(Title courtesy of TOBUSCUS!)
"The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying 'And another thing' twenty minutes after admitting he's lost the argument." -Douglas Adams.
And sadly, "And Another Thing" was not published until Douglas Adams had lost the greatest argument of all: the argument of life, the universe and everything. Happily, Adams had Eoin Colfer to continue the argument for him. The book begins shortly after "Mostly Harmless" left off. With all of the main characters gathered on earth for one last time before those odious Vogons finally achieve their objective: the destruction of the earth in order to build an inter-space express way. The book ends with the good Arthur Dent finally finding peace. Oh, and everyone ending up blasted quite literally out of existence. I must try to keep spoilers to a minimum but past this point, I will be letting out sever key points especially in the beginning of the book. "And Another Thing" begins with a very old and decrepit man lounging on a beach. He has one bad eye and two bad legs. He knows that he is nearing the end of his life and is quite ready for anything. That is, at least, ready until a mysterious bird flies down and utters the cryptic word "Battery".
Similar things are happening to all of the companions of Dent, Arthur Dent. The enigmatic and just plain awesome Ford Prefect, for example was having an undoubtedly lovely underwater back massage by a Damogramian eleven tentacle masseuse squid. Ford was just realizing how much the squid looked rather like a bird when it too spoke the mysterious term: "Battery". Trillian Astra from another universe and Random Dent were in similar situations. Suddenly, they all are teleported into a room seemingly made up of sky and clouds when a mysterious bird, The Guide MK. II, informs the group that they are all suspended in time and are about to die due to him running out of power, hence "battery". After about two minutes of arguing, MK II runs out of power and teleports them back to earth which is, coincidently, still being destroyed. Just as all seems lost, Zaphod Beeblebrox shows up in my personal favorite space vessel next to the TARDIS, The Heart of Gold.
End spoilers. Start review. I found the book the be a passing win. It strays widely from Douglas Adams' original eccentric writing style although it does occasionally throw in a phrase that Adams used, such as "Almost but not entirely unlike". Having read some of Colfer's other books, I can not really say that the writing style here was his usual cup of starship-disabling tea either. Colfer usually writes for a much younger audience. This book was aimed at an adult audience rather than children and it shows. Colfer often uses child level references and low complexity sentences. This is quite understandable, as this is his first book aimed at adults. Apart from those trifling inconveniences, I have only a few points more to make in reagards to the style of writing.
To the original readers of The Guide, this book may seem to some to be not worthy of it's heritage. Where Adams used sometime archaic but always comprehensive words and structure, Colfer's style is a very much more modern one. The Original readers may find this new addition hard to acknowledge as a continuation of the original series due to this difference in style. (Argh! I have just repeated myself again! Stop that! -Author's Note) Another thing that I was rather upset at, were the character changes that Colfer made. Ford Prefect, who was in the past a "hoopy frood", a savvy space-traveler, a man who totally knew where his towel was and a general all round jack of all trades was turned into a buffoon. Beeblebrox became even more of a partier, drunkard and all round fool and Arthur Dent, well, Arthur Dent didn't change that much at all, opting to stay as slow and overly pragmatic as ever.
In conclusion, I think that "And Another Thing" is worth reading for original Guide readers but perhaps not worthy of the title of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Original readers might find it lacking of that original spark that made Douglas Adams' writing so entertaining to read.
Final Rating:
34/42
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