Book: And Another Thing…

No one could pull off loopy wit, wild creativity and sharp comment on the human condition better than Douglas Noel Adams.

When he died, just 49, his fans felt drunk. (Is that so bad? “You ask a glass of water.”) Eight years later, to mark the first Hitchhiker book’s 30th anniversary, his widow sanctioned a “sixth and final installment of the trilogy,” by Eoin Colfer, famous for his Artemis Fowl novels. Colfer’s effort brings back many of the cast: Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod, Trillian, Random and the Guide itself (but not Marvin the Paranoid Android, or Slartibartfast, the planet designer with a thing for fjords, or Frankie and Benjy, the pan-dimensional mice).

Minor characters from the original books take larger roles here, like the Vogons and Thor; and former throwaway ideas like Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged are central to the plot. Colfer lacks Adams’s wild imagination and ear for dialogue, and he overdoes the Guide interjections, but judged on its own, it is a decent read. If it sends a new generation of readers back to DNA’s books, all else will be forgiven.

No one could pull off loopy wit, wild creativity and sharp comment on the human condition better than Douglas Noel Adams

And Another Thing…; by Eoin Colfer;

Penguin UK; 340 pages; Rs. 399