"And another thing. . ." - The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy book 6

"Anything that happens, happens. Anthing that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though." - Douglas Adams

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (in five parts) ended on a bit of a downer. If you haven't already read the books so far, and are planning to, then be warned, here be spoilers!

The last book "Mostly Harmless" pretty much guaranteed that there wouldn't be another book. Killing off all the major characters tends to do that. Bleak is one way of describing it. Gutting is another.

Douglas Adams did, however, regret ending the books that way, and was planning on one final book to give things a happy ending. Sadly he died before this was completed. The remains of what might have ended up as either a Dirk Gently book but was being adapted into the final Hitchhikers novel, was released as The Salmon of Doubt - and there the series ended.

Or so we thought.

I've often wondered what would happen if someone else tried to pick up the pieces and finish things off. Terry Pratchett would have been my choice to try this, or maybe Robert Rankin. I've even written some H2G2 fan fiction (not released anywhere, nor is it going to be).

It looks like I've not been the only one thinking about this. Eoin Colfer - the author behind the Artimus Fowl series - has been invited to write the final book in the series.

Eoin is going to be writing as himself, rather than ghost-writing as Douglas Adams (for want of a better phrase). I've got to admit that I've never read any of Eoin's novels, so it's difficult to say how I feel about this. I wonder if he is going to try and mimic the famous Douglas writing style, or if he is going to be writing a novel in his own style using the same characters.