h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Right.

My first question is - why do we need a sequel? This debate has enticed me to dig out Mostly Harmless again to remind me how it ended, but I certainly don't remember thinking that there HAD to be a sequel.

Secondly - plotlines. The various plots within HHGG were many and varied, and they straggled hither and thither. Is anyone capable of bringing them all together coherently (if that's the intention)?

Thirdly - the irrelevance of plotlines. What made DNA's writing so great was its style - the plot was only a device to allow for wicked characterisations or cunning wordplay. Is a sequel going to attempt to emulate that style? Whilst certainly possible....why?

Fourthly - the choice of Eoin Colfer still puzzles me. I admit I've read very little (because I was bored senseless by what I did attempt) but I can't see what he's bringing to this task. Inventiveness, maybe ( but do we want new characters or do we want to stick with the ones we know?).

Fifthly - the possible motivation for this as being money has to be considered. Which isn't a particlauly nice one.

Sixthly - judging it before it's written. We can certainly express our opinions about the idea. No doubt when it's published we can read it and then criticise it all over again!

DO NOT WANT!!!


Seriously. When Douglas Adams passed, I grieved.

I grieved for the loss of not only the man, but for a major part of my childhood. I grieved for the source of much of my attitude to Life, The Universe and Everything.

But more importantly, I grieved for all those tales that Douglas Adams may have written had he lived.

But even at that point I was NOT expecting any more Hitchhiker books!

He seemed to be very decidedly DONE with those.


This is a slap to the face to something I hold very dear.

I don't care who was chosen to write another HHGttG book. I don't want one.

It's bad enough when authors can't leave their own series alone but to get another author to continue the work of another seems morally sad. Understandable if the author died before the expected end of work e.g. Mystery of Edwin Drood; but not for a 'completed' established series.

Money can be the only motive. Yet how many of the HHGTTG faithful will boycott the new book in protest? Not enough I suspect.

Even if the new book does flop, there will still be enough publicity to generate interest in the earlier books and add a few more sales. At some stage a new "Complete Six-Part Trilogy" boxset will be released and the faithfull will feel compelled to buy ...

I'll be getting out from the library, I think. Not a book to buy, unless it surprises me. (And I am a Colfer fan.)

TRiG.

There is only one writer in the world good enough to continue Doug's work, and that person is now battling a devastating disease; anyway, I prefer that he write more Discworld books as long as he's still able!

"Through the new strangeness of noise and light he could just make out the shape of Ford Prefect sitting back and laughing wildly.

A tremendous feeling of peace came over him. He knew that at last, for once and for ever, it was now all, finally, over."

I think that a large part of what made Douglas Adams so amazing to begin with was how he could write a book and create an idea that made no sense whatsoever yet was somehow an exact parallel to the "real" world. I think that his brilliance is something that cannot be replicated and no one should even try. It's a bit like when they make a movie and then a sequel in which all the characters are the same yet played by different actors. It's not as good because it takes away the authentic feel of it. Also, although I've never read any of his books I hated the idea of the Artemis Fowl series from the beginning and I don't believe their author would be anywhere near capable of continuing, or ending, the Hitchhiker's Guide series.