Thursday, September 18, 2008

The sixth Hitchiker's book

My foundation was rocked to the core yesterday, when I read an article on BBC stating that Eoin Colfer (pronounced "Owen"), will be writing a sixth book to finish out Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. From the official press release:

Penguin announced today that it is to publish the sixth novel in the ever-more increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. Eight years after the tragically early death of its creator, Douglas Adams, widow Jane Belson has sanctioned the project to be written by the international number-one bestselling children’s writer, Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl novels. The new book is entitled “And Another Thing…” and will be published in hardback by Penguin in October 2009. The deal was done with Sophie Hicks and Ed Victor of Ed Victor Ltd., agents for both Colfer and the Douglas Adams estate.
I have very mixed feelings about this. Douglas Adams is my absolute favorite author of all time (I collect different editions of his books, and I have 28), so it's a bit unnerving. On one hand, I want the story to continue on like Douglas intended. But at the same time, I don't want the sanctity of the Guide to be ruined. Eoin is a good writer, from the little I've read by him, so I suppose I trust him if Jane does.
I'm just curious as to what to extremely hardcore fans think. I'm sure most of them share my sentiments.
I guess I have a year to freak out about this. Also, I'm pissed off that this will ruin the alphabetical order of my bookshelf. Expect more updates and information as it becomes available.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure how I feel about this, either. On the one hand, Eoin is a pretty good author, but, on the other hand, there is no way that anyone will EVER live up to Douglas Adams' writing. He was a genius!
And I agree with you: it'll mess up my bookshelf!