Eoin Colfer

It’s been made into a feature film starring Martin Freeman and sold millions of copies worldwide, now The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is celebrating its 30th birthday with the release of a new book – And Another Thing… 4Q chats to its author, Eoin Colfer.
“Well, Douglas Adams’ agents cooked up this plan and asked me if I’d do it and had permission from his wife, Jane Belson. I’m a fan of the series and I found it very hard to say no, so here we are a year later about to publish,” the 43 year-old from Wexford says.
Eoin is famous for being the creator of the bestselling series of teenage novels, Artemis Fowl, a film of which is expected to go into production next year. He describes writing And Another Thing…as “liberating”, saying that “because normally I write for teenagers…I have to be careful what I write, not meaning to sound patronising. With this book I just let myself go and wrote what I wanted.
“There were the usual challenges because there were lots of people who would maybe not like it, I needed to convince them. By page one I needed to convince them that maybe this is not so bad. It was strange having to consider people reading it.”
For those of you who are not familiar with the series it begins with the destruction of the Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Miraculously there are survivors – Arthur Dent is rescued by his friend Ford Prefect, who turns out not to be from Guildford, but a planet somewhere near Betelgeuse. Together they travel the universe meeting a host of crazy characters including Zaphod Beeblebrox; the two-headed president of the galaxy, Slartibartfast ; a planet-maker with a taste for fjords and Marvin the paranoid android; a manically depressed robot.
“Lots of people don’t read it because they don’t like science fiction,” Eoin says, “[but] it’s not your normal science fiction book – this is extremely funny and irreverent satire and science fiction. Not so much Star Wars…closer to Jeeves and Wooster than Star Wars. People should have a go and see if they like it. I think they will.
“You can’t do good satire unless there’s something in it – it was really well written, the characters were great. It’s up there on a shelf with Pink Floyd and Monty Python. It’s one of those cultural British icons that people remember.”
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was originally broadcast as a radio show in 1978, and a year later came out as a book. Originally there was going to be three novels, but the series turned into a trilogy of five – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life the Universe and Everything, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish and Mostly Harmless. Its creator Douglas Adams intended to write a sixth novel but sadly died in 2001 aged just 49. Though the author left notes on the plot, Eoin assures me he didn’t use them.
“I wanted to do my own story,” he says, “I thought if I used his notes it would divide opinion, so I just did my own thing.”
So what can people expect from the latest novel?
“They can expect lots of the old characters back again, they can expect some new characters, they can expect an adventure. In a nutshell – same universe, same characters, new story.”
Thor the Thunder God, the hammer-loving immortal who had a cameo in Life the Universe and Everything will be taking on a bigger role in And Another Thing… There will also be a brand new character, Hillman Hunter – “he’s a sort of property developer. He’s very funny; people who’ve read the book love Hillman Hunter.”
The anniversary has also seen the publication of special editions of Douglas Adams’ books – look out for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy which comes with a DIY cover and a set of stickers!
To celebrate the release of And Another Thing…Eoin Colfer will be visiting Manchester on Thursday 15 October. He will sign books in Waterstone’s at 91 Deansgate from 1-2pm and will be appearing in the Manchester Literary Festival at The Contact Theatre from 8-9pm.

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