{"id":6205,"date":"2012-01-06T21:18:43","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T02:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.net\/?p=6205"},"modified":"2015-03-30T11:17:45","modified_gmt":"2015-03-30T11:17:45","slug":"on-revisiting-the-hitchhikers-trilogy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=6205","title":{"rendered":"On Revisiting the Hitchhiker’s Trilogy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday a package arrived in the mail. It was a book, Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic<\/i> by Terry Jones. Hardcover with dust jacket. A first printing, it looks new, even though it was published nearly fifteen years ago.<\/p>\n

And with that book I am ready.<\/p>\n

This year — this month, actually — I intend to reread the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy<\/i> series. All six books in the series proper — the five books of Adams’ trilogy (the hardcover, leather-bound edition from Barnes & Noble) plus Eoin Colfer’s And Another Thing…<\/i> — and Jones’ book as well (which is based on a computer game that elaborated on a reference in Life, the Universe, and Everything<\/i>). Jones’ book I’ll read in between Mostly Harmless<\/i> and And Another Thing…<\/i>; I’ll take the seven books total in publication order.<\/p>\n

I’ve not read Adams’ books in a very<\/i> long time. I read the first four around 1985, I read Mostly Harmless<\/i> in the early 90s (and I can remember almost nothing about it). In a lot of ways, I’m coming to these books fresh. I really don’t<\/i> remember them. Broad details, maybe. Not much more.<\/p>\n

Starship Titanic<\/i>? Well, to be perfectly honest, I’ve never read it. I never begrudged its existence, but neither did it interest me. At times over the years I’ve thought about picking it up, and I didn’t. Now I have — and I got it in hardcover for about half the price of the trade paperback. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

And And Another Thing…<\/i>? I wasn’t a fan of the idea of a post-Adams Hitchhiker’s<\/i> novel when it was announced<\/a>, and I decided to pretend that it didn’t exist. But about a year ago, I saw it on the bargain table at Barnes & Noble, and I decided five dollars was a righteous price to pay. I took it home, I read the first few pages which recapped Adams’ “Trilogy,” I thought they were funny. Then the story proper began, and I lost all interest instantly. I’m told that And Another Thing…<\/i> starts off poorly and improves, I just didn’t give it that chance. And, it’s worth noting, I was a long time removed from any<\/i> Hitchhiker’s<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Thus, a quarter-century-plus after my first encounter with Douglas Adams and in honor of St. Cedd’s Day tomorrow, I’m giving the Hitchhiker’s<\/i> world another go.<\/p>\n

We’ll see how this goes over the next month. There are some books of childhood that you really shouldn’t revisit. I fervently hope the Trilogy isn’t one of them. :h2g2:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday a package arrived in the mail. It was a book, Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic by Terry Jones. Hardcover with dust jacket. A first printing, it looks new, even though it was published nearly fifteen years ago. And with that book I am ready. This year — this month, actually — I intend to rereadContinue reading “On Revisiting the Hitchhiker’s Trilogy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[108,109,110,111,112,113],"class_list":["post-6205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading","tag-arthur-dent","tag-douglas-adams","tag-eoin-colfer","tag-h2g2","tag-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy","tag-terry-jones","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}