Douglas Adams was something of a hero of ours – I’ve always loved his books, and my brother (and his schoolmate James) even adapted one of them – Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – into a play that still gets performed around the world.

So its with some trepidation that I’ve picked up his estate’s authorised sequel to the Hitchhiker’s guide series – ‘And another thing, part six of three’, (ironically not available on Kindle) by Irish children’s writer Eoin Colfer (famous for Artemis Fowl et al).

I’m working my way through it slowly and not too sure what to make of it yet; full thoughts to follow in the next week or two. I’m a fan of Eoin but I’m not sure this is a mantle I’d have wanted to take up. Unlike The Wheel of Time, people were mostly happy with the H2G2 canon – it didn’t need any further storytelling. But – I’m not done yet – so will reserve judgement.

One immediate thing that I’m not sure whether to like or not – Eoin quotes Tenacious D on the opening page of the book. Now, I love the D and Douglas probably would have thought they were OK… but it doesn’t feel right for the H2G2 books. Maybe for Zaphod, but Arthur? He’s more of a Radio 3 sort of guy. And this was never a series of books about Zaphod…