Don't Panic: 42 Reasons Not to Read the New Hitchhiker's Book

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I've read all of Douglas Adam's original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books. They rank among my favorite novels, with the first 3 being some of the most influential SF books of all time and ones you should read before dying. But the new "authorized" sequel And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer, err no. No insult intended to the author, who has created some great works of his own, but here are 42 reasons not to read this book.

  1. It's not funny.
  2. Why pay $25.99 to read (in the author's words) "very authorized fan fiction"?
  3. "Why bother letting a CLASSIC piece of work stand on it's own merit when there are dollars to be made for retailers." (fan comment from SciFi Wire)
  4. No one should "hitch a ride to a sci-fi legacy."
  5. Even Douglas Adams wouldn't tempt the literary gods with the sixth book in a trilogy. (Okay, maybe he would, but let's pretend otherwise.)
  6. I don't want to live in a world where an author ends his series by killing all the characters and destroying every possible earth that exists, and someone can still find a way to revive the franchise.
  7. Because we don't want to replace Douglas' clipped and precise humor with humor that "is more rounded and anecdotal, and a little warmer."
  8. "I'd rather have a lightly grilled weasel on a bun, please." (One Amazon review)
  9. I don't like "extraterrestrial purple prose."
  10. Because naturally the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the most amazing electronic book to ever come out of the editorial offices of Ursa Minor Beta, isn't available on its wanna-be cousin the Kindle.
  11. If you can't make a decent movie off an amazing franchise, don't expect a second chance with a new book.
  12. "Give it a chance" isn't a reason to read a book--it's a plea for literary attention.
  13. The book is "Almost, but not quite, entirely UNLIKE Douglas Adams."
  14. Because I have no desire to breathe "a sigh of relief" when I finish a book.
  15. When you expect a book to be bad, having it be "20 percent better" than bad would still be ... bad.
  16. Imagine the uproar if someone besides Stephenie Meyer wrote another Twilight novel. Actually, that would be a selling point to me, but I digress.
  17. DON'T PANIC must be the catch-phrase of corporate publishers these days, who are milking every cash cow to death (along with their industry).
  18. When Time magazine proclaims a book "good," intelligent readers should run the other way.
  19. Because obviously we live in a world where good stories can't simply have an ending.
  20. Mostly Harmless should be a book title, not a review summary.
  21. Because this book feels like a cheap shot. It would be like me promising 42 reasons not to read a book, then delivering only 21 and telling people to double the number to reach 42. It's a shame when people do cheap stuff like that.