BOOK OF THE DAY: And Another Thing… By Eoin Colfer Penguin £14.99
HERE'S A tricky one. It was hard enough for Eoin Colfer to channel Douglas Adams for this sixth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"trilogy", but how should the reader approach it? Because it is difficult to treat And Another Thing…on its merits.
With the original books, an idea wowed you or a joke made you laugh out loud.
In Colfer’s hands, they make you smirk in recognition. Oh yes, you think, how cleverly Adams-esque.
Or worse, you occasionally find yourself thinking that it is a little too Adams-esque.
Colfer, though, has done a very good job, helped along by his way with a gag and knack at keeping a story zipping along.
The continuing misadventures of Arthur Dent and his towel-carrying companion from Betelgeuse begins with an introduction that explains all to newcomers – or those who read the books so long ago they might as well be newcomers.
The story proper then begins with the Earth being destroyed, yet again – a homage to the opening pages of the first Hitchhiker’s book.
Along with Trillian, a now single-headed Zaphod Beeblebrox, and Arthur and Trillian’s daughter Random, they then head off to a planet that contains a few Earthling survivors.
The narrative is further propelled by the deathwish of Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged (still using his immortality to travel the galaxy and insult every being in it), and a search for redemption by a down-at-heel god, Thor.
There is also a stage Irishman and an appearance by Cong and Inishfree, which is based on their attachment to The Quiet Manbut which gives each of them an additional and curious footnote in the annals of popular culture.
Colfer takes the ingredients of the original series and reworks them, adding further adventure, impossible circumstances and improbable escapes – but not an awful lot that is new.
There are instead echoes of the previous books, such as how the colony of fitness instructors and beauticians updates The Restaurant at the End of the Universe's spaceship filled with management consultants and telephone sanitisers.
Colfer also holds on to some of the central themes that interested Adams, such as maddening bureaucracy, a great variety of silly religious beliefs – although if the former theme has lost some of its sting since the early books, the latter has become more pertinent.
Colfer continues the running joke about digital watches, but adds the likes of Goth teenagers and “uBid”, so proving himself unconcerned by the certainty that some references will become anachronistic.
Adams’s books are riddled with such things, yet they remain timeless.
Where this novel occasionally falls down is in how it overcooks things a bit.
The Guide entries that successfully punctuated the series are not just here – they are here, there and everywhere: often very clever and very funny and filled with ironic deaths and delightful bathos, but there are just too many of them.
They don’t so much break up the narrative as clog it.
Which isn’t too bad a complaint, really, because that’s a gripe about reining in the imagination rather than a lack of it. Colfer has ultimately brought a huge amount to the series.
The truth is that, after the first couple of books, Adams struggled to bring coherence and verve to the series.
And Another Thing…is tightly written, keeps up a relentless gag-rate and – above all – is fun.
Colfer says he’s unlikely to write a seventh book. It’s a shame, because he has earned the right.
Shane Hegarty is an Irish Timesjournalist