PRESENT TENSE:THIS WEEK, I have been reading some of the great many sequels to Douglas Adams's five-book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy". There are thousands of unofficial versions online, 500 on FanFiction.net alone, writes Shane Hegarty
These further adventures of Earthman Arthur Dent and alien travel writer Ford Prefect range from time-travel mishaps to homosexual close encounters. They are, by and large, awful.
This week, it was announced that Eoin Colfer, the Irish author of the Artemis Fowl series, is to write a sixth book in the Hitchhiker's series. Several thoughts went through my head when I heard this, but one was dominant: Colfer really better not screw this up. Why? Because Douglas Adams's masterpiece remains my comfort read. Whenever I have nothing to pick up, or have bored of what I am reading, I will grab the Hitchhiker's Guide knowing that I can open it at any point and be thoroughly satisfied. I can do likewise with the second in the series, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. After that, to be honest, things get a bit dodgy. But more of that later.
It is 30 years since the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy debuted on radio, to be followed in 1979 by the first book. In many respects, it has aged badly. The opening four paragraphs contain two jokes about the novelty that was the digital watch; and while it is largely set in space, its satirical exasperation is regularly inspired by the crippling, uncaring bureaucracy of 1970s and 1980s Britain.
Yet, its surrealist science fiction is timeless, and its humanity equally so. It remains very, very funny. It is philosophical and staggeringly imaginative. It contains the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything (It's 42. If you didn't know, shame on you). And it features such scenes as an invading space fleet being swallowed by a small dog and a pot plant's thoughts as it plummets through the atmosphere. What more could you want in a book? The publishers hope that the public simply wants more. Sixteen years since Mostly Harmless, the fifth book in the trilogy (fans never tire of that joke) and seven years since Adams's death, his widow has given the go-ahead for a new story.
The publishers' motivations are clear. Sebastian Faulks's recent James Bond novel, Devil May Care, has been a bestseller, so before we know it every classic novel of the past century will have a sequel. You think you struggled to get through even a few pages of Leopold Bloom's day? Just wait until Ulysses II: Leopold Blooms Again!
Actually, modern rewrites of old classics are nothing new. We've had Scarlett, a 1990s sequel to Gone With The Wind; an official Peter Pan sequel; two sequels to Pride and Prejudice. And a guy opposite me on the train this week was reading a new Bourne book "in the style of" the late Robert Ludlum.
Colfer's won't even be the first spin-off of the Hitchhiker's series. Former Python Terry Jones had a go at a novelistic spin-off of a computer game, Starship Titanic, which was originally designed by Adams. It was neither a critical or commercial success, accused of reading like a weak homage of an Adams book.
At times, I'm afraid, even Douglas Adams's books could read like a weak homage of a Douglas Adams book. When he was good, he was really, really great. But the later books in the Hitchhiker's series have some very ropey moments, most notably the flat fourth, So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish, which was understandably poor given that Adams's editor had to move in with him to ensure he hit his deadlines.
But it was Adams's legacy to tamper with. When a different writer takes up the story, it requires a degree of ventriloquism. Or, more accurately, they become mediums, channelling the dead. Yet, while posthumous sequels trigger apprehension among fans, they don't actually impact on the self-contained greatness of an original. And besides, publishers are now playing catch-up with the increasing numbers of readers who, unable to accept an ending, simply take up the story themselves.
Fan Fiction, including its often sexually explicit sub-genre Slash Fiction, has flourished in the internet age. Annoyed at Harper Lee's reclusiveness? Then there are plenty of unofficial stories inspired by To Kill A Mockingbird. Moved by Angela's Ashes? Then weep at the fan-written spin-offs.
Only this week, Annie Proulx complained that the movie version of her short story Brokeback Mountain has become "the source of constant irritation in my private life" thanks to the amount of amateur reinterpretations she is sent, many of which are "pornish rewrites". In return, she says, they expect her praise for somehow "fixing" a story they saw as having a disappointing ending.
We will eventually know if Colfer was wise to take on the Hitchhiker's series. Already, the title, And Another Thing, has the ring of a middle-ranking showbiz biography. But Colfer's a successful, critically acclaimed writer, and his work attracts its own obsessives: FanFiction.net offers over 3,000 unofficial spin-offs of his Artemis Fowl books.
But with his sequel to the Hitchhiker's series, Colfer is about to become a member of the Fan Fiction fraternity. His fellow writers will be quick to tell him if it needs fixing.
shegarty@irish-times.ie