To be honest I was prejudiced against this book before starting it. I was a first generation devotee of the original in all its 3 formats the radio, tv and books. As the series grew into a 5 part ‘trilogy’ the cracks were already showing. The original radio/tv/2 volumes told a complete story that came to a tidy end with a clear point, it was clever, funny, reflective and refreshing. The subsequent volumes of the series struggled a bit with a coherent story, the fantastical plot twists in multi-dimensional-space-time were often too forced for comfort and some sequences were a bit long and tortuous (the Krikit Wars in particular). But Adams had a personal style of writing, the characters were his and told in his voice retained their humour and reflection, that was enough to make great reading.
Over 15 years after the last part of the ‘trilogy’ and a shortly after the death of Adams any new book written ‘from Adams’s notes’ was always going to look suspiciously like something done for financial gain by the publishers rather than for any artistic merit. And so it was. There is nothing terribly wrong with it but nor is there much to like about it either. Zaphod Beeblebrox needs to be written in the Big A’s voice anyone else writing the character, irrespective of their qualities, just isn’t going to feel like the real thing; the same is true of Arthur, Ford and Trillian. There is also the issue of the missing Marvin, come on if you’re going to do swan song you need the full cast.
Eoin Colfer was never going to win here, if he had tried to keep to Adams’s style it would have looked fake but imprinting his own dents the characters – a lose, lose situation (unless you are counting the cash). The strength of Adams’s work was always his characters and here they are not the same, Zaphod is smarter, Ford more hedonist, Arthur has become competent (even wise), Marvin is missing and Trillian – actually I wasn’t especially happy with the Trillian character by end of ‘Mostly Harmless’ the only female characters (Trillian and Random) in the series were less than positive images of womanhood (okay the males are hardly great representatives of maleness but they are utterly likeable in way that Trillian wasn’t in the end).
If you’re a devotee I guess you ought to read it but set expectations low and you won’t be too disappointed. I did after reading this try Colfer’s Artemis Fowl books and I can see why he was chosen to have a go at this gig, I know I’m a bit old for them but I am enjoying them, a lot more than ‘And Another Thing’ which really ought not to be a thing at all. It is however only a book and can’t do much harm.
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Women's Prize for Fiction '21
