Number-one bestselling author Eion Colfer is chosen to write the sixth Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Penguin announced today that it is to publish the sixth novel in the ever-more increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. Eight years after the tragically early death of its creator, Douglas Adams, widow Jane Belson has sanctioned the project to be written by the international number-one bestselling children’s writer, Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl novels. The new book is entitled ``And Another Thing…’’ and will be published in hardback by Penguin in October 2009.

Douglas Adams himself said in an interview: ‘I suspect at some point in the future I will write a sixth Hitchhiker book … I would love to finish Hitchhiker on a slightly more upbeat note. Five seems to be a wrong kind of number, six is a better kind of number.’

Jane Belson, the widow of Douglas Adams said, ‘I am delighted that Eoin Colfer has agreed to continue the Hitchhiker series. I love his books and could not think of a better person to transport Arthur, Zaphod and Marvin to pastures new. The project has my full support.’

Eoin Colfer has introduced a new generation of readers to the absurdities of life, the universe and everything through his bestselling Artemis Fowl series, in which a teenage criminal mastermind wreaks havoc in this world, the next and any others that happen to be nearby. The Sunday Times has said, ``Colfer has the ability to make you laugh twice over: first in sheer subversive joy at the inventiveness of the writing, and again at the energy of the humour.’’

Colfer has been a fan of Hitchhiker since his schooldays and said, ``Being given the chance to write this book is like suddenly being offered the superpower of your choice. For years I have been finishing this incredible story in my head and now I have the opportunity to do it in the real world. It is a gift from the gods. So, thank you Thor and Odin.’’

Penguin (UK) Managing Director, Helen Fraser commented, ``In 1992 I was lucky enough to be involved in the publication of Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams's last brilliant volume of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. He was an extraordinary writer, with an ability to come at the reader from the most unexpected angles, knock them off balance and make them laugh at the same time. Eoin Colfer is an inspired choice as Douglas’s successor. Eoin burst on the world in 2001 with his incredibly popular Artemis Fowl series, which is beloved by readers of all ages. He is a huge talent and a fantastically funny writer, and this new book will bring as many new young readers to Douglas Adams's work as it will introduce adults to the brilliance of Eoin Colfer.’’

Eoin Colfer 

EOIN (pronounced ‘Owen’) COLFER was a primary school teacher in Wexford, Ireland up until he secured the largest ever advance for a children’s novel by an unknown author in October 2000. He cast a spell on the publishing and film industries with his fantastically original novel, Artemis Fowl, and hasn’t looked back since. Miramax and Tribeca productions teamed up for a film option before the book had even been auctioned at the Frankfurt Book Fair that year. The film is now slated to go into production next year.

Total UK sales of Artemis Fowl titles now exceed a staggering 4.5 million copies in the UK and Ireland and over 18 million worldwide. His work is published in 44 countries. He has achieved huge international critical acclaim in the media and the book trade and is ranked alongside Philip Pullman, Jacqueline Wilson and Anthony Horowitz as one of the UK’s most popular and best-selling children’s authors.

Eoin is also an extremely talented performer. Recipient of a Herald Angel Award for Performance at the 2004 Edinburgh Fringe (the first author to win such an award), in April 2006 Eoin took his hilarious one man show, Fairies, Fiends and Flatulence, an adrenaline-fuelled exposé of teenage criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl to theatres nationwide. Following the sell-out success of his regional UK tour, Eoin made his West End debut at the Trafalgar Theatre in October 2006 receiving wide acclaim:

‘Brilliantly surreal . . . full of farting, gentle mockery and subversiveness’ – The Times

‘Like Dave Allen for juniors’ – Sunday Times

‘The ex-teacher's lesson is the frothy tale of his childhood and his mischievous siblings, illustrated by beautifully evocative photographs . . . our amiable, pixie-like host is never dull’ - Evening Standard, Four Stars

Artemis Fowl won the WHSmith ‘People’s Choice’ Children’s Book of the Year Award 2002, The Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards and was shortlisted for both the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year 2001 and The Blue Peter Book Award 2002. Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident was shortlisted for the Red House Children’s Book Award 2002.

Colfer, who is 43, lives in Wexford, a seaside town in the south-east of Ireland, with his wife Jackie and their sons Finn and Sean.

Eoin Colfer on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

I first read the Hitchhiker’s Guide in my late teens when Ted Roche, a libertine friend of mine, pressed it into my sweaty palms and hissed at me with fanatical intensity that I must read it or be ridiculed forever by the school literati. Relax, dude, I remember saying with eighties’ insouciance. Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.

But I was scared. Petrified in fact. If one was not a sportsman, the only other circle to belong to was the readers’ circle. Places were limited and expulsions were swift and ruthless. If one had not read the livre du jour then one would not be offered book swapsies on Friday. If this happened, then a person might be forced to turn to his own siblings for conversation.

So, in this spirit of quasi-persecution I scuttled home after double chemistry and found a quiet bathroom where I could settle down and read what I was certain would be a thinly veiled version of Star Wars. Vogons destroy the Earth and a single hero survives. Please. I could almost write the rest myself.

Never have I been so happy to be proven wrong.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was like nothing I had read before, or since for that matter. If you have read it then you know exactly what I am talking about. If you haven’t then read it now, moron. The problem is the hyperbole puts people off. If it’s so popular then it must be middle of the road, brimming with clichés and easily digested on the sands of Ibiza.

All false assumptions. The Guide is a slice of satirical genius. A marvel of quantum tomfoolery. A dissection of the absurdities of our human condition. A space odyssey that forces us to face ourselves and collapse in hysterics. Imagine if Messrs. Hawking and Fry were locked in a room with the entire cast of Monty Python and forced to write a book which would subsequently be edited by Pink Floyd, then the result would need a lot of work before it could be cut from Douglas Adams’ first draft.

For the next couple of decades I followed the exploits of Arthur Dent and his intergalactic troupe as they stumbled through space and time befuddled and bereft, drinking tea in the face of impossible odds and generally failing to find enlightenment at every turn. It’s like a quest for the holy grail where the grail is neither holy nor grail-shaped. I travelled with Arthur Dent as he lost his planet, learned to fly, found love, made sandwiches, got to know his daughter, found his planet again briefly and finally got blown to atoms.

Blown to atoms! Surely not, but no need to panic, Douglas Adams would surely reassemble Arthur somehow in the next book.

But as we all know, the next book never came and the legions of Hitchhiker fans were left with their hearts beating a little too quickly for all eternity.

It became a whimsy of mine to finish the story, just for my own peace of mind. I often wondered how Douglas Adams would have resurrected his beloved characters. And now, almost quarter of a century after first reading Hitchhiker, I have been given the incredible opportunity of writing the next chapter in the saga myself. In an actual book rather than in my head.

My first reaction was semi-outrage that anyone should be allowed to tamper with this incredible series. But on reflection I realised that this is a wonderful opportunity to work with characters I have loved since childhood and give them something of my own voice while holding onto the spirit of Douglas Adams and not laying a single finger on his five books.

Once again I am terrified by a Hitchhiker book and this time it is my own. I feel more pressure to perform now than I ever have with my own books, and that is why I am bloody determined that this will be the best thing I have ever written. And if it isn’t then I will make sure that the cover is extremely pretty.

For the first time in decades I feel the uncertainty that I last felt in my teenage years. There are people out there that really want to like this book. Ted Roche is one. I will track him down in eight months time, with a proof copy in my sweaty grip, press it into his hands and tell him with fanatical intensity that he really has to read this book. Then I will sit on the corner of his sofa until he is finished and await the verdict.

©Eoin Colfer

Wexford, September 2008
 

HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY (H2G2) – a brief chronology
 

Douglas Adam’s creation has been five radio series, a TV series, a comic, a play, a film, a game and, of course, five books.

The origins of the idea apparently came to Douglas in a field outside Innsbruck as far back as 1971 but the first radio series was broadcast by the BBC in 1978, with a play and the first book appearing the following year. The second book (The Rest, at the End of the Universe) and radio series came in 1980, and in 1981 Hitchhiker was adapted for television. In 1982 book three, (Life, The Universe and Everything) was published. Book four (So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish) and a computer game came in 1984 and in 1992 book five, Mostly Harmless.

Douglas Adams died of heart failure in May 2001, aged 49. Since then there have been more radio adaptations and the release of a Hitchhiker film.

Book six, And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer will be published in autumn 2009.

Approximately 16 million copies of Hitchhiker books have been sold worldwide and have been translated into 35 languages.

For more interesting and amusing information on Douglas’s life and work, go to h2g2 ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A3790659 ) the unconventional guide to life, the universe and everything inspired by The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy itself.