Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Series Update
Eoin Colfer to Write the Sixth Book in Douglas Adams’ Famous Trilogy
Oct 27, 2008
In a press release from Penguin Publishers in London on 17th September 2008, an announcement was made that a sixth book in the enduringly popular Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Series will be written by popular children’s author Eoin Colfer. The novel will be titled And Another Thing... and will be published by Penguin Books in the UK and Hyperion in the US in October 2009.
Douglas Adams and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
The original book in the Hitchhikers “trilogy”, adapted from a radio play written by Adams, was first published by Pan Books in London in 1979. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy introduces the characters of humans Arthur Dent and Trillian, savvy Betelgeusian Guide researcher Ford Prefect, Marvin the Paranoid Android and the charismatic, two-headed galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox.
The five titles in the series are:
- The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
- Life, the Universe and Everything
- So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
- Mostly Harmless
In addition to the Hitchhikers series, Adams also wrote the Dirk Gently series, was a writer and script editor on the Dr Who television series and appeared occasionally on Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
Author Profile: Eoin Colfer
Irish author Colfer is already well-known for his internationally best-selling Artemis Fowl series. Since the publication of the first book in the series in 2001, Colfer has been able to retire from his previous profession as a teacher to focus on writing full-time.
The Artemis Fowl series features a teenage criminal mastermind and the part serious/part humorous style Colfer employs in the books has led to comparisons between Artemis Fowl and the writing of JK Rowling and Roald Dahl.
With Colfer’s own professed love of the Hitchhiker series, fans are hopeful that he will be able to do justice to the Hitchhiker legacy. On his own website, Colfer has professed his desire to maintain the spirit of Adams writing without changing anything from the previous five books of the series.
The Sixth Book of the Hitchhiker Series
With the first five books of the Hitchhiker series so incredibly successful and beloved of fans around the world, taking on the task of adding a sixth book will no doubt be quite an undertaking.
Douglas Adams himself commented in an interview with Matt Newsome in 1998 “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.” In doing so, he acknowledged the bleak nature of the ending of book five, Mostly Harmless.
When Adams passed away in May 2001, fans were left mourning not only his passing but the fact that the series that the Hitchhiker series would not be continuing.
Jane Belson, Adams’ widow, has given her full support to the naming of Colfer as the author of the sixth Hitchhiker novel, professing that she is a fan of his work and could not think of a better author to continue the adventures of Arthur Dent, Zaphod Beeblebrox and the myriad other characters beloved of Hitchhiker fans.
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