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

Same spirit as the guide.

great story in the same eccentric style as the original. Glad to see all the important characters were there.

Loved this final installment

It was a wonderful addition to the series. I enjoyed having this one last adventure with the characters.

Amazing

It is a bit different from the main 5-book "trilogy" indeed but it doesn't mean that it is bad. It actually means quite opposite in this case. I loved first two books and enjoyed the other three. For my personal taste this is the best one of all six books. Maybe falling a little bit short behind the very first one because that was the one that actually gave birth to this Incredible universe and characters in the first place.

Overall I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed any of other five books in this series. I am positive that you will love this one as well!

I Guess...

the book has a few laughs
it has some wit
it pales compared to Adams.

the pace is disjointed. the segues are perpetual and unending and pointless (and often not in keeping with the universe Adams created). the related jokes and words are monotonous. zark and frood are every other words. never mind all the other phrases.

and why is Zaphod the protagonist and not Arthur?
and the female characters are completely changed from Adams. they used to be strong. here, they are wilting (literally fainting) and moody.

this doesn't enrich the story, and the tidiness of the ending isn't very Adams like.

the performance was pretty good, though frequently the characterizations are confusing and I swear Ford's dialect changes by the end.

my life wasn't changed for having read it. nor will yours.

Glorified Fanfiction

It was hard getting through this one. Colfer tried too hard. Jones was good though.

Not quite the same

This was a wonderful continuation of the story, however, the too frequent Hitchhiker Guide Notes were a bit much. Worth a listen, but could use minor refinement to be as addictive as books 1-5 of the trilogy. Still recommend it and hope there's more to come!

An attempt to modernize.

First, I did finish it and the narrator was great.

I was disappointed in the writing. Remember that part where Adams said you could skip a bunch of chapters to find an interesting bit about Marvin at the end? If you loved those chapters, can't get enough of the phrase "pan-galactic gargle blaster (It's on almost every page), think jokes about erectile disfunction are funny, appreciate casual swearing, love sexist attitudes, want a Random who's an inconsistent twit (along with most other characters), need main characters who are so bad the author had to write them out of the story before the last section, and crave an attempt to bring back Irish racism this story is for you.

Otherwise, fans of the series should give it a pass. Maybe for fan cred, but I'd rather watch the Star Wars Holiday Special sober than sit through this again.

A brilliant ending.

The ending, half dozing as I was, left me with a hopeful sense of a new beginning in my own life. Brilliant.

The beginning, meeting Arthur, Trillion, and Ford in their middle age reminded how young we were at the first reading of The first book of Douglass Adams trilogy.

It was the fiddly bits around the middle that gave me trouble, or maybe it was the organic butter spread I had on my toast at lunch. In either event, Zaephod had either mellowed with age, or had lost his Beebelbroxian arrogance with the externalization of one of his formerly bi-cranial heads. But perhaps I give too much away.

As the fourth book of the original trilogy lost some of the first threes poignancy, so this, in the middle spaces, seems to lose the point.

But maybe that is the point, and why we love Adams creations, even when told through the eyes of an avid devote.

We've listened to the original BBC broadcasts of the trilogy enumerable times in the past 30 years. I think we'll do so again, shortly.

Great but still no Fenchurch

Was great he said she would come back. last book fed it up by just totally forgetting about her. really upset she didnt actually come back. Its basicaly not true. i do t want to say lie. but it could be one too.

A delightful return to the H2G2 Universe

To get the obvious out of the way, Eoin Colfer is not Douglas Adams. The writing style of this new book is not quite the same as the first 5. That being said it is very clear that Eoin was immersed in the original material and does a very credible tribute to the work of Douglas Adams. With Simon Jones reading it was at almost possible to forget that this book was not penned by Douglas himself.
Now on to the book itself, we start where Mostly Harmless left off; Earth is just about to end again. And Author is about to take off on a new trip around the universe with many of the old favorite characters either joining or making a cameo appearance.
Like the previous reviewer, my only complaint is that the book references the previous 5 books too often and in ways that does not flow well. I found myself often being broken out of the story with some far too unnecessary self reference. It is a odd sensation to be both slightly annoyed because I was jarred out of the flow, yet fondly remembering the original.
Overall, I would say if you are a fan of the original series by Douglas Adams, you will love this last revisit of universe where 42 means everything. If you are not familiar with Douglas Adams, what is wrong with you? Audible has nearly his complete works right here. Go listen The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and then come back to this book.
To Eoin Colfer fans, which is a group I count myself in. This is neither Artemis Fowl nor intended for a child audience. Do not purchase for your kids by mistake. On the other hand if like myself you read Eoin Colfer because despite his books being listed for kids, you find them witty, fun, and exciting, I think you will quite enjoy this new book, but I would still recommend that you listen to the original stories first.