Thrilling Adventures in Rhyme and Space

Finished reading “And Another Thing…”, a new Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy book written by Eoin Colfer continuing where the late, great Douglas Adams left off.

I enjoyed it a lot, it had a lot of clever uses for the characters, both our main heroes and some of the one-offs from previous books. Listening to the audio book read by Simon Jones certainly helps the feel.

While I enjoyed it, there was always something off about it. It could well be just the fact that Colfer is a proper novelist whereas Adams certainly wasn’t, thus the book loses a bit of it’s charm . Also while the guide notes were often funny and witty, they popped up so often that even a casual HHG fan would have noticed all the call backs to species from the other books.

It’s certainly a worthwhile read for fans and manages to reference the recent radio adaptations despite the mismatched continuity. It ends nice and open, even when it seems to be heading for a happy ending there’s a great swerve to avoid it.