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Constant Reader

Eoin Colfer Prostituted Himself for Nothing

by Paul Constant

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Let's make one thing perfectly clear: And Another Thing..., Eoin Colfer's authorized sequel to the late Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, is a horrible, pointless book. The first, and perhaps most egregious, crime Colfer commits is simply not being funny. His book is unimaginative and sloppily devoted to Adams's previous work (characters who were created to be punch lines to throwaway non-sequitur jokes in the original series, like Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, are given backstories and motivations in this new book, spoiling the joke by overexplaining it). Colfer doesn't even try to mimic Adams's sublime Wodehouse-writes-Monty Python-in-space mashup style. Instead, he vomits up some halfhearted fan fiction and expects to coast on his predecessor's reputation.

Why did Colfer agree to continue a work considered by many to be one of the highlights of late-20th-century humorous writing? Promotional materials provided to The Stranger with the book offer one answer: Colfer says, "My aim is to introduce H2G2 to a new generation!" But that, of course, is bullshit. Teenagers will always find and adore Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide series, the way generations of children always manage to find S. E. Hinton and Homer Price and the Chronicles of Narnia and all the other classics. Colfer's addition is more likely to confuse prospective buyers than to bring new readers to Adams's best-selling series. No, the money was probably too good to ignore, and since somebody else would have done it anyway, Colfer stepped up to the corporate publishing machine as a willing whore.

He's even fucked up all the goodwill he's previously earned to do it. For as long as Colfer has been touring with his own Artemis Fowl series, he has read at University Book Store, and the booksellers at UBS have supported his work from his days as an unknown author—avid fans eagerly hand-selling his titles, creating even more Colfer fans one book at a time. The bookstore supported him for years, long before his work achieved the kind of success that would allow him to sell out to Hyperion Books. But now that he's on tour with this abortion of Adams's legacy and a full corporate publicity machine behind him, Colfer is snubbing his biggest Seattle supporters and reading instead at the University Village Barnes & Noble (additional horrors: Colfer is reading with Dave Barry, the biggest known suckhole of literary comedy that America has ever produced). So much for loyalty to the fans.

The modern history of publishing is full of these little travesties: For the last 20 years, publishers have been churning out sequels to Gone with the Wind and the works of Jane Austen, and authors have been happily selling their reputations for a quick paycheck and the opportunity to fuck up another author's life's work. It's not honorable, it's not ethical, and, most importantly for Colfer: It's just not funny.

Eoin Colfer reads Fri Oct 30, University Village Barnes & Noble, 7 pm, free.