And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer

To carry on the trend of writing a review while actually recommending a series, I present to you And Another Thing.  If you haven't read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and its accompanying works (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, The Universe and Everything, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish, and Mostly Harmless), I highly recommend you do.  For one thing, you'll learn just how truly valuable a towel can be in times of crisis and they're quite funny.  Douglas Adams wrote the trilogy (which later turned into five books and when asked about the incorrect number of books for a trilogy he replied it was due to a miscommunication with his publisher and his shoddy grasp of arithmetic) that mostly takes place in outer space and other worlds, based on the series he wrote for BBC Radio.  They are not new, as a matter of fact the first book is almost as old as I am, but to me they are timeless.  So start with them if you haven't already.

Once you're done with those, read And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer.  Wait! That's a different author, you say?  Well sadly, Mr. Adams passed away unexpectedly (heart attack at the age of 49) and left notes for another H2G2 novel on his computer.  I'm not entirely clear on how they picked Eoin Colfer to put those notes and his own spin on things to make And Another Thing, but I'm happy they did.  Eoin Colfer writes the Artemis Fowl series (which is probably considered a children's book rather than young adult, but I'm murky on that area of classification) and both Carrie and I rather like that series as well.  *So really I'm recommending two series with one review which I'm sure is a record and probably why it's taking me forever to actually talk about the book I'm supposed to be reviewing.  But you should really read them even if you don't like science fiction or magic books because they are smart and funny and well-written and made me wish they wouldn't end and they're both even funnier if you imagine that John Cleese is the narrator because everything is funnier when John Cleese says it.  And, breathe.*  While Mr. Colfer is not the original creator of cast of characters in this book, I felt like he understood them well enough to carry it off.

Pretty much everyone's back in this one:  Arthur, Zaphod, Random, Trillian, and Ford are the focus but we get cameos from other old friends as well.  The plot is entirely out-of-the-box, but the whole series pretty much embraces and embodies that way of thinking.  Space-time continuum issues, failing batteries, imminent destruction, holographic mistakes, ego-maniacal deities, and perfectly ordinary people screwing up perfectly good planets pack this book with content.  Perhaps maybe a little too much, but you'll probably be having too much fun hearing John Cleese in your head to notice.  And to put anyone who doesn't think they'd like a series set in space and its various quadrants at ease, I am not a huge fan of Star Trek or Star Wars.  I appreciate them but I have never felt the urge to don any kind of costume, do any kind of salute, or learn any kind of created language after seeing either of them.  This is different.  In Mr. Colfer's words: "Imagine if Messrs. Hawking and Fry were locked in a room with the entire cast of Monty Python and forced to write a book which would subsequently be edited by Pink Floyd, then the result would need a lot of work before it could be cut from Douglas Adams’ first draft."  I, for one, sincerely hope they ask Mr. Colfer to write another.  Whether they lock all those people in a room or not.

Links!
Douglas Adams
Eion Colfer
H2G2 books on Amazon
Artemis Fowl books on Amazon