And Another Thing...

I just finished reading Eoin Colfer's sequel to Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide series (titled And Another Thing...), and I was surprised to discover that I actually liked it.  At least, I liked it better than So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless.

It wasn't without its problems, such as the overuse of "froody" and the many, many mentions of Eccentrica Gallumbitis, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6, from the original series.  I assume he did this in order to make it "feel" more like a Hitchhiker's Guide book, but they grow old very quickly.  The book also had much more of a plot than any of Adams' entries in the series did.

But I did feel that Colfer managed to capture the overall spirit of the books quite well, and it was a much more fitting ending than Adams' apparent killing of all the main characters at the end of Mostly Harmless.

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by the book.  I'd give it a 7/10.  My rankings for the series, in order of my favorite to least favorite:

Life, the Universe, and Everything (3rd book)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1st book)
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (2nd book)
And Another Thing... (6th book)
Mostly Harmless (5th book)
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (4th book)

So, has anyone else read it? What did you think?

I'll have to pick it up.  I am re-reading The Meaning of Lif right now.

My ranks:

2
1
3
5
4

I haven't picked up the new one yet.

He only does that in the first, say, quarter of the book or so.  I could be wrong about that, since it didn't really bother me as I haven't read the first five books in quite a long time (I didn't even remember who Random was when I started reading it).

You'll be incredibly sick of "froody" by the end of the book, though.

Go buy 3 now!!!  Otherwise you are dead to me.

Agreed.  3 is fantastic!  How can you not own the book with Agrajag in it?

I also prefer the first two radio shows over the books.  The remaining radio dramas that adapt books 3-5 (and attempt to reconcile the continuity issues caused by using book 3 as a sequel to radio show 2) are decent, but obviously suffer from many of the same issues that books 4 and 5 suffer from.

Now that I think about it, I've never watched the entirety of the BBC TV series ... I should get on that ...

This is what the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy has to say about Daleks.

ChainsawAsh said:

Now that I think about it, I've never watched the entirety of the BBC TV series ... I should get on that ...

If you can look past the cheap production values (which I find part of the charm), it's a great series.  Nice DVD extras too.

Bingowings said:

This is what the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy has to say about Daleks.

I saw this the other day - hilarious, and very well done!

Oh, and Frink, I've seen the first two episodes of the BBC show, I just haven't seen the whole thing.  I liked what I saw so far quite a bit - very faithful to the radio series.