No one writes like Douglas Adams.
In fact, after the first few books, not even Douglas Adams
writes like Douglas Adams – the penchant for silly gets in the way of an actual
storyline and, well, you’ve got Dickensian characters without the underlying story.
Same kind a goes for Eoin Colfer’s Hitchhiker’s attempt,
“And Another Thing,” which, while it has a brief struggle with a story about
the nature of gods and worship and such, doesn’t seem to get past the novelty
of parading Adams’ characters (“Look! It’s Eccentrica Gallumbits!” Now it’s
Ford Prefect! Whee!”) to get to an actual story.
So in that vein, Colfer has succeeded in writing the perfect
Hitchhiker’s book, because they’ve always been light on plot, but this one
seems lighter than most.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide itself (the device and company, not
necessarily the books) hasn’t aged well. What seemed magical at the
beginning -- a portable device that
offers the froody history of everything in the universe – now boils down to the
worst of Wikipedia where you see [citation needed] more than anything else.
Colfer’s take is rather depressing – nobody in this book is
happy, with the exception of those infamous Ameglian Major cows, who want to
shove themselves down everyone’s throats at the nearest possible occasion. Sign
of the times, I suppose. You can’t write space opera these days without
everyone being so utterly depressed about everything. Why concentrate on the
glorious vastness of the universe when the universe inside our own skulls is
such a miserable, wretched place, right? I’m tired of science fiction and
fantasy like that. I don’t mind brooding – but a whole novel of brooding? No
thank you.
Yes, this book is dull. Dull re-destruction of Earth ad
infinitum as Earth exists in so many dimensions . . . Vogons questioning their
Vogonness (see? Even the Vogons are depressed in this one). And Arthur is there
WITHOUT HIS DRESSING GOWN and SANS TOWEL.
I sound old. I must pause to adjust the onion on my belt.
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