One of the salutary effects of watching open media in action is that I've become quite fond of the idea of new authors reworking the characters and stories of old authors. I'm tired of proprietary "canons". Particularly when it becomes apparent that the guy running the canon has much less talent than his fans. (<i>Cough</i> George Lucas <i>cough</i>.)<p>Though I think Douglas Adams is bound to be a tough act to follow. It does help that the last <i>Hitchhiker's</i> book is not the best work in the series. I tend to read only the parts of that book with Ford in them (which are great) and just skip all the existential despair that rounds out the book. I mean, the <i>Hitchhiker's</i> series is all about the existential despair, but you can have too much of a bad thing.<p>What I really want to see, though, is more Dirk Gently stories.
I think that if they really wanted to end the series, Colfer is the best man for the job. He's no Adams by any means, but he's certainly good, and hopefully he'll at least give us a feel for what Adams wanted.<p>Gaiman would have been an excellent pick, too: Good Omens, with Terry Pratchett, is as close to Adams' humor as I've found. But Colfer has a much finer sense of whimsy.
An audio response 'from' Arthur Dent about the new book: <a href="http://eoincolfer.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/and-another-thing.mp3" rel="nofollow">http://eoincolfer.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/and-an...</a><p>(portrayed by the original BBC voice actor of Arthur Dent)