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Thread: And Another Thing... A new hitch hikers book!

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    Registered User Poi Boi's Avatar
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    And Another Thing... A new hitch hikers book!

    While on the BBC website I found THIS and was a bit suprised.

    I am a massive fan of the radio plays, I have the 5 part trilogy in hardcover and loved much of whatever else Douglas Adams wrote, but could anyone actually write a brand new Hitch Hikers book?

    The 4th and 5th in the trilogy were not that great I'le admit, but there were touches of genius in there. Could a 6th book measure up? Or would it be a bit like the new breed of bond films?

    Thoughts please!

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    Re: And Another Thing... A new hitch hikers book!

    Had the lost on spoken word cd.

    Loved them hope the 6th one is great as well.

    DTS XXX XXX

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    Formerly known as DavidJames David Bailey's Avatar
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    Re: And Another Thing... A new hitch hikers book!

    Errr.... without wishing to give spoilers, how is another book possible given the events of the last one?

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    Registered User Poi Boi's Avatar
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    Re: And Another Thing... A new hitch hikers book!

    I don't remember him killing the characters, the Vogons just finished the job they had been hired to do.

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    Registered User Beowulf's Avatar
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    Re: And Another Thing... A new hitch hikers book!

    Heavens forbid.. may the great ghost of D.N.A. protect us!!

    The 5th book in the increasingly inaccurate trilogy of 4 was bad enough.. leave it rest at that.

    I always got the impression it was written under "duress" it struck me that D.N.A. was saying .. "Right .. to h*ll with the lot of you.. you pestered me and pestered me for a 5th book.. I'll sort things out for once and all"

    Still.. I'd probably buy it if /when it came out.

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    Mrs Pretzelmeister
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    Re: And Another Thing... A new hitch hikers book!

    Don't know, but Douglas Adams had spoken about going on to write another episode to follow the fifth book in the increasingly innacurately named trilogy of four...

    Have to admit that I'm doubtful it can be done as well as the originals, given that it's not the same inventive genius at work. I wish Eoin Colfer the best of luck, but what is the temptation, as an author, to do this? If he does it well there's some financial gain to be had but without the merit of the characters and groundwork being his own. If he does it badly he earns the scorn of a whole cult following.

    Some things are just irreplaceable or unreproduceable. Douglas Adams' whole personality is the former, and its output is the latter. Ultimately, no matter how much we want more as readers/listeners, there isn't more to be had.

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    Lovely Moderator ducasi's Avatar
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    Re: And Another Thing... A new hitch hikers book!

    It'll be interesting to see how well it does. DNA was unique, it'll be hard to recreate his humour.

    If we could resurrect him for just one more book, I'd want it to be another Dirk Gently book. They were good. Very sorry The Salmon of Doubt went unfinished.

    Here's an extract from an interview with DNA about The Salmon of Doubt, and a sixth HH book...

    In a 1998 interview with Matt Newsome, Adams commented as to whether The Salmon of Doubt was going to be a Dirk Gently book or a continuation of the Hitchhiker's Guide series:
    Adams: The thing with Dirk was that I felt I had lost contact with that character, I couldn't make that book viable, which is why I said, "Okay, let's go off and do something else." Then looking back at all the ideas that were there in Salmon of Doubt, I looked at it again about a year later and suddenly realised what it was that I'd been getting wrong, which was that these are essentially much more like Hitch-Hiker ideas and not like Dirk Gently ideas.
    So, there will come a point I suspect at some point in the future where I will write a sixth Hitch-Hiker book. But I kind of want to do that in an odd kind of way because people have said, quite rightly, that Mostly Harmless is a very bleak book. And it was a bleak book. The reason for that is very simple—I was having a lousy year, for all sorts of personal reasons that I don't want to go into, I just had a thoroughly miserable year, and I was trying to write a book against that background. And, guess what, it was a rather bleak book!
    I would love to finish Hitch-Hiker on a slightly more upbeat note, so five seems to be a wrong kind of number, six is a better kind of number. I think that a lot of the stuff which was originally in Salmon of Doubt, was planned into Salmon of Doubt and really wasn't working, I think could be yanked out and put together some new thoughts.
    Newsome: Yes, because certainly some people have heard that Salmon of Doubt was now going to be a new Hitch-Hiker book.
    Adams: Well, In a sense, because I shall be salvaging some of the ideas I couldn't make work within a Dirk Gently framework and putting them in a Hitch-Hiker framework, undergoing necessary changes on the way. And, for old time's sake, I may call it, Salmon of Doubt, I may call it... well who knows!
    Let your mind go and your body will follow. – Steve Martin, LA Story

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    An Eclectic Toaster
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    Re: And Another Thing... A new hitch hikers book!

    I'd like to see a different writer's take on the concept and characters. Eoin should get back to basics, have Arthur and Ford just trot off round a weird and wonderful universe with the book helping/hindering them along the way in extensive footnotes/narrative diversions. Maybe have Zaphod tag along. Colin the Security Robot would be a fun addition from the 5th book, somehow pairing him up with Marvin in a C3PO/R2D2 pastiche. Hey, he could go the whole hog and spoof Star Wars in the HH universe.

    I find some peoples reverence of the books a bit puzzling: they weren't the original incarnation of the concept in the first place. Also, the later ones either relied on reworked material (the third book is based on DNA's script for a Doctor Who movie that was being mooted in the late 70s), or are just plain bad (the only good thing in book 4 was the Rain God, and even then, that was done better in the Radio version, thanks to Bill Paterson).

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    Re: And Another Thing... A new hitch hikers book!

    Quote Originally Posted by Beowulf View Post
    I always got the impression it was written under "duress" it struck me that D.N.A. was saying .. "Right .. to h*ll with the lot of you.. you pestered me and pestered me for a 5th book.. .

    Yesterday in "Today" (corr! thats almost Adamish in it's own right) on Radio4 they interviewed his wife who made the rather delightful comment that Douglas hated writing books but loved having written them.

    Then they spoke to the geezer that was going to write the book and unlike the last James bond book that was written by someone else, the name escapes me, in the style of Ian Flemming, this new geezer thinks he has enough skill to write as himself.

    ermmmm. . . .

    Methinks this is a case for some smart arse publisher and a timemachine!

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    Registered User Beowulf's Avatar
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    Re: And Another Thing... A new hitch hikers book!

    Quote Originally Posted by ducasi View Post
    I'd want it to be another Dirk Gently book. They were good.


    "She had heard it said that humans are supposed only to use about a tenth of their brains, and that no one was very clear what the other nine-tenths were for, but she had certainly never heard it suggested that they were used for storing penguins"

    I loved the wackiness of "The meaning of Liff" too..

    especially given my current employment location

    WOKING (vb.) To enter the kitchen with the precise determination to perform something only to forget what it is just before you do it.

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