I'm the kind of person that is a big-ish fan of the Douglas Adams' outrageously funny 5 part series Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. So it was with a lot of excitement that I held in my hands a copy of the 6th installment 'And Another Thing...' written by Eoin Colfer as Douglas Adams.
Maybe it was because I expected too much of it or maybe it was because I wasn't able to digest the fact that another author has tried to replace DNA. Whatever the reason, the book was a huge disappointment, on so many different levels. I had to try so hard not to sleep after every 3 pages. It took me a whole of 2 weeks to read the book, in small parts sleeping off when it tested my will beyond limits and completing two other books in the duration.
The story in itself is not too bad. Actually speaking, it's quite alright. Speaking with respect to just the story, it was perhaps better than Mostly Harmless, the 5th book of the trilogy and the last one to be written by Douglas Adams. But even though the story is as good, Eoin Colfer fails in terms of the story telling and adopted method of writing. His method of writing closely (perhaps too closely) resembles that of Douglas Adams. At first it is mildly amusing but later on it tends to be a harmful irritant hiding the nice story to the reader.
Bottom-line is that this book is not for the religious Hitchhiker's fan. If you are not as big a fan of the DNA series, you may probably like this book. All said and done, this book can be read for the hell of it.
Arthi
