The novel “And Another Thing…” by Eoin Colfer was published for the first time in 2009. It’s the sequel of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams, in particular of the novel “Mostly harmless“.
The Earth is about to be destroyed by the Vogons when Zaphod Beeblebrox arrives with the starship “Heart of Gold” and rescues his old friends, who discover that the onboard computer was replaced by Zaphod’s second head. Accidentally, Ford Prefect freezes the head and things seem to go wrong when Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged arrives and saves them again.
The meeting between Wowbagger and Zaphod turns into a fight and Zaphod vows to kill Wowbagger who, tired of his immortality and of traveling throughout the universe to insult all its inhabitants, warmly welcomes such a perspective. To fulfill the promise, Zaphod goes in search of the god Thor, who might be able to help him.
“Mostly harmless” had ended in a rather depressing way the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series and Douglas Adams was planning to write another novel that might raise the mood. Unfortunately, the great author died before he could do that so the series seemed to be over. Instead, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of its first novel, “And another Thing…” was published, written by Eoin Colfer, which starts where the previous novel ended.
Eoin Colfer is best known for writing books for children and teenagers, to grapple with the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is obviously quite different. The author stated that he read the novels in the series and that he had already built in his head a possible sequel to “Mostly harmless”. Once he got over the shock of receiving the task of actually writing it, he just had to develop those ideas.
In “And another Thing…” Eoin Colfer has almost all the protagonists of the previous novels reappear except for Marvin. Instead, there are the Vogons and there is a return of Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, who had a small part in “Life, the Universe and Everything” and here becomes one of the protagonists.
It’s impossible to read “And another Thing…” without comparing Eoin Colfer’s style and themes with those of Douglas Adams. Even trying to read this novel with an open mind you may be wondering at least sometimes if in a certain bit Colfer is trying to mimic Douglas or if instead he’s looking to add something totally personal. I’ve never read anything by Eoin Colfer before, so in fact to me it’s impossible to determine exactly how much he added of his own.
In my opinion, trying to analyze “And another Thing…” point by point is nonsense because in the end we’re talking about a comedy novel so you either find it funny or you don’t. In this sense, the reaction to the novel is particularly subjective and I can only say that unfortunately I didn’t laugh very much.
On various occasions while I was reading “And another Thing…” I came to think that Douglas Adams would’ve written a bit in a more subtle manner. To mention just one example, I think about the note in which the author speaks openly of religions and a frogget who convinced all the others that their fates were governed by the almighty Lily Pad compared to the story of the Oglaroonians in “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe“.
Perhaps Eoin Colfer is used to write everything in a clear and explicit way because generally his target is an audience of children and teenagers but this kind of approach in my opinion doesn’t work very well in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.
In fact, we’re talking about a series of stories totally demented which however contain various philosophical elements that are far from explicit. Eoin Colfer seems to want to remind us that “And another Thing…” is part of the Guide to the Galaxy series by filling it with notes taken from it. In my opinion there are too many of them and after a while they end up being forced.
The part of “And another Thing…” about Hillman Hunter, the leader of the Nano colony who’s interviewing various gods to hire one that will become the god of the planet, in my opinion, has some funny moments but so many others that honestly I found rather boring. I found it a bit disconnected from the rest of the story but it’s precisely the case where the reaction is subjective.
Inevitably, “And another Thing…” has been received in a controversial manner so there are those who consider it crap written only for money and those who consider it a worthy sequel to the Guide to the Galaxy series. Personally, I found it tolerable but well below the novels by Douglas Adams.
Probably, if you feel the need to satisfy at least partly your hunger for stories related to Guide to the Galaxy you might like “And another Thing…”, in other cases there’s a risk that you’ll find it boring or even annoying.
