I’m still trying to figure out how I felt about the sixth novel in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. I mean, it certainly read like one of Douglas Adam’s novels. But, I’m not convinced that’s a good thing. In my mind, the closest parallel that I can draw is with the Wheel of Time series, which had Brandon Sanderson complete it after Robert Jordan died. And that worked, since Sanderson felt free to use his own voice and stresses, instead of writing a Robert Jordan novel (meaning that we were spared about 100 pages of female characters thinking about their necklines and their dress material).
But And Another Thing… read like Colfer was deliberately trying to write in the Adam’s style. And writing in someone else’s style — especially one as distinctive and well-beloved as Adam’s — is just a recipe for disaster. Also…I just think there wasn’t enough Arthur in it for me. That was always a good chunk of the appeal — you can easily imagine yourself as Arthur and then engage in all his zany adventures. It’s much harder to associate with Trillian or Zaphod. Further…I’m not sure that Colfer can quite pull off the same jokes that Adams could – those glorious page long buildups to a joke (that sadly could not translate over to the movie version at all).
So, kinda disappointing all in all. But I’ll take it.