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

I'd like your opinions regarding all this. My creativity has gone into a sort of 'Devil's Advocate' mode. I mean when I started this thing, I thought the idea of making the human race evicted from Earth rather than destroying it would be a pretty neat idea. I also thought writing the major characters from previous books into the background and asking people to focus on the lesser-known characters or characters of their own imagination would be a pretty neat idea too.

Furthermore, I thought the idea of eventually having everyone meet up somewhere at the Big Bang Burger Bar would be a neat idea too. It was a nice sounding place that Douglas Adams never got around to actually using.

However, the more I think about it, the more I realize we're going way off the deep end here. I mean the stories aren't really sounding anything like an actual Hitch Hiker's Guide. I mean without the smoking remains of the Earth and Arthur wandering around with that blank look on his face as he and his aquaintences tumble haphazardly into a sun or running away from ravenous bug bladder beasts or what-not.. I mean, what is it all about? What are we in fact doing?

Should I scrap it all and start over or is this really a more hoopy idea than I'm aware of and I should just go have a lie down somewhere?

Hmmm. I started writing a book about four years ago (tentitively titled "Ferc in hell") which charted the life of an alien who came down to Earth. The project was scrapped when I realised with a shock that I had stolen around 3 plot points from the HHGTTG series wholesale. The eleven chapters or so were broken down, used for other things (in fact, my Airport Check in Desk entry for this site comes almost directly from my book) and then the whole lot ws dumped. I then decided, for a laugh, to see how hard it would be to write the Sixth HHGTTG book, or at least start it. In about half an hour I had an opening chapter which brought every one of the characters back to life, destroyed the race of grey amnesiacs, returned the guide to normal and mightilly pissed off the Vogons. I'll post it here when I find it over the next day or two.

Oh Cool! That would be a blast to read! I'll be looking forward to it.

I remember a long time ago right after the third book came out, I was a bit disappointed in reading it (have read it again since and have changed my opinion about it, but the third book is still in my opinion the least interesting of the five. All that stuff about Krikit History slowed down the action for me.)

On some looseleaf notepaper in a folder I may still have around here somewhere I started writing a fourth book just for my own personal interest and that of my friends. Never finished it, but it was a lot of fun to work on and I like to think it helped me in my writing talent in general.

Then a couple years or so later So Long And Thanks For All The Fish came out: infinitely better than my attempt to continue the storyline. In fact I doubt I'd ever let anyone see my unfinished work now. I'd like to think I've gotten better at writing since the third book came out.

There's an easier way to write oneself out of the Mostly Harmless Ending. I've come up with at least three so far. The QuadBee Project is designed to operate tangentically from DNA's books, so whether DNA ever liked the idea or not any work on said idea wouldn't directly affect whatever his real plans are.

It's now up at http://www.h2g2.com/P98309 Some of the ideas are a little odd, but then it was written very very quickly. I kind of like the rather sinister air around the mouse in this version!