SPOILERS - And Another Thing... ending discussion
James Robinson
not read if you want everything told to you.
With that said...
The ending of this book was a travesty. Poor Arthur. I mean, he gets
Fenchurch back, the LOVE of his life. Only to have it stripped away.
Then he gets his cabin on the beach back, and while it is not nearly
as good, I thought, "Well okay, at least he can live the way he wants
to and be happy." Well, NO! The Vogons demolish his cabin, and most
likely him as well. WHAT THE??? What kind of ending is this? Wasn't
the point of this book to have the series end on a slightly happier
note? This ending is much much more depressing. I mean, at least the
ending in Mostly Harmless wasn't so much like a kick in the crotch.
Everyone dies, okay, yeah it sucks. But this ending is like a personal
target to Arthur Dent and rips away any chance of happiness he could
ever have.
Honestly, the ending was so depressing I am thinking about just
throwing the book out and forgetting it ever existed.
Nemo
I quite liked it actually.
.../Nemo
James Robinson
It seems even people at Colfer's own website hate the ending.
Stevie fae Cardross
>
> - Show quoted text -
Don't worry Radio Four will tack a spurious happy ending on when they
adapt it as a drama, just like they did with Mostly Harmless.
Nemo
> I'm late on this thread because I've only just finished reading the book, but I'm with nemo, I quite liked it.
>
> It's also worth noting that at HitchCon, Colfer did envisage other people writing additional books, though he didn't think he would. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but he did basically mention he liked the idea of different authors coming out with a new Hitch-hiker book every few years. The ending may have been influenced by this vision, and it also partly explains the orphaned final line.
>
> K.
I think multiple future books would be kind of neat, but... I think
that instead of following on with a seventh, it would be interesting
for each to be a new vision of the 6th... (not dissimilar to how there
were two seperate third Red Dwarf novels)
Each could even be argued to be able to coexist due to their relative
locations on the probability axis'. :)
.../Nemo
Lloyd Gilbert
wrote:
>I think multiple future books would be kind of neat, but... I think
>that instead of following on with a seventh, it would be interesting
>for each to be a new vision of the 6th... (not dissimilar to how there
>were two seperate third Red Dwarf novels)
I like that idea.
Lloyd
--
"In fact, everything between 'herring' and 'marmalade'
appears to be missing" -- Svlad Cjelli
Kåre Fiedler Christiansen
> On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:11:14 -0700 (PDT) Nemo <earth...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Oct 18, 12:32 am, James Robinson <jrrobi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > This thread contains MASSIVE SPOILERS to the ending of this book. Do
>> > not read if you want everything told to you.
>> >
>> > With that said...
>> >
>> > The ending of this book was a travesty.
<snipped discussions of ending, since my comments are spoiler free>
>> I quite liked it actually.
Oh yes, I thought that some of the metaphysical imagery was really
particularly effective...
> I'm late on this thread because I've only just finished reading the
> book, but I'm with nemo, I quite liked it.
>
Woohoo! I'm even later! :-) his thread has remained unread in my news
reader for quite some time now, due to the spoiler warning.
I finally got around to reading the book (I got it for Christmas) and it
was not at all what I expected.
Firstly, it was so different to the Artemis Fowl writing style, that I
was surprised it was the same author. Obviously, although Eoin Colfer
said he didn't want to do that, he'd borrowed a bit from Douglas Adams,
especially in the "guide note" sections. But there was quite a bit of
Eoin Colfer's own work in there as well. For instance, as someone else
pointed out in a different thread, Eoin Colfer seems to focus a lot more
on the feelings and thoughts of the characters than Douglas Adams ever
did. There seems to be more character development and fewer sketches...
The plot was parctically non-existant, which is appropriate for a
Hitchhiker book, I guess, but didn't fit so well as it did in the
original books, because the sketches couldn't quite carry the lack of
plot, I felt. This meant that this was a book that was actually quite
easy to put down for a few days, even though I enjoyed it. Eoin Colfer
had mostly avoided the trap of writing fan fiction (that is: writing a
story consisting solely of references to previous work), but there were
still a few elements where references to the previous book seemed nailed
on with a hammer just for the sake of it.
On the whole, I liked the book, I found it enjoyable to read. It was
quite believable that the book was set in the same Hitchhiker universe as
the original novels. Granted, I felt the Vogons matched more the movie-
Vogons than it did my impression of the book/radio Vogons, and other
details like that, but on the whole it worked.
One thing that wasn't there in these books, that I feel Douglas Adams
always had, was the ability to take something in the world, turn it
upside down, and leave me with a whole new perspective on the real world.
I never got that feeling in this book, but that may partly be because I
am older and more cynical than I was when I first read Hitchhiker's Guide.
As for the ending... I must admit I found the last chapter strangely
"pasted on". It felt as if the book had ended, but for some reason a
strange, pointless extra chapter had been added. Now that would all have
been well and fine if it had been for extra entertainment, but it was
actually rather boring, and even seemed slightly out of character for the
characters Eoin Colfer had himself redefined. There were a few good gags
in that chapter, but on the whole it wasn't too interesting, and what
happened seemed a little rushed and not really had a proper treatment. I
could have lived without that chapter.
> It's also worth noting that at HitchCon, Colfer did envisage other
> people writing additional books, though he didn't think he would. I'm
> paraphrasing a bit, but he did basically mention he liked the idea of
> different authors coming out with a new Hitch-hiker book every few
> years. The ending may have been influenced by this vision, and it also
> partly explains the orphaned final line.
On the while, I liked this book enough that I would read another, from
Eoin Colfer or not.
I anticipated the book with mixed emotions, simply because I didn't know
how I would feel reading a sequel by a different author. It turned out
that it was no problem. It was obvious to me that I was reading a book by
a different author in the same universe, and that was all there was to
it. Douglas Adams' books ended with Mostly Harmless, and that's all there
is to it.
Best,
Kåre