And Another Thing...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Book 6

By: Eoin Colfer

Narrated by: Simon Jones

Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

An Englishman's continuing search through space and time for a decent cup of tea

Arthur Dent's accidental association with that wholly remarkable book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, has not been entirely without incident. Arthur has traveled the length, breadth, and depth of known, and unknown, space. He has stumbled forward and backward through time. He has been blown up, reassembled, cruelly imprisoned, horribly released, and colorfully insulted more than is strictly necessary. And of course Arthur Dent has comprehensively failed to grasp the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

Arthur has finally made it home to Earth, but that does not mean he has escaped his fate. Arthur's chances of getting his hands on a decent cuppa have evaporated rapidly, along with all the world's oceans. For no sooner has he touched down on the planet Earth than he finds out that it is about to be blown up...again.

And Another Thing... is the rather unexpected, but very welcome, sixth installment of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It features a pantheon of unemployed gods, everyone's favorite renegade Galactic President, a lovestruck green alien, an irritating computer, and at least one very large slab of cheese.

Life, the universe, and everything: listen to the rest of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series and related titles.

©2009 Eoin Colfer and Completely Unexpected Productions Ltd. (P)2009 Hyperion

Should be a 5 star review but ...

Due to a glitch in the production, a section of the book is in the wrong place which sort of plays havoc with the flow of the story.
Otherwise, it is a 5 star production. It helps A LOT to have Simon Jones (Arthur Dent in the radio productions) reading this book; he does the voices so perfectly.
Colfer has done an excellent job of using Adams' stories, the BBC radio performances and the Dirk Gently themes to craft an excellent sixth part to the Hitchhiker's Trilogy. If you were disappointed with the ending of the book version of "Mostly Harmless" be sure to listen to the radio version of Mostly Harmless then immediately move on to this book ... you won't be disappointed.

skipping?

The recording seemed to skip around a lot. at random times it would cut out, then come back talking about something else.

Mostly Adaquate

The narration for this book was not nearly as good as all the other books in this series, female voices were terrible at points and at times it was hard to tell who was speaking as the male voices started to sound alike. It didn't have the nonsensical science feel Douglas Adams pulled off so perfectly in his books. Seemed like everything made too much sense in this book. Overall it's worth a listen, just don't get your hopes up too much.

Good book, but...

What made the experience of listening to And Another Thing... the most enjoyable?

Simon Jones is a great narrator.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

It needed to be edited. The story dragged on a bit.

Have you listened to any of Simon Jones’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes. He is awesome.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I laughed a several parts of the book it is very funny, just a bit too much content.

Any additional comments?

Had this been edited it would fit much better with the Douglas Adams classics.

Better left unsaid

Lacks the depth of Douglas Adams. Valiant effort, but that's it, an effort. Far too many 'guide notes', especially those that went off on things that would not have been in the Hitchhiker's guide as described in the book and delved into the personal lives and histories of either the characters or random irrelevant minor characters. The bits about the galaxy or a certain planet or historical fact were fine, but still too frequent and not keeping with the usage from the previous installments. Would have been better to have ended with Adams. Interesting fan fiction though. Performance was great.

Of Course it's not Douglas Adams.

He's dead. Sorry. Now shut up, grab your towel, and listen to Simon Jones read the book.

If you've already read or listened to the first five, and the five radio plays, and possibly the television show, and the movie, and probably the Dirk Gently stuff and even DA's Dr Who stuff and you're still here looking at this book, you should get it.

Maybe you'll think it's a brilliant cap on the series, being the sixth book in the trilogy and being not just published, but written post-mortem, and then read by the guy who's been Arthur Dent for 35 years now.

Maybe you'll think it's a sad, macabre dance, like someone singing you lullaby's while wearing the skin of a dead friend as a mask.

Either way, If you've made it this far, you need to know.

(Oh, and grab Starship Titanic too! This is at least that good, whatever that backhanded recommendation is worth).

Ends well!

For a series so filled with the unexpected, this book fills its spot as the final in the series in a way conforming to my expectations, which is to say, "well".

One last look at the middle

A touching tribute to the late Douglas Adams, and a pitch-perfect Zaphod performance to boot

fits in the series

While I heard some not too good things about this book, I loved it. I loved the use of Thor and how everything from the old books were tied in well. This book was longer and more involved than any of the other books, not that it was better, but it didn't miss a beat. I hope this author tries the Dirk Gently series. I especially have hopes for the Salmon of Doubt. If you liked the guide books, this fits an empty spot that needed filling and is a star above Mostly Harmless.

Jeff Daugherty

LOVED It!

Like others, I expected to hate this because it’s not Douglas Adams. But I LOVED it! I laughed constantly and restarted it as soon as it ended. Enjoy it as a continuation of our favorite series but just with a new story teller. Give it a shot and you won’t be disappointed.