Review – And Another Thing…(Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Book 6) by Eoin Colfer (3.5/5 stars)

This is the 6th part of 3 in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. Douglas Adams always wanted to have a sixth book in the series; and Eoin Colfer (best know for the Artemis Fowl series) was the writer chosen to write this sixth book. Overall it was an okay book. I read the original books so long ago that I had trouble comparing this book to the original. This book was very creative and had a similar tone to it that the previous books had. I found it hard to stay engaged in the story though with all the sidetracking that was going on.

Arthur, Ford, Random, and Trillian have spent a while living a life that they weren’t really living. They awake to find that the alternate Earth that they are on is going to be destroyed; very familiar to the first book! They are rescued at the last minute by Zaphod who is piloting the Heart of Gold. Of course, things go wrong on The Heart of Gold and they are then about to die again when they are rescued by the immortal Bowerick. Bowerick agrees to help them if they can find a way to kill him. Zaphod readily agrees. From there they are off to the planet of Gods to convince Thor to kill Bowerick. The other part of the story involves the leader of the planet Nano and his search for a God for his planet; as the last colony of humans this story eventually ties in with the one involving Arthur and folks.

This was an interesting story. The plot is creative and the Guide Notes as intriguing and somewhat useless as they always were. The tone of the book seemed in keeping with the previous books (although my memory on the previous books is a bit vague). Still despite the non-stop action and constant stream of creative prattle, I had trouble staying engaged in this book.

Maybe it is because I haven’t been involved with these characters in a long time, but I have trouble staying engaged in the characters or their story. Part of the problem was that it was like the story had ADD, it just couldn’t stay going in one direction for very long. I remember the original books kind of being like that, but I think this was worse. With the interruptions of facts from the Guide occurring almost every page (okay, probably every other page) the continuity of the story was constantly interrupted. The story itself also schizophrenically switches between different characters and different locations.

Overall this was a somewhat interesting read. It kept with the humorous writing of the original series and had the constant splattering of odd and miscellaneous facts that I remember in previous books. I had trouble getting through the book though because neither the story nor the characters could really keep my interest. I think plot was a little to minced up and unfocused for me. I guess if you are a big fan of the series I would read this book; definitely don’t use this book as an entry into the series…you will be totally confused if you do. The original four books still remain the best in my mind. Let’s hope that this is the last we see of new books to the HHG2G series.