Hyperspace cleared its throat and hawked out a Vogon bureaucruiser..." Before the next Hitchhiker's Guide entry, we are presented with this simile: "a Vogon without its hostile edge is about as much use as a pooh stick in a bartle bodging contest." It is hard to be both boorish and incomprehensible on one page but Colfer manages here.

I present these selections not because they are Colfer's worst but because they are typical. Cosmic irony is difficult to achieve. Adams was a master in the first Hitchhiker books as was Vonnegut in his early Tralfamadore entries (Sirens of Titan, Slaughterhouse 5). Here, however, in place of original plot concepts or of character development beyond caricature, the book devolves into an endless string of unfunny one liners. At one point, even Arthur Dent has had enough, responding to a particularly leaden quip by Ford Prefect: "Is this the time for jokes, Ford? Is it really?" Probably not. But, the reader is left to wonder, what took Arthur and Colfer so long to notice.

The list of successful sequels by new writers is a short one. And Another Thing won't join that collection. It is the longest 273 pages I have read in a quite a while. Adams had an obvious love for his characters. His light touch allowed them to remain fully realized even as they endured increasingly absurd and original situations. Colfer seems to quickly tire of the gang he inherited. He keeps them on a spaceship for most of the book (like an under financed, original series Star Trek episode.) The characters expend all of their efforts laboring through conversations that we have all heard before. Just before the close, Colfer gives up completely: "Now, that's something you don't see every day, (Dent) thought, resorting to cliches in his amazement."

Arthur waits until the book is almost over to attempt to move the plot with a cliche. The author begins well ahead of him.

Like so many H2G2 fans I was so excited to see a 6th book was written, knowing DNA had wanted to give a better ending to the series than the bleak close at end of book 5. (He had had a bad year of personal losses along with pressure to write another book, and this was clearly reflected in Mostly Harmless.)

The story in this book started out okay with an interesting plot to whisk the characters away from Earth before the end. I give that some credit because it followed the theme of before, another adventure and at the last moment. Froody!

Sadly, the plot took a nasty turn after that and I found myself labouring to make it past every page like a high school teacher proof-reading book reports written by remedial students. It really is juvenile writing and doesn't honour the characters as we have come to love them. (Much like a new set of non-trekkie writers getting their hands on a Star Trek film or the completely inaccurate protrayal of Dumbledore in the Harry Potter film franchise).

The author tries to convey three elements present in DNA's writing and fails miserably:

1. Footnotes. They are brilliantly constructed by DNA and give much to the flow of the story, but completely pointless and not at all funny here. It's more a case of, "Oh no, not again." (Fans will catch the bowl of petunias reference inserted for your reading pleasure).

2. Meaningless of life/Atheist jabs: DNA's worldly view "negativity" makes perfect sense in a "I never thought of it that way before" sort of way, and it makes for highly entertaining reading outside the box. Here it is just heavy and annoying, like the author is trying too hard to be deep or defeatist-- I just wish he'd give up all together and spare me reading this stuff.

3. Resolution of multiple plots/new characters: DNA had a knack for introducing multiple plots, characters and factoids that all resolved themselves perfectly at the end of the book. (This especially present in his Drk Gently novels, which I am so glad Colfer has not gotten his paws on yet). Here there are so many ideas swishing around it's like backwash in a soda bottle, but the backwash just floats there in plain sight, not having any real point or resolution.

I found myself very angry reading this book because it took so many bad turns, introduced so many pointless and unresolved plots and really lost that spirit present in DNA's witty and brilliant writing. I am angry because now this "stuff" is in my head and I wish I could UN-READ the book. I'll take the destruction of all the characters and end of the series over this muck any day.

I've been a long time Hitchhiker's fan. The omnibus collection of the original five novels was the first "Grown-up Book" I bought as a kid, when I was eleven years old. I've loved the series, but was always disappointed with its ending, so obviously I was incredibly excited when I heard that someone was going to write a sixth book. So, with that info in mind, what were my thoughts? Mixed to say the least.

I'll try to keep this spoiler free, but names will come up. If you don't want to know which characters return, you probably don't want to read this.

The book is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Douglas Adams.

First off, Mr. Colfer catches the spirit of the series. The humor, while a little different (let's face it, the man is not Adams) does not seem out of place in the world that the characters inhabit. He gets the personalities of most of the characters right, though Ford seems to have mellowed out a lot since the last book, he seems almost... calm. Zaphod though, he gets entirely wrong in my opinion. He seems a caricature of his former self. No longer do we have the stupid, but insanely clever character, now he just seems stupid with the occasional moment of wit. We never really got a good look at Random in Mostly Harmless, but Colfer has decided that her personality is, to quote the book, that of a Goth teenager. Frankly she always seemed more Bipolar to me, with moments of good nature with flashes of anger, but that one may just be me.

The story itself is odd, but that's not a bad thing. Colfer gives the characters more depth and emotion, for example Arthur actually feels bad for allowing Fenchurch to disappear (something mentioned in the last book, but never really discussed.) It seems that this haunts him somewhat and is not just cast aside. This once again, is not a bad thing, but it's different from Adams who liked to focus on dialogue rather than emotions.

Which brings me to another point. I've never read Colfer's other books, but I must ask, is his dialogue always this bad? It doesn't always follow a structure. Topics change from sentence to sentence, and he occasionally has a character talk out of turn.

Instead of talking in proper order, he often does something like this:

Person A: "Hi"
Person B: "Hello. *Insert some guide reference here*"
______
Guide Entry
_______
Person B: "Continues talking."

Shouldn't structurally it be person A's chance to talk? Perhaps if he had not ended the line before the guide entry with a quotation mark or at least included a "said person B" to let you know who was talking when we return from the entry, then it wouldn't have bothered me as much. As things are though, it is very awkward and really annoying. It's like he doesn't know how to write a proper conversation. He's got good one liners and the occasional bickering between characters is a good thing when he gets them right, but he doesn't know how to (A) end conversations and (B) go to the next topic in a seamless way. They just feel awkward.

Mr. Colfer's descriptions also have this very strong issue. For example, at one point the uses the phrase "said the green ship's captain." So, is the ship green? Is the Captain green? Are they both green? The reader should never question this sort of thing. (Yes, I know that he describes the captain as being green early on, but structurally speaking, it's a terrible sentence.)

In conclusion: It's funny, it's in the spirit of the guide, and he DOESN'T try to be Douglas Adams, all of which are good.

The problems: He's not a very good dialogue writer and his descriptions are at times lacking. If it were not for the picture on the front of the book, I would have had no clue what one of the spaceships looked like. He describes it only once, in the middle of a conversation and does so in TWO small sentences.

Would I suggest it? Only for those who were not satisfied with the ending of Mostly Harmless. The way he concludes the ending of Mostly Harmless is good fun, but his writing is just not that great. Good ideas, bad delivery.

In a perfect world, Douglas Adams would still be with us, sharing his wit and observations on all manner of this. Along with that, it would have been ideal for Adams to have spent more time on entry number four in the series, "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish," so as to wrap up the Hitchhiker's Guide series with a satisfying conclusion. Afterwards, having made his point, he could then wield his imagination against new ideas.

The somewhat lower quality of "Fish" no doubt led Adams to write "Mostly Harmless," a far more polished (and yet, in many respects, far more confusing and demanding of the reader) book than "Fish." Another ending to the series was made in this book, albeit not satisfying to readers of a more romantic inclination.

As the story goes, Adams had intended to write another entry, and even got so far as the noted before his life was sadly cut short. Eoin Colfer was given the difficult task of bringing these notes to life, a task that any smart person would approach with some trepidation. The result: "And Another Thing..."

So, how did he do? Not so bad, actually.

This is clearly not a Douglas Adams book, although Colfer does a tremendous job in making the transition work. For the most part, the characters are treated with the respect that they deserve, the plot flows very nicely at exactly the proper pace (in this, Colfer may have exceeded Adams ), and the conclusion does not have the absolute quality of ending that Adam's books did, forcing unholy gyrations to begin the inevitable follow-up book. The tricky bridge between "Mostly Harmless" and "And Another Thing" is handled particularly adroitly, tantamount to pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Overall, the book feels very "logical," if such a word can be applied to this series.

It's by no means an easy dash through the book for the reader, though. The text is frequently interrupted by aside references to the Guide, many of which feel gratuitous. References to planets, themes, and jokes that were used in throw-away lines in previous books are sprinkled liberally throughout the text, to the point where they go beyond sly winks and move into the realm of "Buzzword Bingo." (It gets to the point where one wonders if the galaxy is populated by only a dozen people living on about five planets.) It's not helped by the fact that many of the characters are given names which are not just goofy (as Adams' were) but are in fact in-jokes such as Aseed Preflux, Buff Orpington, which will take the reader momentarily out of the book.

As far as characterizations go, the closest renditions are Zaphod and Ford - although given that they are caricatures to begin with, this is understandable. Specifically, this is Zaphod's book more than any other character, and the reader is able to get into his head(s) in a big way - and it works. Ford is not a terribly big part of the book - in fact, he's mostly used as the focal point of the book's major running gag - but again, the characterization makes sense.

Trillian is fairly unrecognizable, unfortunately, and is a long way removed from the intelligent, level-headed character in the early books. To be fair to Colfer, this is not entirely his fault, as Adams was already moving her down that path in "Mostly Harmless." Still, with Trillian essentially being a flake, the reader's ability to fall back to a "calm center" is essentially removed, and no other character steps in to fill that role.

Random, Arthur's new-found daughter from the previous book, essentially serves the "foil" role that Martin the Paranoid Android used to own, although with more of an edge. She's a fairly one-dimensional character throughout the book, with more minor changes towards the end, and is (alas) not particularly interesting.

Wowbagger, whose only previous contribution to the series was as a running gag in "Life, the Universe, and Everything," is brought back and fleshed out enormously into a three-dimensional character. There would have been so many ways to get this wrong (witness the misuse of Slartibartfast in the aforementioned "Everything"), and reader may be wondering why such a character couldn't be left as a one-time gag - but in the context of the plot, it absolutely works, and Colfer deftly pulls it off without making it feel contrived.

And Arthur? Arthur's role as a "fish out of water" (or recovery thereafter) was the central focus of all of the previous books. In this book, Arthur mostly bounces between two extremes - a worldly (galactic?) traveler somewhat at peace with himself, and a spearthrower whose role is to make important points to move the plot along. There's some attempt to once again make Arthur the object of galactic prejudice, but the attempts fall flat; the character has simply moved on beyond that. Perhaps the best bits with Arthur are when he's alone, meditating on this thing or that thing. This is definitely not Arthur's book, however, even given the focus on him in the final chapter, and it's this point that, more than anything else, gives this book a distinctly different flavor.

"And Another Thing" is definitely a must-read for "Hitchhiker" fans, who I expect will not be let down by the book. Colfer has done a solid job of breathing life into Adams' notes, weaving another point-of-view into the series.

I liked this book and thought it was a better way to end the series than Mostly Harmless would have ended the series. You can definitely tell by the way this is written that it wasn't penned by Douglas Adams. However I have to give credit to Eoin Colfer for even attempting to write a book in this series as there are people who would hate what he wrote just because it wasn't written by Adams. I thought the story was written in the Adams style and used many of his notes and sidebars that many people enjoyed about the earlier books in the series. I didn't have the highest expectations for this book but was pleasantly surprised.

There really aren't any unresolved questions from Douglas Adam's writing. And it's not as if there was a torrent of shouts from the streets for more stories of Arthur Dent. We loved the inventive language, the bizarreness of settings, and the surrealist free-for-all of Adam's writing. And this book? It's fine, funny, and has many of Adam's signature turns of phrase in it. And it has more Arthur adventures, and more rewriting of Earth's history in the universe. And it's fun to read.

But there's really no point. Eoin Colfer is a good writer. He should write his own humorous science fiction book. Sure, everyone will compare it to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but at least it'll be his own work. His own worlds and his own jokes. No need for this book to go back over the same territory again.

Maybe book seven of the HHGTTG will be a reboot, a la Battlestar Galactica. Sexy Vogons, a sociopathic Arthur, and a do-gooded Zaphod. That would turn things around for the reader.

I bought this book in hard cover when it first came out and got about 50 pages in before putting it aside. Having recently taken the devil's plunge and gone to Kindle format, I had reread the original 5 novels of the trilogy and decided to give Mr. Colfer's attempt at the Adams-verse another shot. Big mistake. Mr. Colfer is a fine novelist in his own right and he even hits a few (a very few) correct notes in his HHGTTG effort, but not nearly enough to make slogging though the whole book worthwhile.
If one would attempt to write a sequel to Moby Dick and have Ishmael speak like a surfer-dude and the Inn Keeper from chapter one come back as a main character, you'd have a vague approximation as to how "And Another Thing..." feels. I felt that he relied far too much on vomiting up as many tiny and misplaced inferences to the original books as possible to squeeze into every page while changing the attitudes, behaviors, and modes of speech of well known and beloved characters.
Reading it did not make me glad someone had carried on Mr. Adam's legacy, but just made me more cognizant of the fact that he's gone and irreplaceable.

I've learned, a little too late, that one of the best ways to discover new books and authors is through used book sales at local libraries. And that's exactly where I found "And Another Thing..." by Eoin Colfer.

The copy I obtained was brand new. My best guess is, someone obviously shelled out full price, found it not to their liking, and donated it to the book sale. When I stumbled upon it, I immediately saw what I had in my hands! And for 50 cents, (and after reading reviews on the store.com because I had my tablet handy) was ever so happy to take this galactic trip once more with Arthur, Ford and Zaphod.

I liked it. Eoin Colfer really nails the Douglas Adams writing style. It's the same wit and humor. So much so, if the publisher had said it was a manuscript found on Douglas Adams' computer or squirreled under his bed, you'd believe that he indeed wrote it.

There were moments where I actually laughed out loud!

The point at where Mr. Adams and Mr. Colfer part a bit is in their treatment of God and religion.

With Douglas Adams and the previous Hitchhiker's books, he seemed to be asking the question, "Is there a God?" And, in the process of his characters' adventures, poking a bit of fun at religion, creation, the universe, etc.

Mr. Colfer treats God and religion a bit more direct. Only because it is an intricate plot point to the story. Not so much as to be offensive, but it certainly isn't as subtle as in the previous books.

All in all, a fun read and a great job by Mr. Colfer. I give him credit. He had a large order on hand. "Mostly Harmless" was not well received. Too many readers found the book to be a downer as did Douglas Adams ( a bit later after its release, from what I've read). Mr. Colfer was charged with reversing this. He does a great job of bringing you up to speed where "Mostly Harmless" left off and then carries you into this new story. I didn't read "Mostly harmless" due to all the negative reviews. But, with "And Another Thing..." I didn't' feel I missed anything, either.:) Plus, it's the same fun as the first four books.

Hopefully, another Hitchhikers book from Mr. Colfer is in the works. And hopefully, I'll find it at another library used book sale.:)

I’m a diehard fan of the Hitchhiker series, and while this is not as good, it has some good things. More importantly it’s not so bad that it takes away from the original 5 books of the “increasingly inaccurate trilogy”

Triggers: It’s a comedic book*, so nothing, not one thing, is sacred. Lots of “cussing” but they are all mostly invented words, I’ll be saying “Zarks”, “Buffa” and “Froody” for a week. I rate it G, or “mostly harmless”. *How comedic is the question: sometimes brilliant, but often not: Sometimes I laughed out loud, sometimes I groaned, and sometimes I frowned.

For those who have faithfully followed the adventures of Arthur, Ford, Trillian, and Zaphod through the first five novels of the Hitchhiker Trilogy only to be unsettled by the ending of the fifth book, it is possible you might delude yourselves (as I did) into believing another author could add one more episode in these character's lives that was as poignant and witty as the original. It is to those people I am writing in an attempt to save you the disappointment you will feel reading this book. The original five Hitchhiker books were intelligent and coherent with input from the Guide strategically placed throughout them. This book resorts to potty humor, meandering and all-to-frequently irrelevant guide entries, and the most dull plot I have read in months.

Arthur begins on a beach with a bird and ends on a beach with a bird. With existentialist overtones, the middle of the book finds him traveling from one Vogon destroyed planet to another to be destroyed planet. Yet, this book is not about any of the main characters of the old books, nor is it really about the Guide (although its beginning professes to be about an appendix of the Guide). In fact, this book is more about a Vogon becoming caring (is that even possible in Adams's universe?), an Irish salesman maintaining his Nano (an Earthlike planet) retirement community dictatorship, and Zaphod sawing off his intelligent head. This last is the saddest, because following an amnesiac Zaphod around (yes, he can not even remember sentences spoken a few paragraphs before) without any intelligence is a horrible way to do homage to the man who performed surgery to block the top-secret information in his brain from detection by others, even himself. It was nice to see Wowbagger and Thor again, but neither were really in character.

Both Adams and Colfer have brought me to tears - the former from laughing so hard every page or so, the later from sorrow after flipping through the book only to find I have many more pages to read before I finish it. Perhaps the Shrek crowd finds spaceships shaped like male crotches humorous, but there is nothing of the trite, hidden, British humor that endeared more intelligent crowds to the originals in this one. If you must have more closure than the fifth book allowed, read away, but please borrow the thing from your library. If you buy it, Colfer may think he is successful enough to attempt another. Granted if he does, I will not review it because I would rather hear Vogon poetry than subject myself to the torture of reading another of his books.

This is truly one of the worst books I have ever read! And this is a tragedy because Douglas Adams' five book "trilogy" upon which this is based is one of my all time favorite reads.

Douglas Adams was a genius of irreverant and silly British humor. He was one of a kind and only he could write what he could write. Why on earth someone got it into their head that there needed to be a new book in the series written by somebody else is beyond me. Nobody can channel Douglas Adams -- most especially Eoin Colfer.

I tend to believe that Colfer was not even a fan of the original books. And I say this because he got everything so very, very wrong. It all seemed too forced. He was trying way too hard to channel a kind of inane humor that requires a truly deft touch. And Colfer just doesn't have it.

His plot was nonsensical, long winded, meandering and downright boring. (To be fair, Adams plots were also nonsensical much of the time. However, there was a thru-narrative that just simply held together and worked. Plus his stories were delightfully silly and very readable). Adams was also able to write an aside that was just so silly that it made you belly laugh. His turn of a phrase was always genius. And yet, everything he wrote, no matter how delightfully nonsensical or nonsequitor somehow jigsaw puzzled in perfectly with the rest of the story. This author managed to do absolutely just the opposite. He continually threw in just ludicrous commentary, dialog and situations that first of all weren't funny and second of all had nothing to do with moving the story along in a pleasing way. He was trying really hard to match the Adams brand of silliness, but it came off about as well as a monkey trying to mimic its owner at driving a car. It resulted in nothing more than a bloody mess of tripe on the roadway. And oh, his neverending and completely misplaced "guide notes" nearly drove me nuts. Never funny. Rarely necessary. Far overused. And they continually broke the flow of the already amazingly awful story. I also did not appreciate the quite unnecessary vulgar language. There was absolutely no need for the overuse of f##ks and s##ts in this kind of legacy narrative. (and what was the deal with the nonstop use of the word, "fruity"? Talk about overuse!).

Colfer absolutely tromped on Adam's characters and made them into things that they never were in the preceeding novels. I came out of it not liking Arthur, Ford or Trillian much at all. And I especially did not like Random. And what a short and sloppy job of trying to portray her as reformed at the end of the narrative. It just made no sense. Why was she even in this story? She was completely unnecessary. The only character he kind of got right was Zaphod. But that's no bit of difficulty. And further, his supporting characters were too numerous to keep track of and generally so completely unnecessary to anything that was going on that it just got tiresome trying to keep up. And those same characters kept droning on and on and on to no purpose. And then, each and every one of their individual stories all wrapped up in very unsatisfying ways and by that point I was just aching to be done with the book because I simply didn't care.

Basically, the book was way too long, way too boring, way too wordy and a true insult to the delightful silliness that Douglas Adams blessed us with. I am far too upset to write more. I need my towel.

I thought that some of the metaphysical imagery was really particularly effective.

It took a while for the story to pick up steam, and I re-read the first few chapters half a dozen times because I kept trying to read it before bedtime and the book is complex enough where I couldn't follow anything when I was half asleep. Don't quite know how to explain this, but Eoin writes in a faster voice than Douglas, so he took one page to write what Douglas generally wrote in three, and I had to really focus in order to follow the story.

The first chapter or so did seem like an over the top effort to establish his knowledge of the previous storylines, but overall I rather enjoyed it. I liked what was done with the characters, and the adventure was very plausible for the universe established by Douglas Adams.

I would read additional H2G2 stories written by Eoin Colfer.

Full disclosure: I am generally a fan of anything from this universe, even the recent movie. I also have a babelfish tattooed behind my ear and the words, "Don't Panic" tattooed in large friendly letters on my forearm.

We arrive at "And Another Thing..." having followed Arthur Dent and his motley crew across the galaxy and to the end of the universe, including the destruction of Earth in previous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book "Mostly Harmless." As a reader, I appreciated Douglas Adams carrying the story to its complete conclusion, but as a fan of the characters, I hoped to trace more of their adventures until I learned that Adams had actually died years ago (what can I say, I'm young and a newcomer to the series).

So I tried to keep an open mind while reading "And Another Thing..." knowing that no writer, no matter how skilled, could adequately fill Adams' gigantic shoes. With that caveat, Eoin Colfer does an admirable job of maintaining the style and tone of previous HHGTTG works. The main characters embark on another galactic journey, encountering the usual assortment of fantastic aliens along the way. But the book did feel constrained by the weight of the HHGTTG canon, relying heavily on old characters and story threads such as the Vogons' mission to decimate Earth and its inhabitants. "And Another Thing..." lacks the wit that sparkled in previous Guide books, conveying a much more tame story with similarly tame insight into the human condition, primarily told through Guide entries that interrupt the flow of action. And the book didn't take advantage of the opportunity to insert more absurdity by exploiting the science behind their travels.

But perhaps the biggest failing of the book is that the story lacked momentum. There was no real character growth, and the plot development lacked a climactic rise and fall. The main source of tension and suspense suffered greatly in that the book picks up where the previous left off with no major repercussions on how the rest of the story unfolds (trying not to reveal any spoilers here). Perhaps Colfer could have taken a page from Lost about how to handle characters whose story seems to have come to an end but actually continues on.

All that said, this book accomplished its purpose, which was to revisit our old friends and reassure us that there is Life After Earth. It might be best to consider this book more of an extended epilogue than a substantial entry to the HHGTTG canon. And Colfer has it exactly right when he starts the last chapter of "And Another Thing..." by stating:

"There is no such thing as a happy ending."

Attempting to tell someone about any of the books in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series is next to impossible. It can be done, but will it make any sense? I'm not even going to try, except to say that this story takes up where the last one left off and involves Vogons, a colony of Earthlings who survived the destruction of their planet to make way for a superhighway, the god Thor, his stolen longboat which has been made into a spaceship, and several other unrelated subjects. All the familiar cast is here, Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox (minus his second head which has become his ship's computer), Trillian, and Arthur and Trillian's daughter, Random, plus several new and just as confusingly entertaining characters.

One has to admire a writer who can concoct such a tale. The fantastic premise, the long and rambling sentences, the four and five-syllable words, some of which one might accuse of being manufactured, all tangle together in an absurd mix that somehow always manages to get back to the subject. It's absurd, entertaining, thought-provoking, and basically unrelatable, like an enjoyable dream you couldn't possible explain to anyone. "You just had to be there," you would say. Well, you'll just have to read it for yourself.

I was angry when I read the last book (at that time) in the series, for it seemed to say that all Arthur and Ford's struggles to survive, everything that had happened to them, was a useless effort. This book, the Sixth of Three, has restored my faith...a little. It now remains to see if there will be a Seventh, Eighth, or even perhaps a Ninth of Three, and whether they will continue to be as confusingly positive. Personally, I think Douglas Adams would be proud of this new member of his series and the successor to his writing.

"And Another Thing"
Eoin Colfer

Colfer has the task of following Douglas Adams' footsteps in the "official" sequel to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (helpfully numbered book six of three.) Here is my (hopefully) spoiler-free review.

First--can we all agree that Adams' last foray was a pretty dismal affair? His loathing at writing another sequel was apparent in each word. Arthur was marginalized, and the book ended by the destruction of the Earth, and all of our main characters, by the Vogons. Again.

So, Colfer has an interesting starting point. HHG was a one-radio-show idea that Adams stretched over three radio series, one BBC-TV series, five novels and one "took-forever-to-get-to-the-screen-and-probably-wasn't-worth-the-wait" movie. It was as relevant to 2010 as the scrapey kind of chewing gum that one might find on the sidewalk outside of Brother Bruno's pizza in downtown Port Jervis, NY. You remembered that it once tasted good, but you might not really want to see it again.

"The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over a more distant hills, like a man saying "And Another Thing" twenty minutes after admitting he's lost the argument." (Douglas Adams)

So, that's where Colfer begins; a worn-out franchise, too-familiar characters, an audience who can quote the source material. This is what the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy calls "an unenviable task." Rather like following Belushi on Saturday Night Live. Or creating three sequels to "Star Wars" (Speaking of ridiculous numbering schemes! "Star Wars" is part IV?) And how does one compete with Adams wooshing use of words and ability to dance not on, but completely around, the head of a pin while still retaining wonderful sarcastic poignancy?

He says "And Now for Something Completely Different." (Hey, can we check the sub-etha and see if that's been used? It has? Dang.)

The first thing he does--and this is remarkable for HHG--is have something called a "plot." Remarkable! A HHG story with a beginning, middle and end! Where details from the beginning of the story (and, indeed, the series) have impact on the events at the end! While there are still a few "Deus Ex Machina" moments necessary for HHG, they don't really affect the ultimate threads. I found myself turning pages not for the next joke, but out of actual interest in how the story was going to develop.

So I pretty much enjoyed this installment. My critical review would be that Colfer suffers from the misfortune of (other than being British, and witty, and a good and capable writer) being guilty of NOT entirely being Douglas Adams. I believe that Colfer would agree with this. There were several "fan-boy" moments when I reacted to characters behaving differently then I thought they should. This should be quickly excused as Adams was never very much about the continuity anyway. (I'm not even sure he had read his previous books.) And my favorite character (Spoiler! Marvin!) was missing. (For this, Colfer should be subjected to a long bout of Vogon Poetry...or Marvin's life philosophy. But he did a good job, so he can have tea while he's doing it.) Perhaps his next book could be entirely about Marvin. It could be printed in black on black paper and include prescription anti-depressants and a noose.

I'd recommend this one as a pick-up for the casual or sincere fan. A very solid and funny read.

This is the 6th part of 3 in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Douglas Adams always wanted to have a sixth book in the series; and Eoin Colfer (best know for the Artemis Fowl series) was the writer chosen to write this sixth book. Overall it was an okay book. I read the original books so long ago that I had trouble comparing this book to the original. This book was very creative and had a similar tone to it that the previous books had. I found it hard to stay engaged in the story though with all the sidetracking that was going on.

Arthur, Ford, Random, and Trillian have spent a while living a life that they weren't really living. They awake to find that the alternate Earth that they are on is going to be destroyed; very familiar to the first book! They are rescued at the last minute by Zaphod who is piloting the Heart of Gold. Of course, things go wrong on The Heart of Gold and they are then about to die again when they are rescued by the immortal Bowerick. Bowerick agrees to help them if they can find a way to kill him. Zaphod readily agrees. From there they are off to the planet of Gods to convince Thor to kill Bowerick. The other part of the story involves the leader of the planet Nano and his search for a God for his planet; as the last colony of humans this story eventually ties in with the one involving Arthur and folks.

This was an interesting story. The plot is creative and the Guide Notes as intriguing and somewhat useless as they always were. The tone of the book seemed in keeping with the previous books (although my memory on the previous books is a bit vague). Still despite the non-stop action and constant stream of creative prattle, I had trouble staying engaged in this book.

Maybe it is because I haven't been involved with these characters in a long time, but I have trouble staying engaged in the characters or their story. Part of the problem was that it was like the story had ADD, it just couldn't stay going in one direction for very long. I remember the original books kind of being like that, but I think this was worse. With the interruptions of facts from the Guide occurring almost every page (okay, probably every other page) the continuity of the story was constantly interrupted. The story itself also schizophrenically switches between different characters and different locations.

Overall this was a somewhat interesting read. It kept with the humorous writing of the original series and had the constant splattering of odd and miscellaneous facts that I remember in previous books. I had trouble getting through the book though because neither the story nor the characters could really keep my interest. I think plot was a little to minced up and unfocused for me. I guess if you are a big fan of the series I would read this book; definitely don't use this book as an entry into the series...you will be totally confused if you do. The original four books still remain the best in my mind. Let's hope that this is the last we see of new books to the HHGTTG series.

I was very wary of this book when I first heard about it; how could a there be a Hitchhiker's book that was not written by Douglas Adams? When I found out that this book was written from some of his notes, I felt a little better, but I still had no desire to read it. After reading Mostly Harmless, desire to read this book decreased even more, as I found that book a fitting end to the Hitchhiker's series. Finally, I broke down and read the book, and I have to say, I was presently surprised. This book was better than I expected, and even though my feelings for Mostly Harmless remain the same, this book was a decent installment in the series. First of all, I think Eoin Colfer deserves credit for writing this book; it must have been daunting to take on Douglas Adams' work. Colfer does a very good job of blending an interesting story with the bizarre, quirky humor that defined the Hitchhiker's series. Of course, Eoin Colfer is no Douglas Adams; they both are very different authors with unique writing styles. Naturally, And Another Thing's pacing and flow is different that the previous books, but this does not ruin the book at all. The story is pretty solid, and the humor works well, especially the guide entries. The only thing that is lacking is the insight that was characteristic of Adams' work, but that is to be expected with a different writer. Overall, Eoin Colfer does a great job of telling a fun story that fits into the the Hitchhiker's universe. However, I must admit that I do not consider this book to be a part of the Hitchhiker's series. This has nothing to do with the author, but everything to do with my satisfaction with the ending in Mostly Harmless. I prefer to view this book as a What If? scenario; a story that could have happened, but did not. Still, this is a great story, and it is a must read for Hitchhiker's fans, especially those who were unhappy with Mostly Harmless.

To some the HHGTTG is a sacred book; however, to many of us it is a fun read. This book is perfect for fans that love the characters and want a continuation of the absurd adventures of Arthur Dent and company. Considering how many people hate So Long And Thanks All The Fish the the store rating is no surprise.

I think that the late, light hearted, Douglas Adams would be happy seeing someone carry on his silly universe. :)

As a fan of Douglas Adams I was prepared to dislike this book.
I was also aware of Colfer having been asked to write this by Adam's wife, to bring his work to a new and younger generation.
Letting go of trying to compare the style of writing to Adams, I was surprised to find I enjoyed this book much more than I expected.
Eoin Colfer is not Adams and hasn't tried to be, using the characters and scenery of HHG but bringing some newer concepts.
So I'm not going to write a synopsis of the story, you all know the players and they're all here.
I would suggest that you give Colfer and the book a chance, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

First let me say that I'm a huge Douglas Adams fan. But I did not read this book with any expectations that it would be even close to Adams' comedic genius. In short, I was very skeptical that it would be anywhere near as enjoyable as Mr. Adams' other marvelous books. To my great surprise and delight, I found "And Another Thing..." to be great fun. Once I got into it, I devoured it.

If you are a Hitchhiker's Guide purist and are expecting this to be a clone of the "trilogy", you probably need a reality check. I'm sorry Douglas Adams is gone, but he was a realist. I won't dishonor his spirit by griping that someone else isn't him. The question isn't whether Eoin Colfer is Douglas Adams; rather, the question is whether he can write a story that fits in the Hitchhiker's Guide universe --- one that has the same kind of zany cleverness, unpredictable surprises, and imaginative mirth...with a hefty helping of guffaws for good measure. For me, the answer is a resounding "Yes!"

Whether you like this book probably has a lot to do with what you expect. I didn't read it expecting deep insights into the human condition, or cosmic revelations, and I certainly didn't expect it to be Douglas Adams reincarnated. I read it hoping simply to be entertained, and it delivered. If you're open-minded enough to take this book on its own merits, you'll be rewarded with a very funny and engaging book.

No, it's not Douglas Adams (although bits of it very likely are), after all, he (sadly) died in 2001. It's Eoin Colfer, doing his best to be true to Douglas Adams' style, bringing our favourite H2G2 characters back to us for another episode, trying to put a little something into the awful vacuum that Adams' death created.
Was it worth buying and reading? I certainly think so. I enjoyed it, perhaps not as much as the first ones, but I liked it. For me, it'll be a keeper.
Would I buy volume seven of the trilogy if Colfer wrote it? Sure. Although I think I'd like Terry Pratchett to have a go..........
I'll definitely be reading all six again.

I was excited to find this book, and now I'm wishing I hadn't. I couldn't get past the first three chapters. It's a rather sad attempt to copy the style of Douglas Adams, with none of the witty banter and rhythmic flow. There is a lot of self-conscious name-dropping from Adams' other books, but that does not a sequel make. I am normally a fan of Eoin Colfer's work, but this one reads like mediocre fan fiction. Very disappointing.

Here is the sixth, and latest, installment in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy," created by Douglas Adams. It was also published with the approval of Adams' widow.

Arthur Dent has made his way back to Earth, but it isn't "his" Earth. The Vogons, with the extremely bad poetry, are working on destroying all possible versions of Earth, so Arthur must take off, again. Ford Prefect, writer for the Guide, and Zaphod Beeblebrox, former president of the Galaxy, are still around. Tricia McMillan is a former TV reporter who ran away with Zaphod, just before the Earth was destroyed. She changed her name to Trillian, and used some of Arthur's DNA to have Random, a daughter. Random is very smart, and has taken teenage surliness to new levels.

A small remnant of humanity has made its way to a planet called Nano, run by an Irish property developer named Hunter Hillman. He feels that the humans need a god to worship. The Norse God Thor is one of the applicants. A being named Wowbagger travels around the galaxy handing out insults on various planets. What follows is a titanic battle involving Wowbagger, Thor and a cheese-based deity.

For die-hard fans of the series, concerned that no one could do it like Adams, relax. Colfer is a veteran author who knows what he is doing, and it shows here. For those new to the series, read one or two of the early books first, and then read this. It's really worth reading.

Eoin Colfer seems to have done a nice enough job of emulating Adams's humor, which is nice on the one hand, but on the other hand feels like the recycling of old jokes. For example, there are at least a couple of times when some noun does some verb in much the same way that other nouns don't. If that sentence doesn't make sense, refer to Vogon ships floating in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't. See? Recycled.

But I think it's actually a nicely done continuation of the story, which I nonetheless find tiring. I really had a hard time getting through _Mostly Harmless_ as well, which I think is partly because it was a fairly lousy book (by Adams's own admission, I believe) but also because at some point I grew tired of the slapstick style of it all. It's like the whole trilogy became one big joke of which I grew tired, and that's why I can't really enjoy adding on to it in adulthood. Still, _And Another Thing_ is better (for me) than _Mostly Harmless_.

But the really interesting bit is the stuff about gods. Gods figure prominently in this story, and there is a very fun scene with Cthulu. It's a really delightful marriage of two totally separate worlds of nerd. Perhaps the whole book is worth reading if for no other reason than to get to that passage.

Nah, it's worth reading just because if you know the Guide, you just have to read it, unholy or not.

This is the sixth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy." Eoin Colfer does a tolerable job of maintaining the tone of the original Douglas Adams HHGTTG (though he uses more profanity than Adams). The storyline is pretty good, giving some sarcastic/perceptive social commentary like the rest of the books. In my opinion, Colfer's promotion of Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged and Thor to major characters makes them far less amusing than they were in the original series. Overall, I'd say this was a decent effort, but you aren't missing too much if you skip it.

I consider H2G2 to be one of the most beloved books from my adolescence, when it first came out. As I read the subsequent books in the series and the Dirk Gently books and other writings by Douglas Adams I was at times frustrated that I couldn't get back that high from the first book. My attraction to the books and to Mr. Adams was my impression of him as a regular guy with a good wit, a love for science and gadgetry and as a fellow who wore his heart on his sleeve. I didn't always love his writing, but it was always worth reading.

I never could get into the Artemis Fowl books, my son read some and I read some but I never enjoyed them that much, so I was not all that excited to hear that Mr. Colfer was to write the sixth H2G2 book.

Having just finished it, I think he did a very admirable job. It was not quite Douglas Adams, but in its own right I thought it a worthy addition to the series. I don't have a problem with the series not ending with Mr. Adams' death, I don't think he would have liked the idea of a good story being left on the shelf just because he wasn't here to write it, and I'm making a big assumption, but I don't think he would have been disappointed with this book. I don't think he was that hung up on himself to think that someone else couldn't take his idea and run with it.

Mr. Colfer did a fine job of managing the science and the absurd, which is at the heart of Douglas Adams' writing, though I felt at times that he was trying too hard to be clever in the 'footnotes'.

I would recommend this to Douglas Adams fans and to H2G2 fans as long as they can read this with an open mind. It isn't going to knock your socks off, but it is entertaining and probably 80% consistent with Douglas Adam's previous books in the series. If you haven't read any of the books, don't start here.

It is very easy to be disappointed with this book. If you are expecting an Eoin to imitate Douglas, then you will be disappointed.

If on the other hand you want to read about the further adventures of the gang, then this is as good as it will get in the absence of DNA.

I am glad that Eoin wrote this book, I am glad that i read it and I am re-reading it just so that I absolutely got every little piece. Trust me there are a lot of little subtle, clever pieces to 'get' in this book.

There is a lot to love about this book.

Except....

Some of the dialogue is a little 'off' at times, Ford is possibly the biggest change here, he is not quite as we would expect, maybe he has grown up a tad, maybe he is simply less abrasive. It is hard to pinpoint it exactly, but, Ford is not quite 'right'.

Some other characters are revived, so to speak, and generally they are very well done. The names of the new ones are not exactly 'in keeping' with the history of the guide, but they could have been a lot worse.

But that is really the extent of my issues with the book.

I enjoyed it, reading it as a 'none DNA' extension of the H2G2 story, it is a fun book to read.

I hope that he carries on, there are certainly more episodes to add to this story....

Eoin obviously knew Douglas personally, as he brought Mr. Adam's final story to life with just enough of the original feel, voice, & humor to be a fitting finale, while not losing his own style in the process. Closely following Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, & Mostly Harmless, this is easily the 3rd best/most satisfying of the series, which is an impressive feat to say the least. Thank you Mr. Colfer for this fitting tribute!

Like, I think, many others, I approached this audiobook with considerable trepidation. Partly because of doubts over anyone's being able to don the writing mantle of Douglas Adams. and partly over the idea of listening to a 'Hitchhiker' in any other format than the classic BBC dramatization with the original cast.
On both scores my fears were allayed. Had I not known that the book was written by someone other than Adams, I really don't think I would have guessed. One characteristic of a good Hitchhiker is that you have to listen through at least 3 times to even half understand the storyline, such is the complexity of the interwoven themes and the speed of the dialogue; and on this score the new version is well up to score. As for the 'performance' of the book by Simon Jones, it's a real eye-opener. It takes a few minutes to get used to the new format, but after that I was quickly absorbed by the brilliance of the performance. Simon adeptly captures the original characters, both male and female, quite exquisitely, demonstrating a flexibility of acting technique that I never would have guessed him capable of.
The last of the original Hitchhikers seemed to round off the series in a pretty decisive and irreversible way. Colfer resurrects the story with considerable cleverness. And at the end he finishes with a pleasantly open-ended termination, leaving the way open for future episodes. One can only hope that they will come sooner rather than later.

A fan of the original series, I was very excited to discover there had been a 6th book released that I did not know about. I hadn't been so excited about something for a while... or profoundly disappointed. It taught me, better than anything else in life had to this point, that indeed you can't relive the past. If you're looking to get the same laughs and overall experience with this book as you did with the rest of the series, don't read it. Do Imagine what it is about, do think about what the characters end up doing, and enjoy all the scenarios you can dream up; those will be far more entertaining than this book.

The author has taken great liberty with using the "guide" as a source for most of the book's humor. Interspersed far too frequently in the pages are "guide notes" which attempt to serve as humorous non-sequitors that sometimes explain why the situation at hand is particularly amusing. Clearly, Douglas Adams used this mechanism extremely well in his books as it was a central concept. But when he did so, the "guide's" offering was humorous on the surface, made a larger statement many times with its deeper meaning, and related directly to what was currently happening in the story at the time. Colfer misses this completely. His "guide notes" are mostly humorless, absurd, non-sequitors that add nothing to the story.

This brings me to my next point: the lack of a story. If you were writing the final book of an exceptionally popular series, you might want to have a more interesting plot. Close to 170 pages into the book (more than half) you'll start to wonder if perhaps you were still reading an exceptionally long foreword. At this point, the only things that have happened are: a reintroduction to the characters, the boarding of a spaceship, and some occasional notes about deities.

Don't fall victim to this book. Don't allow it to take away the happy, content, nostalgic feelings you have for the rest of the series. I forced myself to read this book in its entirety and not only wasted time, but had very happy memories erased from my brain at the same time. I am worse-off for it.

First, DON'T PANIC.

Second, don't forget to bring your towel.

And third, never ever let a Vogon read poetry to you.

Yes, these themes are still there, as are many other nods to the original 5 books written by Douglas Adams (rest in peace). Eion Colfer does a commendable job of ushering in a new era for the never ending trilogy, though he is noticeably not Adams incarnate.

For those new to the series, this is not the book for you. And Another Thing is filled cover-to-cover with inside jokes that only veterans of Mr. Adams' prior novels would get.

The overall writing style and flow of the story is fairly easy to follow, and Mr. Colfer does a fine job of staying on topic and yet occasionally and humorously provides Guide Notes to references that not even Adams himself would have understood.

So, stay froody fellow earthmen, for the end is not here...yet! And another thing, remember to refrain from consuming Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters if you choose to venture out onto the sub-etha with Thor, Zaphod or any other of these pormwranglers.

Meh. It will never be part of the cannon of HHGTTG books. Adams was great at simply taking absurd and clever ideas, developing them, and somehow loosely tying a bunch of them together into a story with charming characters. Colfer focuses too much on plot and action and not on great and humorous ideas. As an author, you can tell he has an entirely different approach to writing than Adams and it shows.

I must say, I wanted to like this book. I'm fairly sure I would have enjoyed Vogon poetry at least as much, maybe better. I read it. I tried. I did. But I must concur with most other reviews...fan fiction, lost momentum quickly, doesn't have the wit of Douglas Adams...The characters, story, universe it copies, well, it's just a copy. And I donated my copy to the local library.

When I saw "...And Another Thing" on a bookstore shelf, I was surprised to say the least. Here was another book in a series written by a guy who had been dead for 8 years. Then I noticed that the actual author was this Irish fellow with too many vowels in his first name. But enough about me. You are reading this because you want the answer to the question "Yes, but is it good?"

Clearly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, given that the reviews for it at this point are generally negative. This makes me wonder if some copies had Vogon poetry sneaked in instead of this continuation of the tale of the Charlie Brownesque Arthur Dent. Colfer's version has all of the usual characters we've come to know in Adam's series - Zaphod, Ford, Arthur, Trillian and of course the Vogons.

But is it good? Well, it's not written by Douglas Adams, so let's not pretend that it might be. Rather, it is another author's take on what happens next to Mr. Dent. As such, I found the book to be enjoyable and plan on reading it a few more times before shelving it for a while in soft peat and recycling it as a used fire lighter.

The only way that we will know if you will like it is if you go out, get a copy, and write a review somewhere. Perhaps you'd better find your towel and start working on that.

A surprisingly solid addition to the beloved Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series (part 6 of 3). Colfer captures the cleverness of Douglas Adams' series, and manages to craft an entertaining and funny tale with a plot more coherent than most of Adams' entries. He brings back some wonderful characters (in addition to the core group) and expands their roles in creative ways.

Of course, nothing will top Adams' first few books, but Colfer's novel is a worthy entry in the increasingly inaccurately-named trilogy.

Thoroughly enjoyed being a long time Hitchhiker fan. Well versed in the style of Adams, the tale is captivating and right on par with the previous releases. I for one certainly hope Arthur and gang will continue adventures!

As a fan of all of Douglas Adams' work, I was surprised to see a Hitchhiker's novel, written by someone else, released after the passing of this great author. While I normally dismiss the continuation of a popular book series by another author as commercial exploitation, I nonetheless felt compelled to buy the book, such is my love for this series.

'And another thing ...' is entertaining and some of the situations are quite reminiscent of Adam's comedic, absurdist take on the universe. Indeed, the excerpts from the Guide are probably the highlight of the book and the element most consistent with Adams' work. The final scenes, when all the threads are pulled together, are engaging.

The story itself adequately connects to previous story arcs, though little is done to elaborate on the stories of Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect. In fact, they are essentially bit part players in a story that predominately focuses on the adventures of Zaphod Beeblebrox, the Vogons and the new character, Wowbagger. This focus isn't a bad thing in itself, but I found myself having trouble connecting with Dent and Prefect. Their diametrically opposed perspectives on the universe are sadly glossed over.

The frustration of this novel is simple: no one can write like Douglas Adams! I appreciate that Eoin Colfer has not tried to replicate Adams' style, but this novel only serves to highlight Adams' brilliance. As a result, this novel lacks the laughs that Adams' other work elicits via wonderfully comedic turns of phrase, making it a generally disappointing read.

If you love the Hitchhiker's characters and universe, you will probably enjoy this novel. If the qualities of Adams' writing style are important to you, then you will find this novel disappointing.

Meh. This book can be summarily summed up by that one word.

It was merely ok. Sadly, this book proves it's much harder to write in the style of Douglas Adams then one might presume from reading it. Where Adams would have bouts of randomness and dry wit and humor that was enjoyable to read, Colfer's random tangents and babblings felt a bit forced and rather boring. You found yourself more plodding through it out of obligation to finish more than any sense of real enjoyment of the story.

Much like some of the other reviewers, I wanted to like this. And in many ways, I did -- it's amiable and likeable and a light read. It's a nice enough book, but it's not a great Hitchhiker's book. For one thing, it's not all that funny. I didn't laugh aloud -- which I did with the Adams books. It also lacks the wild flights of imagination that were a trademark of the original. Instead it relies mainly on recycling characters and situations from the previous books -- and those in odd proportion (way too much Zaphod, not nearly enough Arthur, and no sign of Marvin at all). I don't bear any ill will -- but I doubt I'd shell out another in the series after this.

I am a die hard hitchhiker fan. I cried when Douglas Adams passed. To me it was one of the saddest days for literature. When I heard about Eoin Colfer writing the sixth book for the Hitchhiker Trilogy, my first reaction was "who the hell does he think he is?!!!!?" In my mind no one could ever be as brillant as Adams was. However, then I heard that Douglas's wife had given her permission. That made my take a step back and really think about this. I know that before he died, even Adams had stated he had given thought to writing another book because "Mostly Harmless" really upset a lot of fans (me included). So I decided to give him a chance.

I am willing to give Eoin Colfer credit that the book was at least intertaining. I believe that to the best of his abilities he kept the characters that so many of us love in truish form.

My only complanit was that there were way to many guide entries.

It was a good attempt, and I guess it will have to stand.

Well, I just finished "and another thing", and I think many people are being much too hard on this book and on Eoin Colfer. While I love all things Adams, and while this book was clearly NOT written by Douglas Adams, it is one of the laugh-out-loud funniest books I've read in awhile.

I believe Colfer walks a fine line with this book. He draws on many well-established Adams references, sure, but he also forges ahead boldly into new territory. Perhaps a dozen times during the reading of this book, Colfer took a well established Adams creation, and for the first time in a long time made me stop and say "Hmmmm, I never really looked at this from that particular angle. Interesting".

Or maybe being married to an Irish woman, I'm just a pushover for creative use of the word "eejit".

Unlike the last 2 Adams HHGTG novels, Colfer's book follows a tight story, and doesn't wander off the mark too often. In fact, if there is any Adams book this reminds me of the most, it is "Life, The Universe, and Everything", probably the most "complete" of the HHGTG novels.

Give it a chance, people. And if you tell yourself you won't like it, you probably won't.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is probably my favorite novel of all time, if not what I base my entire philosophy on life. I was ecstatic to discover another book was being written, especially after the incredibly horrifying ending of the original series. When I read it I remember saying, out loud "WHAT? NOOOO!" over and over and over...

So imagine my surprise to discover this extension! I won't get very much into the plot or characters, but just give you my reaction as a fan: I expected more. It almost felt like a side-story, similar to the many books in the Dragonlance series are written AROUND the original story and characters, but not really ABOUT what made the original stories great.

The story was mostly about Zaphod, who was never my favorite character; naturally that was Aurthur. But the problems he faced (death, earth's destruction, Fennchurch) never really even get addressed, let alone resolved. It's like he was just in the back seat watching the scenery pass by, probably telling really great (if overly-cynical) stories in his head, but only mumbling out loud a punchline every now and then. We know it's funny, but I'd rather hear the STORY.

anyway, I'm not regretful that I read it, but I was really hoping for yet another grand adventure like the original books full of wit and commentary on the human condition. Instead it was more like a narrative, like one of those reunion shows from a great sitcom 15 years later. It's just not the same.

Mea culpa, I am an enormous Douglas Adams fan. I had low expectations for this book and I was not won over by the time I finished reading it.

While Colfer does an excellent job of trying to pick up the abandoned threads where "Mostly Harmless" stagnated and stalled, instead of resolving those threads, the story seemed to turn inwards instead of moving forward with the tale. It read like fan fiction from the least popular age of a show.

Had this been written by Douglas Adams himself, it still would have been a self-indulgent and short-sighted work. Not only was it a step backwards, it stepped backwards and tracked something unpleasant all over the rug on the way back in.

"Mostly Harmless" was in my opinion the worst of the Hitchhiker's Guide Books and I was hoping for a return to the early work that made Hitchhiker's so amazing in my mind. I love Arthur. I love how we see the universe through his weary eyes and that made, at least for me, "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish," my favorite book in the series. He was suddenly the alien. But he found true love and it was a hopeful and endearing story.

If the earlier books were cruel to Arthur for a laugh, this book was downright spiteful and not funny to boot. "Mostly Harmless" was proof-positive of how much Adams didn't want to write any more Hitchhiker's books, and it was clear that he took that frustration and anger of being forced to write another book out on the characters. I imagine the sullen, unpleasant Random to be Adams in that book. To me, that's how he felt while writing it and it shines through in his treatment of the characters.

Rather than focus on the joy and wonder that made the earlier books so entertaining, Colfer instead tapped into the darkest and angriest of the books in the series and hit a rich vein of resentment. That anger seeps into "And Another Thing" like cold muddy water into your shoes.

I am a fan of stories that re-imagine a tale by focusing on tertiary characters ala "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," but what Colfer does with this book is nothing like that. He breaks new ground with neither character development nor story and in the end, the only character about whom you learn something that you didn't already know is Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. A character who, in my mind, was a one-trick pony in the original books and not nearly interesting enough to merit focus here.

What about Prak? Or MARVIN? Or Fenchurch? Or Lig Lury, Jr.? Those would all be far more fun characters to re-imagine in a greater story than Wowbagger.

Additionally, the characterization of Thor seems to me to be a bit off as well, but that may be attributable to my having trouble disassociating the Thor from the Party Scene in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe from the Thor that appears in the Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. Either way, the Thor appearing in this book seems to be derived from neither Adams-created iteration.

I'll give Colfer two stars for taking on an enormously difficult task. But that's it.

And Another Thing... (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Mr. Colfer certainly has the credentials for picking up the torch of Douglas Adams and has done well. If Douglas, himself, had figured out a way of coming back from beyond or having the forethought to go forward in time in order to write the next installment I would have given it five stars. The plot remains true to the original books rhythm,carrying on the neurosis of the heroes and expanding upon some of the minor characters, it is a real treat to visit H2G2 again. Thanks for the fix, Eion.

First off, I am a huge fan of Douglas Adams' work. And I was delighted that someone else out there doesn't want to let Hitchhiker's simply end. However... this book should have been better.
(Minor spoilers follow...)
All of the Hitchhiker's characters are reunited once again, except for Marvin. After the latest destruction of Earth (at the end of Mostly Harmless) they hitch a lift with Wowbagger (that immortal guy who goes around insulting everyone). Zaphod helps Wowbagger attempt to die by pitting him against Thor. And then it just kind of ends (with a lot of brief little asides from "The Book" scattered throughout).
Bits were amusing. But overall nothing really happened. Zaphod assists Wowbagger and Thor. Trillian falls in love. Ford, Random and (most importantly!) Arthur are just along for the ride. They do nothing. In fact Arthur was virtually a minor character in this story. After turning the final page, my feeling was, "What the heck was the point of that!?"
However, I still do hope they continue to do more Hitchhiker's books... on the assumption that sooner or later someone out there is bound to do a good one.

First, I will admit that I am 20 pages from finishing the book. But I keep seeing negative reviews from people who haven't given the book a chance and are just disparaging it because it's not Adams. Hello, fans. Adams was not a writer. He created worlds, as Neil Gaiman observed (I believe), but he hated writing. So please don't act like somebody else writing in his universe is some big sin. After all, didn't he do an introduction to an unfinished piece of P.G. Wodehouse fiction? If it's okay enough for Adams to do, it's okay for people to do to his stuff.

I kind of wish he'd let somebody take over the series earlier on, perhaps after LTUAE. It wouldn't be so turbulent now. This isn't to say I didn't like the final two books he wrote... I eventually loved them... but acclimating to this new paradigm would have been easier to do when he was alive.

Regardless. If there's a fault to the book, it's the opposite of the movie's fault, in my eyes. The movie had far too few Guide entries. This book has far too many. Perhaps that's only something Adams could sort out, but it irritated me. The other thing was that the narrative didn't sound as British as I thought it should. I don't know the author... I tried reading one of his Artemis books, but didn't like it. Is he Irish? Does that make a big difference? I don't even know if H2G2 was a good example of proper Brit Lit, but... it was where I first was exposed to British humor. It led to much joy, but that little bit is holy to me. So this intruder better prove his mettle...

...and he's not bad. He's not what I was hoping for, but it's far better than the first Artemis book, I can say that at least. I chuckled a few times, which was more than I was expecting.

Do I hope he writes more? If he doesn't, I won't be upset. If he does, I'll give those a chance too.

Thank goodness for libraries, because if I'd paid money for this book I would have been ticked off. Instead I'm merely disappointed. It's like the book is giving us the "style" of the original characters and books instead of the "substance." I was wondering why there was no waiting list for this book at the library. Now I know. A third of the way through, I started thinking about all the other books on my "to be read" shelf, and how much I'd rather be starting one of them. Either this book was not nearly as fun as the original series, or my taste in books has changed since I grew up. Probably some of both, but mostly the former.

It pains me to say it, but I found "And Another Thing" to be just plain terrible. I have nothing against someone continuing the Hitchhiker series, but it really needs to be done by someone who can write comedy. And someone who doesn't spend inordinate amounts of time trying to force new catchphrases or words on the reader. It's annoying. It's also annoying that so many things from the original are brought up again and again in what feels like an attempt by the author to say "See? I know this stuff!" How many mentions of the Bugblatter Beast or Eccentrica Gallumbits do we need? As for the characters we've grown to know and love, all of the fun and interest has been drained out of them. The Guide notes too are awful: not one of them has even a tenth of the originality, comedy and brilliance of Douglas Adams'. The entire book is a big mess, and complete letdown in all regards. I wish that weren't the case, but for me it is. I know this is all just my opinion, but at least proceed with caution.

In closing, I'd like to reiterate that I wasn't opposed to someone writing a new Hitchhiker book, and I was even looking forward to it. I'm not a purist, and I'm not the type who's read the originals several times and has all of the shows memorized. I just enjoyed them and didn't enjoy this one. (Heck, I even enjoyed the 2005 movie more than I enjoyed this.)

I'll begin by explaining my title. The original Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy is a classic, well written enjoyable story, which ends, sadly, rather poorly. With this new addition you are left hoping that something may extend that original concept/idea, and hopefully correct or recover from the unsatisfying ending in "Mostly Harmless".

I want to say that this is a waste of time. But if I hadn't picked it up, I would be forever wondering about where the Author may take me and always hoping that the series would continue. A Conundrum.

I'm writing this review without having finished reading the book. Again torn form putting it down, never to continue, and hoping something entertaining and comprehensible will actually occur. Although I enjoy some of Eoin's works, I just can't get into this book. I originally picked up "And Another Thing..." when it first came out. I read all of 3 chapters before I put it aside to read something else... A cereal box perhaps. I have run out of books to read and decided to give this another shot. I continued where I left off, not wanting to sacrifce my time to re-read the previous 3 chapters. I have officially read 3 more.

The actual writing style is decent, but it is filled with extremely confusing plot lines, that appear to be there for no reason. Eoin has managed to fill the book with unlikeable characters or destroy the ones we previously appreciated. Although some of this was done in "Mostly Harmless", this should have been an opporunity to recover. After only 6 chapters I am irritated with Ford, Trillian, and Zaphod. Arthur has been even further reduced to a useless twit with no purpose and Random's sole role in the book appears to be to annoy the reader.

Furthermore, the book is filled with footnote's, intended to be in the original Douglas Adam's style, that occur so often you find it difficult to stay on track. Some of these are exceedingly pointless, yet moderately humorous, while others lack any sort of substance at all. In addition, the book uses excessive repetative words and phrases from the original series, creating what appears be a lack any sort of originality or creativity and is simply playing on Douglas Adams' success.

Let's hope there are no further additions to the series. I know that, regardless, I will still pick it up and forever mourn the loss of my time and money.

I tried to be optimistic. I really did. I haven't read any of this author's books before so I don't feel like I was prejudiced other than the fact that this isn't Douglas Adams. I suppose I forgot my towel or something but regardless this book is simply horrible. The only redeeming factor is that it is quite a short book and thus the pain does not drag you along for a lengthy journey. The author tried to make every paragraph witty, off the wall and downright strange. In short, he tried far too hard. I would advise you to avoid this novel all together, however, if you are a committed HHG fan like myself then you will not be able to stop yourself from entering this world of misery.

The quote from which Colfer pulls his title rather says it all: The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying "And another thing..." twenty minutes after admitting he's lost the argument.

And Another Thing... is the written embodiment of that quote: it's too little, too late. It neither accomplishes anything useful nor does it add anything other than an unsatisfying addendum to a long finished conversation. Ultimately, it's as disappointingly pointless and just plain self-indulgent as rehashing a dead and lost argument. It makes one rather wish he'd left it as it was.

While I do think Colfer caught the general flavor of Adams, that's unfortunately about as far as he was able to go. Worse yet, Colfer seems to have missed who these established characters are. None of the familiar leads seem to be anything but an unforgivably generalized impression of who their earlier incarnations were.

And while I was amused at times, I found myself more irritated than anything by how labored the humor was. Colfer will often mention something in dialogue/description, only to stop and explain with the excessively copious GUIDE NOTES why the reader should be amused by the vaguely wacky (Hey! Spacey name + absurd = comedy!) thing he's written. At one point he even calls attention to how disruptive this is by writing that a particular GUIDE NOTE needs to be short so as not to disrupt the flow. Too late.

Had Colfer written a book utilizing his own characters but set in the Hitchhiker's universe, perhaps it would have been a much more enjoyable experience. But this isn't the book he's written, and as a sequel to a well-loved series, it falls miles short of the mark. Next time, I'll know better and ignore the grumbling.

A book has to be REALLY good or REALLY bad for me to come to the store, especially when I'm not already here for something else, to write a review. I've been trying to think of something worse than this book, but I just can't come up with anything.

80% of the dialogue in this book is slightly less coherent than the hairball my non-existent cat coughed up into your morning cereal on August 2nd, when you were 3 years old. 15% of the dialogue is actually worse than that. The remaining 5% actually makes you laugh; only because if you don't laugh at that particular moment, you'll have the uncontrollable urge to gouge your eyes out with a broken blade of grass.

Being bitten by a camel would be slightly more enjoyable than reading this book. I've never been bitten by a camel, but I just can't see how it could actually be worse.

I did like this book. I've been a fan of Artemis Fowl for a while, so I wasn't worried about the writing style. I did love the original Hitchhiker's Guide, though, and I was worried this would be too much of a copy.

But the honest truth is that it wasn't.

I wasn't sure about the Guide notes. There were possibly too many of them.

But in my opinion, the worse problem was this: it doesn't fit in your jacket pocket. You can get four of the originals in my school blazer - two in each side pocket. Five at a pinch, if you can fit three in one side, but then you'll be uneven. This book had to go in my back, and it hardly fitted in there.

However ... if you don't wear a school blazer / jacket, this won't be a problem. And if that's the biggest of your worries, start focusing on the book!

(This is an excerpt from a full review posted on the DeFlip Side website)

Author Eoin Colfer has come swooping in at the 29th second, rescuing Arthur, Ford, Trillian and Random from oblivion, and continuing their adventures anew in the Hitchhiker's trilogy's sixth novel, And Another Thing...

The title, taken from a passage in Life, The Universe and Everything (the third H2G2 book) speaks volumes about Colfer's pragmatic approach to taking up the Hitchhiker's mantle, a respectful and self-deprecating hedge against negative backlash from fans who'd argue whether anyone but Adams is worthy of writing a Hitchhiker's book:

"The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying `And another thing...' twenty minutes after admitting he's lost the argument."

Unfortunately, Colfer does lose the argument for the most part. And Another Thing... isn't particularly bad, but nor is it particularly inspired. To put it in Hitchhiker's terms, it's Mostly Unnecessary.

Picking up right where Mostly Harmless left off, And Another Thing... has Arthur, Ford, Trillian and Random improbably rescued from the final destruction of Earth by none other than Zaphod Beeblebrox and the Heart of Gold. But Zaphod (being Zaphod) botches the rescue, forcing them to seek help from Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, who just happens to be passing by Earth to deliver some more insults. Wowbagger reluctantly saves them, and the story spirals out from there.

It's a farfetched opening, even taking into account the residual effects of the Infinite Improbability Drive. But despite this, it's easy to reason why Penguin and Hyperion decided to bet on a new H2G2 book and why the Adams estate sanctioned it. Money, sure. But who can resist a smile at the prospect of getting reacquainted with characters that most every Science Fiction fan (me included) has loved for decades?

Unfortunately, once this initial rush has subsided, and you get on with the task of actually finishing the book, its shortcomings become apparent. Not to say that the novel isn't enjoyable at times; many of the individual character bits are dead on, evoking more than a few laughs. But in the end, And Another Thing... suffers from two key failings...

Read the full review at [...]

The concluding chapter of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy". It tied many loose ends together that were left open at the end of the previous books. Good humor and zany antics throughout. A great addition to the increasingly inaccurately named trilogy.

I was all set to love this book. Of course it's not DNA himself, and even _he_ probably wouldn't have written the book you expected. But, honestly, I think most reviewers here are just too damn nostalgic to give this book an honest review. At the end of the day, a reader wants to know; will I enjoy this book? For my two cents; don't buy this just because it's a HH book. Also don't buy it because you want to laugh like you did when you read Douglas' books. For that you're much better off with something like No Hope for Gomez!. Buy this book if you are an Eoin Colfer fan, and/or you enjoy watching Eoin try to emulate DNA.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

Not in this case.

I simply adored all of the books I've read by the late Douglas Adams. His writing style and use of the English language were simply amazing and entirely captivating. Phrases such as "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't." create such perfect imagery that even the most unimaginative mind could conjure up the exact construct of the scene.

Sadly, Mr. Colfer tries so hard to replicate Adams' style that the book is a miserable...a laborious read. It was work to finish each page. Whereas Adams wrote with surgical precision, Colfer's attempt to match it was done with a sledgehammer. Did we really need a footnote on every page?

Perhaps the infinitely talented Douglas Adams himself could have put together the proper words to describe how truly bad this book is, but I just can't come up with them. Please, PLEASE -- don't waste your money on this travesty.

***I felt the need to return and edit this review after reading many others. I wanted to make it clear that, as many others have mentioned, I am not against the idea of someone carrying on the series written by Adams. I, also, truly WANTED to like this book, and started it in eager anticipation of it being really good, since I enjoyed the original series so very much.

I stumbled over this in a book-store and after i had read the comment of The Times on the cover I thought I give it a try. The comment was "Fans can put down the axes right now, because Colfer has done a fine job." But I assume that the section "people who bought this..." will soon contain this...

If you want to meet Arthur and the others again this book can fullfill that wish (although it needs a lot of plural-zone-argueing to take care of the profoundly changed characters)
The problem is that the that the main characters are not the only ideas that you will be familiar with.
There are vogons again, blowing up earth again, you'll meet cows that want to be eaten, wowbagger appears(by the way: he's not into insulting people anymore) to list only the mayor corner stones.
But it continues into every detail: If Adams invents a word (because aliens are so alien) so does Colfer, but he chooses the vogon's bureaucracy as context, which can well be described in terms of human languages (at least in german). And were Adams uses it for a short laugh, Colfer is so proud of his invention that he uses it from then on about once per line in passages that deal with vogons.

So instead of buying this book you can take as well an extra copy of the real HHG and put it in a mixer. If you make the effort to straighten out the edges that don't come out perfect you might have good chance to get an even improved version of "And another thing"

If you look for a book that's worthy filling the gap in your shelf next to your Adams-collection check out Blonde Bombshell by Tom Holt

I did not care for this attempt to continue the mad-cap style of Douglas Adams. I have enjoyed Eoin Colfer in the past and had hopes that were dashed by this addition to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The words were there, the characters were there, but I did not catch a spark that brought everything together. YEMV.

Reviewer's note: Please read this review in the Hitchhiker's spirit is in intended.

Having been a rather large Hitchhiker's fan (Large as indicating the level of interest in the series, not my personal girth) I was, of course, surprised to see another installment of the series hit the shelf. I never thought that I would see another book in the line, seeing as how Mr. Adams' has passed away. Usually the death of an author not only ruins his own day, but it also tends to put a stop to any future works.
Seeing a new installment of course had given rise to many mixed reactions. I have never read any of Eoin Colfer's books before. One reason is I am 40 years old and I think his usual target audience is a bit younger than that. Another reason is the series he's written has the word fowl in the title. Looking at that I assume the book is about a chicken, and, other than lightly breading and deep frying, I have little use for chickens. But I digress...
I picked up the book with trepidation and flipped open the jacket to read the introduction. Seemed interesting, so I indulged in a few pages. After being satisfied that this would be at least a good toilet read, I purchased to book.
Mr. Colfer (I refer to him as that as I have no idea how to pronounce Eoin.) has a good feel for the characters. The personalities of them are held true to what Mr. Adams established in his books.
It is nice to have the journal entries in again as well, and the ebb and flow seem natural, without being a parody of what has come before.
The longest chapter in the book was also the most boring, however. Chapter eight! It added little to the actual story and just seemed to be page fillers! Almost every page I would flip to the end of the chapter and see how many were left until chapter nine. Reading that chapter was like sucking cold gruel through a cocktail straw, just to take a laxative and start the process all over again! However, once I got past that, chapter nine immediately picked back up and re-aroused my interest.
So, what began as trepidation has turned into satisfaction, and the reading of this book has been transferred to my recliner and a cup of tea!
Your own individual results may vary, but you will at least get your monies worth from this book!

I wanted to like this. I gave it 4 hours of listen time, almost half the book, and it just never seemed to be able to get out of the "self-referential for the sake of familiarity" phase. Instead of telling a new story it seems the author was content to resurrect old elements and give them a millennial polish. Maybe we've just caught up to the Adams' visions and given them names. The "guide notes" are frustratingly distracting and unlike the originals classic tangents, take us down unwelcome inane paths. The result is a clunky tale that emphasizes some of the most irksome components while ignoring the subtle if not sarcastic tone of the original 5 books. I write this review having come off a marathon revisiting of the original 5 so perhaps the stark difference in style and spirit was more glaring to me. Where Adams' prose contained the better parts of satire, cosmology/physics and absurd science fiction, "And Another Thing" seems content rehashing the well worn and steering clear of any heavier philosophical content. H2G2 fans; this is not canon!

The only reason I finished reading this book was so that no matter what happens to me for the rest of my life I can say "Well, it wasn't as bad as And Another Thing"

Right off the bat Eoin breaks continuity by having Zaphod show up to save everyone with the Heart of Gold. Except, in Life, The Universe, And Everything the Krikket robots stole the infinite improbability drive. How did the Heart of Gold get repaired? Who knows, as Eoin decides to just completely ignore this.

And it just gets worse from there.

Often times (often being almost every other paragraph) the story is interrupted with Guide Notes, that have absolutely nothing to do with the story at all and are just a bunch of random words hobbled together to sound spacey and absurd. Eoin completely missed the point of the original guide notes that Douglas Adams wrote into HG2G, but seems to think that quantity makes up for quality. Anytime you see a guide note you can safely assume that it is useless backstory and can be ignored.

Eoin takes funny one liners and running gags from the original 5 part trilogy and make them into horrible main plot points in this abomination of literature. It was funny when Arthur randomly gets insulted by an alien, because it shows just how truly unlucky the poor man is. It's much less interesting when that alien becomes a major plot point solely so one of the main characters can develop a love interest and promptly never be heard from again.

The Thor storyline is just bizarre. The last time we heard from the thunder god he was partying it up on a never ending flying party. But now he's depressed about something Zaphod did at some unspecified time in the past? When did this happen exactly? Eoin doesn't know, so don't ask him.

The ending is just terrible. Arthur meets Fenchurch again, but now she's a Romulan for absolutely no reason and he's back at his hut which is about to be bulldozed ala the beginning of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. THE END!

Mostly Harmless ended on a downbeat note yes, Earth is destroyed, everyone dies, it's sad but it was really the only place the series could of went. Eoin should have just left well enough alone. If he really wanted to write another HG2G he should have just used original characters set in the Hitchhilers universe.

This book is terrible, don't read it. That is the moral of this review.

I'm just going to get this all out on the table. Give this book a chance. It's good. Colfer was asked to do this book by Adam's widow because she wanted to introduce Adam's writing to a whole new generation of readers. Colfer is a successful authour. He could make a lot more money writing and publishing a children's book in his Artemis Fowl (Artemis Fowl, Book 1) series. He wrote And Another Thing out of respect for Adams and as a favour to Adam's widow. Give the guy a break. Put aside the punter politics. And Another Thing is a great read. I'm thrilled that someone as funny and imaginative as Colfer took up the challenge. I hope that his audience will use this excuse to pick up Hitchikers and the tale will stay alive for another generation.

Adams did not want to write the last two books in the The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series but had to because of contractual obligations. But his true feelings of boredom with the series show in the last two novels. They are dark and forced. Characters die somewhat suddenly and with little explanation. Before Adams could get back into his characters and end the series in a way fans would enjoy, he died, suddenly, on a treadmill in California at the age of 49.

And Another Thing is well written and entertaining and leaves readers left high and dry by Adams sudden death somewhat satiated. Eoin Colfer is touring with this book. He recently visited the Denver Tattered Cover and his explanations and manner quelled even the staunchest of critics. If you remain a doubter, I recommend listening to him speak and then reading And Another Thing with an open mind and heart.

I've been reading Eoin Colfer's book 'And Another Thing' and I'm pleasantly surprised to discover that I happen to like it. That's a biggie, really unexpected, as I'm one of those people who can't accept the possibility that anyone could measure up to Douglas Adams in his own (reflection of this) universe.

Let's state the obvious, shall we? Eoin Colfer isn't Douglas Adams. If he'd tried to clone Douglas's work, this book wouldn't have floated. Eoin (I think I can call him that, having shaken his hand) hasn't tried to be Douglas Adams, but he has tried to satisfy Douglas's supporters by writing in a very similar style. It reads well without sounding like a cheesy attempt to mimick the original.

I don't want to be hyper-critical (oh, gwaaan, gwaaan), but these are notes on Douglas's style and what's remained the same or changed:

1. Douglas might have been writing about aliens, but he was really talking about us. The Vogons are human bureaucrats, planning officers, for example. Douglas criticised, but never attacked his targets too hard, never losing hearts and minds. Eoin has understood this and does it very well. From an Irish writer, just following the EU's capture of Ireland, this line is Douglas at his cutting best: 'If we win, then you will join our happy group; if you win, then we keep coming back until we win.'

2. Douglas was a script writer and he specialised in dialogue. In the first two books, the proportion of quotes is very high, compared to description. In a novel, the use of witty script makes it read like a fast television show. Eoin does use speech, clearly, but the proportion has moved, i.e. more toward description.

3. The first HHG book used footnotes from 'The Book' at regular intervals and readers loved them. As with Shakespeare, the prologue became a character in its own right. The second book used fewer notes from The Guide and then the rest of the series dropped them. If you ask the fans which books they prefer, you will generally find that they like the books in direct proportion to the number of Guide footnotes they include. Eoin has probably spotted this (or at least enjoys the footnotes) as he's dropped in lots of them. The difference is...

Douglas would write a footnote which was imaginative, surreal and then made a huge arching observation about the nature of the Universe, our perception of life itself or a cutting critique of human nature. He'd ask us to look at the thing from a new perspective, to open our eyes and shine a light in our minds, then he'd follow that with a silly twist at the end (the comedy pay-off). Eoin's footnotes are surreal, imaginative, they even use planet names, species and locations from the original books, but... the guru-like thinking, the great idea, the divine revelation isn't there. the footnote is funny, it's true, but Douglas had more insight into the human condition.

4. Imagination and escapism: Douglas wrote 'alternative world fiction', also called 'alternative reality' or 'what if?' fiction. He based his universe in science, never magic, and tried to find an engineering solution for each piece of alien strangeness. The only exception to the rule, as far as I can remember, was when his characters started flying (mind over physical laws). Eoin Colfer came to HHG as a magic writer (leprechauns etc). He has successfully made the transition to Douglas's way of thinking.

5. Douglas was a cynic and sometimes even depressive. His worst book was Mostly Harmless, in which he blows up the Earth, observes Marvin's death, kills all his characters, turns his back, shakes the blood off his hands and walks away feeling relieved. HHG followers generally didn't like Douglas's final HHG book. Eoin's advantage was that he's an upbeat writer and, as an ex-fan, his book couldn't possibly be as sickening to the loyal readers as Mostly Harmless. We didn't expect him to write something as good as the Hitch-Hiker's Guide, that's too much to ask, but there was hope he couldn't cock it all up (as they did in the film version by dropping all of the best lines). I'm delighted to report that Eoin has produced a book that is much closer to Douglas's best titles than Douglas's worst ones.

I expected 'And Another Thing' to be soul-less, mid range and uninspired, just another commercial fan-fiction vehicle for the characters. I expected it to stray from Douglas's rules of writing. I anticipated that Eoin might not know Adams' universe in any great detail or 'hear the music' in his lilting prose.

Those expectations have been confounded. The book rocks.

Adam Corres

I started this book optimistically. For the first few chapters, I loved it. It seemed to be really in the spirit of Douglas Adams' writing at first. But I have to admit, as the book wore on, the plot that Colfer chose seemed at odds with the rest of the books. To me, the story seemed very superficial, and the characters grew uninteresting. The references to moments in Adams' books made me smile, but overall I finished the book feeling disappointed in how everything turned out. I may have been better off not reading it at all.

*** The only spoiler you can get from my review is who is in the book, but not what the story is about. So no worries there. But I may spoil some of the little events, but they won't spoil ANY of the big picture for you. If you want to be surprised as to who is in the story, then don't look in this review... because it will surprise you.***

I was one of the people who supported this book one hundred percent. I was so excited about this book, I think my stomach willomied. Once I purchased my copy, I rushed straight home and started reading. By the time I read the first two chapters I "gurgled with pleasure." (Sorry for the hitchhiker phrases, but I feel like it darn it!) I thought, this is brilliant.

Sadly though, the more I read it, the more I started to lose interest. There were times when it did pick up in, in my own personal opinion of, quality. But I had to really force myself to finish it by the end.

I thought, "Is this the best the author, acclaimed for his Artemis Fowl series, a series I have never read, nor have I read any other of his books, could come up with? It didn't really scream Hitchhiker's. I admit, there was a lot of imagination put into this book. But after the five books preceding it, this lacked some serious oomph and slipped into the I-Don't-Care Factor. *** Spoiler *** I don't care about the Nanonite's little problems, especially not giant parts of chapters devoted to them. I don't care about gods and there little ego problems. *** Done ***

I am not saying I didn't enjoy it completely. As I said, I thought the beginning was brilliant. Truly a good way to finish a cataclysmic cliffhanger. Even in the rest of the book there were good bits that made me laugh until my stomach flolloped.

*** The character spoiler starts here ***
One of my favourite parts in the book is the reintroduction of Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. Only this time, he has a role in the story. Not just mr. insults, but a part in the lifes and story of the book. The best scenes include Wowbagger and Random snapping quick insults in turn. That was truly some of the funniest moments.

Though I am seriously disappointed with how the book turned out, which by the way measure a whopping 8 on the Dis-A-Point-O-Rama Meter, ten being the highest, I am still giving this three stars because I am sure it was tough trying to come up with a story for such an utterly strange little series. I am sure he had a blast and he did the best he could (I know I made a little remark on this point earlier, but don't hold THAT against me), it just did not seem like a satisfying story, or a story worth including in the series.

Eoin, I salute you, because you agreed to finish it off (even with all the hassle of fans boo-ing you before you even typed the darned thing for Zark's sake!) and there are people who will eat the book up and enjoy every bit of it in your challenging quest to write a Hitchhiker book. Sadly, the book-eating doesn't include me, though I DID give it a good open-minded fanboy chance.

Yes I got a few laughs good long laughs out of it, but for me, I don't think I will count this as canon. I particularly enjoyed Mostly Harmless's ending. Even if it was grim, which was why I like it, a risky move on Douglas's part, which is what made all the more satisfying. So, in short, my personal ending of the series is with Mostly Harmless. But who knows, I may eventually love And Another Thing..., but now doesn't seem to be the time.

Stupid side note, this review was finished being typed at 12:42. Froody!

I'll be as delighted as anyone if an author comes along who can continue the Hitchhikers series with even half the wit of Mr. Adams, but I could only get through a quarter of this book.

Page after page of pointless name-checking of characters and places from the earlier books, a witless imitation of Adams' writing style -- sorry, bring in someone else.

Colfer managed to completely miss the mark on this one. The characterizations were all wrong, there were far to many (and unfunny) Guide entries* and instead of following Arthur as a haplessly shuffled through life in a perpetually confused state, Eoin chose to follow Zaphod for 90% of the novel. The books were always about Arthur the everyman, he represented us. When we saw the universe through his eyes, we were seeing it with our own. Zaphod may be cool you could store meat in him for a month, but he isn't central character material. Douglas didn't even use Zaphod in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

Why didn't they ask Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett or Terry Jones to write it? They would have made so much more sense and I can only guess at how much better the book would have been. Maybe someday...

*I think someone got there hands on an unfinished copy and told Eoin there were to many entries. If you notice 3/4 of the way through the book they get worked into the narrative rather than being traditional Guide entries.

I saw this book a few months ago in a bargain bin at a store, and thought, "huh, why not?" I picked it up and gave it a whirl.

God, do I wish I hadn't.

After an extended, incomprehensible beginning (Adams never left us wondering what the hell was going on that long), there's a flash of genius: Zaphod! He's still around somewhere, and he still has the Heart of Gold! It was the simplest, most brilliant way to salvage the situation we were left with at the end of Mostly Harmless. Zaphod swoops in under the influence of the artificial Improbability Field and saves the day. I loved the idea, and couldn't wait to read on at that point.

Sadly, this was the end of any form of genuinely satisfying storyline in the book. (I get the feeling, in retrospect, that this was all the author actually had when he approached the Adams estate with the idea to write the book; a plot device for saving the gang from Adams' ultimate multi-dimensional destruction of Earth.)

The author sets up multiple plotlines after this point all at the same time, and I wound up caring about none of them. We had the following parallel stories taking place:

1. A random Vogon on Jeltz's ship "becoming aware of his feelings." (This plotline is mostly pointless and never resolves.)

2. A colony of Earthlings established on a small world far from Earth. (This is one of the book's main stories. The people on this world get waaay too much focus in the dialogue, almost like the author wishes they could have been his main characters instead of our beloved heroes. Also, they are bizarrely like other denizens of the Galaxy, and not much like Earthlings at all. In the grand scheme of things, this whole storyline is a shambles. There's a lot of rubbish about internal ideological differences and the difficulties of the colony's leader pretending to be Irish and just too much time spent here in general. Oh, and somehow Zaphod was in contact with these people. He brought them to the planet, knowing the Earth was going to be destroyed again. How? Never resolved.)

3. Jeltz's continuing mission to destroy all things Earthly. (This was going to have to be addressed, of course. Arthur and Trillian had to escape the Guide Mk. II's plan for this book to even occur. Why the author decides to then add the complications of points 1. and 2. above, then, is beyond me.)

4. Thor's desire to become a popular god again/Zaphod acting as some kind of "agent of the gods." (This is the other half of the book's main thread. Why have we never heard about Zaphod's "god agent" career before? Thor has even been in the real HHG books already. Makes no sense.)

5. Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged/Trillian. (Pointless. Wowbagger was a recurring joke in Adams' work. Now he's suddenly no longer interested in insulting people, and likes Trillian. Oh, and is involved with the major struggle towards the end of the book, but his part in that is largely irrelevant.)

6. Random Frequent Flyer Dent being annoying. (This is the only plot point that really involves Arthur in any way. Random was just barely a character in Mostly Harmless, but she was at least described enough to understand that she had a confused upbringing due to an unthinking Trillian, an inadvertently-absent Arthur, and some temporal issues. In this book, she's just a spoiled brat)

Arthur and Ford, who were, early in the series, the primary two characters, are mostly spectators throughout the book. And to be honest, I'm having trouble remembering how many of the plot elements fit together, due to the author's insistence on ridiculously frequent "Guide Entries" that had no bearing on the story whatsoever. In fact, if you removed the "Guide Entries," you could probably fit the entire novel into a Little Golden Book.

One thing I was hoping for from this book, and indeed, the only reason I continued reading it to the end, was closure. And in the end, *spoiler alert* most of the characters just sort of melted away again, and we're left with an incomprehensible ending for Arthur. I honestly don't know what happened in the ending. I could go reread it right now, and I still wouldn't understand what was supposed to have happened to Arthur.

I feel like tossing the book in the fire, and pretending it never happened.

I loved the work of the talented Douglas Adams. I was appalled to find that although the cover of this book led buyers to believe this was perhaps an as yet unpublished work of Adams, compiled and/or edited by Colfer, it was instead a blatant rip-off of characters with a story line that cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called an actual plot. I literally forced myself to finish it, thinking "well, I'll give it a chance", and upon finishing the final page, chucked the hard copy book in the trash. Memo to writers: If you have insufficient talent to come up with your own characters, please.... spare the reading community and don't rip off the work of authors who ARE talented.

I am a die hard Hitchhiker Fan and was very scepitcal about Eoin Colfer writing the sixth book to the series. I can honestly say the book was a pleasent surprise. While no one can ever truly match the wit and style of Douglas Adams, Colfer's attempt was ok. The book was funny and an enjoyable read. The only part about the novel I didn't enjoy was the amount of guide entries. All and all I give it a solid 4 out 5 for the attempt. I think this is a rating that even Douglas could get on board with.

I really enjoyed the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series of books, and when I read that Eoin Colfer has written a sixth book in the series, I was ecstatic. But Colfer is no Douglas Adams. The humor I found in the original book was just not there. Colfer does a good job in bringing back the characters, but I just couldn't get into this book.

I give credit for Eon sticking up to finish this book. I really do. But without Douglas Adams, HHG will never be the same. Don't give this book high expectations, and bring a towel. You never know....

While i know many people disagree with me, I liked this version better than the original. Colfer wrote it well, and made me laugh to the point tears were rolling out my eyes. Colfer will always be my favorite YA novelist, and too many people started with thinking that it ciuld never be as good as the original. Iluked it, and si did my friends. Recommended.

Funny, entertaining and witty. This book is written true to Adams' style and I was disappointed when it ended because I wanted the adventure to continue. Naturally, purists are going to tear this to bits, but if you are looking for a fun book that picks up where Adams left off in his "Galaxy series", then I highly recommend this excellent read.

There was nothing in this book that wasn't already in an real Hitchhiker's Guide book except for a poorly written plot. Most of the jokes were just regurgitated from Douglas Adam's works. It would be vastly more entertaining to reread the original 5 book trilogy. If it had been sold as fan fiction rather than the 6th book of the series I wouldn't be so critical. Luckily I found it on a pile of discount books for only 5 dollars. Since reading it, I have decided to use it to start my towel day weekend barbeque fire. The humor is so dry that it should fire right up!

I had hoped that someone who could create Artemis Fowl could do a much better job than this. I don`t expect him to BE DNA, but I do expect him to remain true to the characters. Nobody really rings true to me, and Arthur, at times, is completely unknowable as the original everyman. Ford is now a joke, Tricia is eliminated, with only the weak Trillian from the 5th H2G2 present and barely that. It is a very disappointing book. I think Terry Pratchett would have been a much better choice. While DNA`s books weren`t exactly coherent, they did get you where you were going (as Dirk Gently would put it). And you had a good time along the way, and you could tell you were in the presence of real intelligence and wit. I don`t get that at all with this book.

As a sidenote, for those who really hated the tone and ending of Mostly Harmless, check out Phase 5 of the H2G2 radio series. They did a very nice job of rescuing the gang and made you feel good at the end. Thank goodness for dolphins!

Eoin's (and we must make sure we spell that name right) attempt cudgels the poor late Douglas Adams's Hitchiker's series to boring death. For instance he has bottom-heavy footnotes conerning just about every trite, incomprehensible passage in the novel -- Come on! Who wants to read footnotes in a novel of fiction, no less? -- an effort that is simply annoying, if not overly retarded. Plus there is none of that easy grace and gentle wit that the late Adams displayed. Instead we get a neurotic, coked-up version of what Eoin must think is genuinely punny and witty and whimisical claptrap ... when instead it's rotten and rambling ... and much too twee. Plus he really wastes the reader's time with getting to the stupid plot. That is completely annoying in and of itself. But add his overly twisted and turgid passages of dead witticisms, etc. and the result is obfuscatory scrivenery, or turgid prose.

I'd rather give this a minus 5 stars, but the rating system is geared to making at least one point for publication effort. Glad I borrowed this from the library.

The never ending trilogy.

A surprising choice to add to the famous Douglas Adams five part trilogy, the author being a children's/YA writer.

But in order to review this we need to go back in time to when Douglas Adams was to SF what Terry Pratchett was to become to Fantasy. Clever and inventive and a very nice guy. Somewhere at home I have the first three HitchHiker books all signed and I remember how down to earth and friendly Douglas Adams was, despite half the queue being in dressing gowns and holding towels. But those fans will all be about 50 today, so Eoin Colfer had to write to appeal to the nostalgia of that generation but also those younger fans who have discovered the HitchHikers Guide over the years. There is also the point that how will the humour of the late 70's translate 30 years later when having a hand held information provider is no longer science fiction?

Well, in my view, it was okay. It raised a smile now and then as Colfer does manage to replicate some of Adams' style. It was a nice reminder of how fresh and exciting the first few HHGTTG books were but I was not overly grabbed by the story and I did wonder what the point of this actually was. This doesn't really add anything to the five book trilogy (and accepting that the last original book was by far the weakest). I was surprised to find that Colfer was a reasonably safe pair of hands in this endeavour, even if one might question the endeavour itself. I was slightly worried that it might be me, what was so fresh 30 years ago has not dated specifically, but is was 'of a time' and this new addition seems strangely out of place.

So there are some nice touches, but I am not sure it was worth the effort or fuss.

Take any Adams book and run it on fast-forward. He reuses some characters but it's nothing like Adams. It lacks the style and wit and casual quality. He tries to cram too much on a page and make it into hyper-Adams. Not satisfying. I didn't even finish the book.

Considering for one second that this might be even OK in some weird sense of the word, how can that ever be good enough? Douglas Adams was a wonderful awe-inspiringly good writer. Don't settle for second-best, or even as in this case not even halfway close, when you have had and can have the best.
Adams would have HATED this, both out of principle and out of pride.
It's a testament to the incompetence and/or greed of his widow that every project connected to Adams literary inventions after his untimely death has had the foul unmistakeable stench of simpleminded money grubbing. I can't believe that Ms. Belson was in any kind of financial trouble that warranted this kind of selling out.
But then Adams was never lucky in love as it appears. Here's hoping that his daughter will have more sense.
The movie and this book does do real damage to the perception of the real books and radio play to the general public. Let's hope it's not permanent and that these monstrosities are forgotten in time.

I am a HUGE fan of "The Hitchhiker's Guide" and was excited to discover this work of fan fiction. It was a fun read but did not quite have Adams' level of wit. It's a high bar and I applaud Mr. Colfer effort. If he writes another one, I will read it.

My biggest problem with this book was Colfer's depictions of the main characters. He makes an impressive amount of references to minute details (planets, species, etc) from the original books, but the characters feel like completely different people. Take Ford, for example. He was sarcastic and often uncaring in the original trilogy, but he had strong (though twisted) morals and he was always exploring or involved in something. Here, though, he is little more than lazy comic relief. Zaphod, too: he was lazy and vain, but not straight-up stupid like he is in this book. I understand that Colfer did not set out to mimic Douglas Adams' writing style exactly, but in order for this to feel like a real H2G2 book, I have to feel like I'm reading about the same people as before. Even if they are placed in situations totally different than what Douglas Adams would have done.
I don't personally agree with some of the other decisions Colfer made, but this is the only issue that I feel goes beyond a mere matter of opinion.

I've heard good things about Eoin Colfer, and I suppose this might be a decent (though unimpressive) novel on its own merits. However, as a continuation of the famously excessive Hitchhiker's Trilogy, it's just plain insulting. I don't mean it's insulting to Douglas Adams' memory or any nonsense like that, I mean it's insulting to the intelligence of the readers. Where the original books were characterized by brilliant humor of many shades and depths, this one seems to be primarily scat humor. Perhaps Colfer was writing this as a Young Adult book? Fart jokes are all the rage among kids, right?

Also, many of the characters seemed more like caricatures of themselves, and that's no mean feat when dealing with characters like Zaphod Beeblebrox.

While I would like to cut Colfer some slack and give him the benefit of the doubt, I just can't. This book is an abomination, and that's all there is to it.

You know the story where if you have a million monkeys typing on a million typewriters, eventually, you'll get Hamlet? This is not that story.
It's more like what would happen if you gave a single monkey a word processor, copy & paste, 5 previous novels, and the end result would not be wholly indistinguishable from the sixth book.

Colfer's stale, derivative and wholly unremarkable book is a completely unworthy addition to the H2G2 mythos, and if there were a zero star rating, this book would merit it.

After finishing the first chapter, I was left with an intense desire to wrap a towel around my head. Had I been a a clearer minded (and more criminal) thinker, I would have desired to wrap the towel around Colfer's head instead.

"Belgium" is a better name for the book. No influence of Douglas Adam's wit and prose is to be found anywhere. The expected reunion with beloved characters is instead a meeting of strangers who bear no resemblance to their former selves. The laughter is gone. The memorable phrases are distorted, deformed. The adventure is continued with what can be described as something only slightly more fun than a death march.

It is an unmitigated disaster better forgotten and perhaps best explained with a quote from "Life, the Universe, and Everything": It was the product of a mind that was not merely twisted, but actually sprained. It was huge. It was horrific.

...And it's beyond shame.

DO NOT - I REPEAT - DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK.

I don't get why this product exists

Mostly harmless ended the series on a rather final note, I felt

I didn't have a problem with them changing the ending for the radio adaption of that, but I really don't see the point of them continuing the series

I mean, I'm assuming the writer is a fan, not just doing it for the money.

But I just don't see the point of continuing the series without Douglas writing it. I just fail to see the point

It really isn't NECESSARY!!

Pick up Life the Universe and Douglas Adams instead, if you can find it on video. You really don't need to buy this item. These aren't the druids you're looking for

POINTLESS POINTLESS POINTLESS!!

As a dedicated Douglas Adams fan since the first time I ever heard 'fit the first' totally by surprise on BBC radio 4 late one evening, I had some small hopes that this might, just might be a worthwhile codicil to the original 5 book trilogy, BUT it's as badly written a piece of formulaic crud that could possibly have been produced.

Borrowing text heavily from the DNA canon, but like a cramming student armed only with a highlighter, emphasizes only the hopelessly obvious snippets and ignores the sense, texture and richness of the work it is supposedly attempting to emulate....almost to the point of parody. Actually, an infusion of wit might have raised this effort to that of parody......it doesn't even make that lowbrow cut as it is.

Note to the author - the language used by your borrowed characters simply does not ring true. You have missed the point of Douglas' writing, totally.
A computer program could have generated this piece of crud. Maybe it did. Frankly, I've seen Middle School age children write better 'Harry Potter' knockoffs.
In short, Mr Colfer (Artemis 'Foul"?) - you suck. SUCK! As you described Arthur Dent 'Jerk and Asshole'.....you're clearly the one who deserves to be insulted by Wowbagger both extravagantly and often, until the end of this universe, possibly longer and btw - you really should be ashamed of this nonsense!
I could say more...I will: The publishing executives who authorized this travesty will no doubt find themselves amongst the first up against the Firing Squad wall come the revolution...heck, I'll even offer to pay for the bullets. (no that's NOT a threat...some-one else can perform the actual execution....i simply wouldn't want a question of expense to stand in the way)

My advice, please don't encourage the money grabbing pig trough swines by buying this book.....listen to it on BBC's 'book at bedtime' (available via webcast) or get it from the library, - or from the remainder rack. Or ignore it totally, - that's what one is supposed to do with insults....and this text is an insult to all H2G2 fans everywhere, everywhen.

Somewhere, upon the planet Rupert, at the edge of our Solar System - an Alien observing Earth, has noticed a small, almost imperceptible but persistent new wobble in the planet's spin as it races along it's sun-defined track. The Alien might wonder as to what has caused this change, but we HitchHiker's aficionados already know the reason. It's poor old Douglas spinning hopelessly in his grave, grieving for the awfulness of this evil claptrap wrought at least partially in his name.
Message Ends.

By the way..............I didn't like it.

While I understand that Douglas Adams' widow, Jane Belson, gave permission for a sixth Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel to be written by someone other than her late husband, just because you are able to do something doesn't always mean you should. The first five Hitchhiker's novels were Adams' masterwork and the mere idea of someone else writing these characters, especially just eight years after Adams' death, is patently offensive.

Imagine the uproar that will happen when someone besides J.K. Rowling eventually writes an eighth Harry Potter novel...or someone besides Stephenie Meyer writes another Twilight novel (although, granted, that could be considered an improvement). Some things should be sacred and left untouched, but in this case, what's done is apparently done. The question is, will you -- in all good conscience -- be willing to support it?

I find it very strange and annoying that while Douglas Adams was a great fan of technology and gadgets, yet, a new book based on his series isn't on the Kindle. You are missing a huge chunk of hitchhiker fans!! So I haven't actually read it yet, my rating is based on the fact that it isn't available on my medium of choice.