Dont Panic! New outing for Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

An Irish author has been commissioned to write a new instalment of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, the cult science fiction comedy which became a worldwide hit, publishers said Wednesday.

Children’s author Eoin Colfer will pen a sixth book in the series with the blessing of Jane Belson, widow of original author Douglas Adams who died in 2001, nine years after his last installment, “Mostly Harmless”.

The new volume, to be called “And Another Thing…”, will relate the continuing adventures of Arthur Dent, a hapless human touring the cosmos with an electronic guidebook labelled “Don’t Panic!” in big letters.

Colfer, 43, best known for “Artemis Fowl”, a series about a teenage criminal mastermind, said he was “terrified” when publisher Penguin suggested the project, calling the original books a “slice of satirical genius.”

“My first reaction was semi-outrage that anyone should be allowed to tamper with this incredible series,” he said.

- from AFP