Colfer Asked To Write Sixth HHGTTG Book 338
clickety6 writes "Eoin Colfer, the Irish author of a number of books (including the popular children's book series 'Artemis Fowl'), has been directly approached by Douglas Adam's widow, Jane Belson, to write a sixth book to continue the (even more) increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy."
No. Finish the Infocom Sequel (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd rather see the Infocom HHGTTG Sequel completed/released.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a *much* better plan.
My son knows the radio plays by heart now (he's 14), I never thought of dusting off the infocom stuff, thank you!
Re:No. Finish the Infocom Sequel (Score:4, Informative)
Not going to happen. A few fragments of code [waxy.org] are all that exist, and there's no commercial market for such games in 2008, and both Infocom and Douglas Adams are dead. Write it yourself; there's a healthy subculture of interactive fiction writing even today, and the Inform language is actually not at all bad, all things considered.
Re:No. Finish the Infocom Sequel (Score:5, Interesting)
The question is: are people willing to use their imagination when they are force-fed every feature directX 10 has to offer (shading, tons of light sources, fog, environments, shadows, physics engine, ragdoll physics) at insane resolutions.
While I grew up playing almost every Infocom game out there and I still have the Atari 8-bit versions ready-to-play via emulator, I have yet to find anyone under 30 that thinks it's fun.
For many, text adventure games are akin to a wheel made of stone, great in the day but with vulcanized rubber why would anyone use a stone wheel except in a museum...
On a positive note, there is a counterculture of writers that still use the Z-Engine (Infocom text game engine) to write games based on their original works. So all hope is not lost :)
To date no game was more memorable than Station Fall, when Floyd died, it broke my heart and to this day I feel sad for him and wished there was a way to save him.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The question is: are people willing to use their imagination when they are force-fed every feature directX 10 has to offer (shading, tons of light sources, fog, environments, shadows, physics engine, ragdoll physics) at insane resolutions.
Oh, snore... Not that old bit about kids these days with their polygons and their shaders. I suppose next you're gonna tell me to get off your "West of house"...
I mean, I like classic games and text adventures - I just hate this attitude that there's some fundamental quality of them that makes them better than today's games. That's just nostalgia talking.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I just hate this attitude that there's some fundamental quality of them that makes them better than today's games. That's just nostalgia talking.
I think text games allow for imagination to blossom, and 3D "shiny" games lend themselves to becoming glorified movies.
Bear with me... It's like the latest commercial from LeapFrog (a computer-learning company): A grown man in a frog costume is behind a table with a bunch of books telling the viewers how much better the LeapFrog Tag(TM) Reading System [leapfrog.com] helps children read, and then a little boy comes up to the table, waves a wand over his LeapFrog book, and the book reads to him. The man asks the boy wh
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Er, Floyd died in Planetfall, as you cradled him in your arms and recited his favourite poem, the Ballad of the Star-Crossed Miner.
O, they ruled the solar system
Near ten thousand years before
In their single starcrossed scout ships
Mining ast'roids, spinning lore.
Then one true courageous miner
Spied a spaceship from the stars
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The BBC did try this with the original HHGTTG game. Give it a go here [bbc.co.uk]
Re:No. Finish the Infocom Sequel (Score:4, Insightful)
I played a lot of text adventures when I was a kid, but these days I can't stand anything more primitive than The Secret of Monkey Island. I'm sorry, but endless "guess the verb" sessions are not my idea of a good time.
Re:No. Finish the Infocom Sequel (Score:5, Funny)
Don't panic (Score:5, Funny)
The mice will interfere if need be.
Re:Don't panic (Score:5, Funny)
What? (Score:4, Interesting)
How about Brian Herbert, Todd McCaffrey or Christopher Tolkien? Or is it too hard pulling them off the graves and/or shriveling bodies of their parents?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I was thinking more Terry Jones.
After all, he as already done a novel in the HTTG universe, one that was warmly received by Douglas Adams himself.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Christopher Tolkien isn't producing cheap cash-ins on his father's legacy. He compiled the Silmarillion, then spent decades writing and publishing detailed analyses of the reams of notes and fragmentary manuscripts that lay behind the legends, and finally tidied up the Narn i Hîn Húrin to a publishable form. And I for one am very glad that he did so.
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bingo - that's the difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Read the introduction to The Silmarillion. That's all Christopher was doing. Collecting his father's early stories and trying to figure out what was closest to canon. The early stories have discrepancies in them that make them mesh poorly. It was a monumental task to figure out each story and put them into the most coherent framework.
But Christopher took the time out and figured it all out and came up with the most coherent version of the early work and made what wound up being my favorite book in the whole Tolkien series. Without him, we never would have heard about the Music of Arda, or Feanor, or any of it.
He wrote nothing, changed nothing, and brought more of his father's work to the world. He has my eternal gratitude.
Now, let's contrast that with Brian Herbert. Spoilers ahead.
I got through House Atreides. And halfway through House Harkonnen before I gave up in disgust. They're not even as good as fan fiction. They're simply dismal. Having RM Mohaim be the mother of Jessica? Get serious. You know you're in deep shit if you're stealing plot ideas from George Lucas.
And the writing itself is simply awful. It's like he took a dartboard with his father's wonderful mythology on it and threw darts at it. The characters have zero depth and sound like they're doing Dune impressions. He goes too far out of the way to have everyone use words from the original works.
It's really awful. Penny Arcade said it best. [penny-arcade.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Not expressing my hate as much as my dislike for authors' estates selling out. I can both appreciate what Christopher Tolkien has done while also realizing that we're getting his version of his father's work and not his father's work (at least not as directly as we'd all like). But there is a point of saturation, and Tolkien reached that many, many years ago IMO.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't get the hate for Christopher Tolkien. Without his work, we would have The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - nothing else at all.
Amusingly, I think you answered your own question here. The Silmarillion was a horrible book. The scattered notes, often contradictory, were not finished nor meant to be published. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings was what should have been published. Nothing else.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a horrible book allright, but I'm still glad it was published. Some of us just love to burrow into a backstory like Gollum into Misty Mountains. For example, I've read dozens of D&D rulebooks just for fun, without ever having played the game.
Then again, I also consider physics textbooks l
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
> Without his work, we would have The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - nothing else at all
No, we wouldn't even have that. Only he, and his family, and a few friends to whom JRRT told bedtime stories about elves and gnomes, would have had any of it. It was only when Christopher began correcting JRRT, reminding Daddy that he told it differently the last time, that JRRT started putting anything on paper, just to be consistent. Without that, he would never have produced anything more that Farmer Giles a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There are some really great stories in the Silmarillion, unfortunately it's in a style of writing that's more akin to an academic textbook than a pleasure read.
The problem is that he's trying to create a mythology for a fantasy world. Traditionally the old greek mythology I'm familiar with relied upon the reader to know and accept certain facts as being in evidence, and thus the stories proceeded straight into explaining how those truths came to be, and that's the most fun part. For Tolkien's world, we have
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What?! Three Dune books? I know of no such thing, there is only Dune.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
<Voice>Quiet, you! Now go read all 6 books.</Voice>
NO NO NO (Score:5, Insightful)
Enough Douglas Adams milking already, please for the love of - insert deity here - do not destroy the legacy of this great author.
Sorry for the rant, have just watched the movie...
Re:NO NO NO (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:NO NO NO (Score:5, Insightful)
Douglas Adams was one of the bigger obstacles in the way of making a movie, and I don't think it would have ever had his blessing. The script sucks (random rearrangements, insertions of 'new' but irrelevant stuff all over the place, and deletions of essentials elsewhere).
Of course, it made money so who am I to complain, but it left me with a definite unhappy and disappointed feeling.
When hearing the radio play and reading the book you get a definite mental image of the kind of universe that Douglas Adams wanted you to see, and most of the movie contradicts that mental image.
There is a joke about that:
A man walks into a movie theater and sees a donkey standing in the aisle.
He walks up to the row behind the man with the donkey and whispers in the guys ear: "Wow, how amazing, he's really looking at the movie, isn't he?"
Yes, says the guy with the donkey, sure is. But he like the book better...
Re: (Score:2)
"The" Movie was the outcome of a scriptwriting process where the scriptwriter did not understand the point.....
The first draft ended with the destruction of the Earth!
The draft that ended up being made was not how Douglas wanted it ... and was horribly mis-cast (Ford should be knowledgeable and a man of the world, not an bumbling idiot, just odd)
The good bits were pure Douglas the bad bits were shoehorned in by the screenwriter
Re:NO NO NO (Score:5, Funny)
Ford should be knowledgeable and a man of the world, not an bumbling idiot, just odd
A man of the world? A man of the galaxy I'd have hoped, or at least the parts where respectable journalists can get respectably drunk on a utterly disrespectful salary.
Re: (Score:2)
He was most certainly not an obstacle in the way of making the movie.
Re: (Score:2)
Karey Kirkpatrick (chicken run!) finished the script, and from what I understand this was a pretty radical departure from the work DNA left behind (this is pure speculation though, since only very few people have seen the versions in between).
The release of the movie went to great pains to explain that it would be 100% Douglas Adams, but the fact that someone else finished the script and that it is unknown how much of it was written by Douglas makes that a hard claim to support.
The 'feel' of the movie is so
Re:NO NO NO (Score:5, Insightful)
random rearrangements, insertions of 'new' but irrelevant stuff all over the place, and deletions of essentials elsewhere
ROFL, while I have my own critiques of the movie, this is probably the *last* reason to dislike the script. If you read the books and listened to the radio plays (or played the Infocom game), you'd know that DNA was quite happy to alter the HHGTTG storyline in order to fit the medium. The fact that the movie diverges from the books should be *expected*, not derided, given DNA's approach to the material.
Re:NO NO NO (Score:5, Funny)
Chapter One
Turning from the rain-streaked window, Trillian's teary gaze searched pensively around the room and came to rest on the silver-framed photograph on the mantelpeice. She sighed, her heart heavy with unshed tears. It seemed so long ago - the good times she had shared with Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect. Could it have been a thousand years? As she remembered one of the good times, a single tear, like a frozen diamond, spilled down her cheek and splashed quietly on the white marble floor. Unable to restrain herself, she collapsed against the floor, hands to her face, and sobbed uncontrollably.
A tiny hand reached up and tugged her sleeve.
"Mommy?"
"Oh Ford Junior!" Trillian sobbed. "You remind me so of your father, and the good times we shared so very long ago.. but they're both dead now, and ypu're all I have left to remember them by."
"That's right, forget about me as usual!." grumbled a familiar voice suddenly.
"Oh Marvin!" she laughed "You know I would never forget about you - after all you're all that I have to remember them Arthur and Ford by. I see you're still your grumpy old self!"
She paused with grief as the full meaning of this hit her, and she shuddered and started to weep again, like a pure white nightingale whose eggs have been stolen and eaten by a fateful cat.
Oh sorry. I see now.. don't ruin the legacy. Gotcha.
Re: (Score:2)
what a waste to do that anonymous :)
thank you anyway, that had me laughing.
Re:NO NO NO (Score:5, Funny)
what a waste to do that anonymous :)
Would you have preferred that "ecolfer" post as himself here?
Re:NO NO NO (Score:5, Funny)
From the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2008 [sjsu.edu]
Leopold looked up at the arrow piercing the skin of the dirigible with a sort of wondrous dismay -- the wheezy shriek was just the sort of sound he always imagined a baby moose being beaten with a pair of accordions might make.
Shannon Wedge, New Hampshire
Please, PLEASE read the rest of the entries. Hilarious.
Re:NO NO NO (Score:5, Funny)
Enough Douglas Adams milking already, please for the love of -
- do not destroy the legacy of this great author.
That would be Zarquon - but he's running late
Re: (Score:2)
mod parent to high heaven please :)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I caught the beginning of that movie on TV the other day. I got as far as Arthur Dent lying in front of the bulldozer, complaining about the demolition notice that was "in the cellar". No mention of a locked filing cabinet, disused lavatory, or even a leopard! I changed the channel right then.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry for the rant, have just watched the movie...
Well, speak for yourself... I quite enjoyed the movie, and felt it was a good portrayal of Adams' universe. I've never really been sure why other HHGTTG fans seem to hate it so much.
do not destroy the legacy of this great author.
Nothing can destroy his legacy. He's dead, and his legacy is set in stone. All they could possibly destroy would be the legacy of the guy who did a bad job (if he does a bad job, I guess, but I consider it a fair bet).
Re: (Score:3)
So much of Adams best jokes and ideas were asides, descriptions, inside someone's head, or otherwise unfilmable, that it's inevitable that any film version of the Hitchhiker's work would have to be just different enough to piss off Adams fans, particularly once he himself was no longer there to lend it credibility. The film was charming and fun, and if it was a pale shadow of the book, people should get over it. Douglas Adams is gone, and we won't see such talent applied to that universe again.
"There is a m
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Are you refering to the Disney movie that Doglas Adams wrote the screenplay for? [imdb.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you refering to the Disney movie that Doglas Adams wrote the screenplay for? [imdb.com]
OK, first, Adams didn't work in a vacuum or finish the screenplay himself, what with being dead and all. Second, why does everyone assume that the potential for that movie to suck, to miss the point of the original books, etc. is inversely proportional to the extent of Adams's involvement in the project? I don't care if they held a seance to get Adams to review the script before they started shooting - the movie has real problems. And a few high points, but mostly just a lot of problems.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think so because the Dirk Gently stuff wasn't produced by then (and that definitely is Douglas Adams at his best, great gods of guilt in a refrigerator :) ).
I think it works like with most things produced by people of such amazing talent, they lose interest because too much of it is already cast in concrete by mistakes earlier on.
Like working on a big software project, the maintenance phase is not the most fun part, unless you did everything just right in the beginning. And judging by Douglas Adams'
how many books planned in the franchise? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
42 Comments?
http://img515.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hhgttgxc5.png [imageshack.us]
Sweet!
Sounds reasonable (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
However, I still thought there was a chance that Adams (or now a predecessor) could reboot the story, given how many digressions about various deities the books had included. My money is on Almighty Bob, Old Thrashbarg's deity, or somebody who shall remain nameless from the Domain of the King.
Those resposible (Score:5, Funny)
Those responsible for this will be Sacked, and probably the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
NO. (Score:5, Insightful)
A tremendous feeling of peace came over him. He knew that at last, for once and for ever, it was now all, finally, over.
Let's just leave it at that, shall we?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
FTFA
"No information has yet emerged about the plot of the novel but Hitchhiker fans will be hoping for a resurrection of much-loved characters Arthur Dent, Trillian and Ford Prefect, who were all apparently blown to smithereens at the end of the fifth novel, Mostly Harmless."
No, they won't.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You have no idea how dejected I was upon reading those words. I'd love to see a reboot, and I don't agree with those who say it can't possibly be well done. Adams was a genius but he didn't have a monopoly on genius.
Of course he didn't have a monopoly on genius, there are plenty of other people out there talented enough to come up with new things rather than shamelessly exploit one extraordinary man's vision.
Hitch-hikers was always Douglas' baby, and it now serves as his major legacy and contribution to human culture. Let other geniuses have their own.
Nope, sorry (Score:4, Insightful)
Not going to read it, and I say that as a dedicated Douglas Adams fan - I have the omnibus edition of HHGTTG (thanks to my daughter), the movie on DVD, the BBC TV series on VHS, and am still after the radio play (which I've been told is the best of the lot).
If Asimov's widow asked someone to continue his Foundation series I wouldn't read it, either, and Asimov was my favorite author.
It wasn't the story that made it great, it was the writing. Without Douglas Adams it can't possibly be the same. It will be to the original what margarine is to butter. I can't imagine a writer with integrity taking the job.
Re: (Score:2)
It looks like there will be another round of reissues for the various "phases" of this coming in the next few months.
Re: (Score:2)
I just bought them all. I hope they don't put out something I would prefer to the existing releases.
Re:Nope, sorry (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a shock for you. It's called the "Second Foundation Trilogy":
After his death, the Asimov estate, at the request of Janet Asimov, approached Gregory Benford, and asked him to write another Foundation story. He agreed, and at that same time suggested that it should form part of a trilogy with Greg Bear and David Brin writing the other two books, which they agreed to do.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Enough with the prequels already! I personally just want to know what happened in the galaxy after Foundation and Earth.
Re:Nope, sorry (Score:4, Insightful)
Bear, Brin, and Benford are all talented, but there is a difference between extending Foundation and extending HHGTTG.
The problem with extending the Hitchhiker universe is that it's driven by character interaction and DA's sense of humor.
The first Foundation book was basically short stories, each with new characters, new settings, etc...Very easy to extend, just write a short story of your own. Make up your own characters, your own planet, whatever...All you have to do is genuflect toward psychohistory, Hari Seldon, and the fall of the empire. It's a historical backdrop that can accommodate any number of stories.
Now imagine someone else trying to write dialogue between Ford and Arthur.
Yea. It's like that.
Re:Nope, sorry (Score:5, Funny)
So in other words, this will be almost but not entirely unlike Douglas Adams' writing?
Re: (Score:2)
it isn't.
but then again, if it was I'd say that wouldn't I...
Re: (Score:2)
I actually found some on tape in my dad's old stuff, completely forgot to have a listen and don't know where I've put them. Presumably they're all out there on bit torrent somewhere anyway..
No! (Score:5, Funny)
All the diodes down my left side... (Score:5, Interesting)
I just finished reading the 2003-updated edition of Neil Gaiman's Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy [amazon.com] and I have to say that I don't believe anyone can really emulate Adams' particular style of writing. And unless they've found a treasure trove of almost-finished manuscripts (unlikely) the best that we have from Adams' writing before his death is mostly compiled in The Salmon Of Doubt [amazon.com], and there was just the merest inklings of a beginning of a truely Adamsian epic tale in there...
Besides, we all know the only person who could write HHGttG properly is Terry Pratchett, and he is ONLY allowed to write Discworld books until he's unable to write or they cure Alzheimer's Disease. And someone sure as hell had better cure it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Good call on Terry Pratchett, he definitely took a lot of pages from Douglas Adams's play book. At the same time that sort of disqualifies him (emulation != the oroginal (tpine ?)).
It really is very simple, Douglas Adams is dead, and no amount of 'franchising' is going to change that one bit, it never was about the story, it was about the writing, and that magical touch is not going to be reinstated with good will or effort, it would take the original to make that happen.
That said, it is probably 'worth a l
Re: (Score:2)
I hope you're just saying that Pratchett is a good writer, but he's not Douglas Adams and so shouldn't try to continue HHGTTG. But I still feel slightly slighted that you suggest that most of Pratchett's style is due to Adams - to me it seems more likely that they were both a result of watching too much Monty Python ;) Discworld didn't come out until 5 years after the HHGTTG radio show started, so perhaps there was an influence, but Pratchett is an excellent writer on his own merits. Even without the amazin
Re: (Score:2)
It really is very simple, Douglas Adams is dead, and no amount of 'franchising' is going to change that one
You've never heard of L. Ron Hubbard have you?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, since both names came up, how about a Neal Gaiman/Terry Pratchett collaboration....As pointed out in this thread, Gaiman has his ties to HHGTTG (as the gp mentions), Pratchet really is a great fit, and they did a great job on Good Omens [wikipedia.org] together.
Re: (Score:2)
Heck, I don't even think Adams' could emulate his own style. SLATFATF is a MUCH different book than the first three and, while nice and humorous at times, it lacked a certain tautness from the earlier stuff.
Not complaining. Good book. Just different.
Anyone trying to do anything along these lines would elicit groans whenever they were funny. It would not be an experience I would seek out.
Re: (Score:2)
See also: Starship Titanic.
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking essentially the same thing, and had to read down the page to make sure no one else had the same thought.
In fact--why would anyone consider asking ANYONE BESIDES Terry?
Oh, fine, he has Alzheimer's. Big FARKING DEAL! It's serious, yes, but I'm certain he's getting the best care anyone can get, and I'm sure he's got the capacity for a story like this in him still. I'd love it.
Terry Pratchett is, and always will be, one of my favorite authors. I hope he is cured or at the VERY least the progr
Re: (Score:2)
In fact--why would anyone consider asking ANYONE BESIDES Terry?
How many books by Colfer have you read so far? For me, they're the books of choice if there's no new Discworld novel available.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides, we all know the only person who could write HHGttG properly is Terry Pratchett
That's exactly what I was thinking :) Pratchett has a very similar style of humour to Adams, but IMO his stories are much better. Adams admitted that he just made up HHGTTG as he went along (though some parts tie in quite well together, showing he's still very clever as well as randomly creative), but Pratchett has stories that are sometimes amazingly intricate, and all his books fit in well together.
Pratchett's books seem to have spoiled me with their combination of wit, often epic plots and well paced sto
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Compare the earlier Discworld novels to the later ones, and you'll find that the writing style and the storytelling get better and better. Adams was on the same track, but unfortunately never got to write his later novels.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, the first book was written in 1979, he had plenty of time to write more - he was just interested in other things. I was googling earlier to see if Pratchett ever mentioned being influenced by Adams, and saw a quote from Pratchett saying that Adams felt that writing got in the way of having fun, while for Pratchett it was kind of the other way round - he would much rather be writing! Pratchett brings out a new novel more than once a year, and it's not like they are lightweight drivel. I'm not suggestin
Re:All the diodes down my left side... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been reading the Discworld books since "The Light Fantastic" was new. Frankly, (and I know I'm going to generate some real hating from this), I thought Terry Pratchett was more or less imitating Douglas Adams in the first two books, with their more-or-less meandering plots and fairly random happenings (plus lots of excellent writing and humor), but then he got BETTER. Much BETTER. [Don't get me wrong, I love Adams' stuff and my copies of his books are all dog-eared and well-worn... I even used to read them to my kids (they totally love the BBC TV version and the revent movie, but their consensus is that the BBC version is better, which makes me proud), and I play the radio shows on CD when we are in the car.]
Pratchett gets the details the way Adams would... tons of really clever jokes (the guy even puns in Latin for cryin' out loud) and great dialog, the outrageously bizarre creations, the fantastic imagination of it all, but to that he adds incredible characterization and detailed plotting, stopwatch-perfect pacing, and some of the best satire ever written. I can get more of a "feeling" for, more inside the minds of, Commander Vimes or Granny Weatherwax or Tiffany Aching or even the Librarian from one chapter than I can get from Arthur or Trillian or Ford from 5 books. Out of places I've never been, Anhk-Morpork is more real and detailed to me than London, Paris or San Francisco.
And the stories... they are huge, sprawling and often very abstract working on many different levels, while remaining very cohesive, and we never lose the little details that make the Discworld perhaps the "realest" imaginary world ever created, more detailed in many ways than Tolkien, stranger in many ways than Wonderland, and yet it's really just a funhouse mirror that casts an exaggerated, but very, very true reflection of our real world and our complex, wonderful and insane nature as human beings.
Adams universe was just a vehicle for delivering his exceptional writing style and brilliant humor, but it never had a sense of being a "real place". The Discworld is carried by four elephants on the back of the great A'Tuin the star turtle, and yet feel more real than the most hardest of hard science fiction and the most scrupulously detailed of fantasy worlds.
Plus, Nanny Ogg. Anyone who could create Nanny Ogg (or really, discover her and reveal her to the world!) is a hero in my book.
Share and Enjoy! (Score:5, Funny)
GO STICK YOUR HEAD IN A PIG.
OK I guess. (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose I don't have a problem with this, as long as its crystal clear that this is Colfer's book, set in the HHG universe. If there is any implication whatsoever that this is a new Douglas Adams book, I have a big problem with it.
He's not pinin' for the fjords. He's dead. Let him go.
I have some misgivings, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Better Option (Score:3, Funny)
She'd probably make more money if she just set up a website where we can all contribute $5 to keep her from publishing a new book.
Leave it as it s (Score:3, Interesting)
...and go read Jasper Fforde's "Thursday Next" series.
Hilarious, geeky (lots and lots of literary allusions), british as well, /.ers), ...
includes special features online (good for us
All Good... (Score:2)
Good for her... (Score:3, Interesting)
...though I probably won't read it. I think that Douglas's style was inimitable - and it's painful when people try. Some people love the books for the story though, and before he died Douglas himself said that he might write another lighter sequel - that he was in a bad place when he wrote Mostly Harmless and that it was too dark as a result.
He left a wife and daughter and I presume he would have wanted them to be ok; why shouldn't his wife do this? The works he was directly involved in are still there and will be no less enjoyable. I disliked the film, but it's still better to have the original stuff and a film that some people will like than just the originals so I feel the same way about this proposed sequel.
People are too precious about these things. If you don't want 'em don't buy 'em. I'm with you. But don't try to tell the heirs about their responsibilities to a dead man if they're not suppressing anything.
By all accounts Eoin Colfer is a good author. It's up to him to make something worthwhile of the new book regardless of whose footsteps he's following in.
great! (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope not (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe this goes against Douglas Adams' wishes. "Mostly Harmless" seemed a deliberate effort by Adams to kill the series. (Spoiler: Everyone dies. The end.) I had an amazing opportunity to talk to Adams shortly before his death, and it seemed like he was deathly tired of the whole Hitchhiker thing.
As far as I'm concerned, the series ended with So Long And Thanks For All The Fish. It's a good ending. No other novels were or are necessary.
What I would much rather have seen is a third Dirk Gently novel. Although I have mixed feelings about someone else attempting it. The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul was a work of art. I don't see another author producing anything near as good that adhered to the spirit of the original.
Re:TELL HIM NO (Score:4, Insightful)
Very brave. Using an anonymous account posting someones private contact information. Very brave.
You should have posted his official contact information, where he can deal with the responses during office hours, instead of whenever random /.er calls.
Re: (Score:2)
that's a little harsh innit ?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it could have been posted by kdawson, in which case the article would be about the HHGTTG, written by Adam Chesterton. : p
Re: (Score:2)
Darn - I was too busy trying not to put too many vowels in Eoin to notice that I'd transposed the apostrophe and the s. (I would've got away with Adams' wouldn't I?)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh ... and improbability drives are plausible? Reincarnation? Technical devices outlasting the universe several times over?
Why again are you measuring Colfers books by hard sci-fi standards but don't do so for HHGG? Neither of the two is intended to be hard sci-fi.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The way the HHGTTG universe works is basically what it would be like if god (or multiple gods) had a really warped sense of humour and loved a good joke. From what I remember there are not so many points in the books where something happens that contradicts our experience but without a backstory. When Adams talks about small green pieces of paper that are, on the whole, not the ones that are unhappy, well, this is because the small green pieces of paper are just projections onto our universe of some 10-d
Re: (Score:3, Funny)