Do you know the answer to life, the universe and everything?* Can you make a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster? Do you know where your towel is? If this makes sense then you must be aware of the science fiction comedy phenomenon Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. If not then where have you been for the past 30 years?

To mark the three decades since publication of the first book in Douglas Adams' bestselling Hitchhiker's series, a new book is being released that continues the adventures of eternal pessimist Arthur Dent, his alien best friend Ford Prefect and the two headed Galactic President Zaphod Beelbebrox.

The book – ‘And Another Thing’ - has been written by the bestselling author of Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer. Artemis Fowl has sold over 18 million copies worldwide and is published in 44 countries. Fully sanctioned by Jane Belson, the widow of the Hitchhiker's series creator Douglas Adams, And Another Thing is available in all good bookshops from Monday 12th October.

Colfer will be touring around the UK promoting and signing copies of his new book beginning with Hitchcon'09 on Sunday 11th October at the Royal Festival Hall in central London where a gathering of the largest number of Hitchhiker fans ever will take place. The public will have the opportunity to hear Eoin read from And Another Thing... for the first time, as well as enjoy a host of Hitchhiker related events including a live re-creation of the classic radio plays with the original cast of actors

So for the devout ‘Uberhitchers’ that have waited their entire lives to question a Hitchhiker’s author, or the ‘Artemis Advocates’ that supported Colfer’s appointment, or anyone else interested in what is sure to be the literary event of the year – why not log on to our webchat and submit your questions to our very special guest? Colfer will also be revealing when his book tour will be coming to a city near you.

Eoin Colfer joins us live to discuss ‘And Another Thing’

For more information visit www.6of3.com
 
* The answer to life the universe and everything is…….42…….possibly.

H: Mark Rise, host
E: Eoin Colfer, author, “And Another Thing”

H: Hello there and welcome to the Entertainment Show, I’m Mark Rise. Now, do you know the answer to life, the universe and everything? Can you make a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster? Do you know where your towel is? Well if that makes sense then you must be aware of the science fiction comedy phenomenon Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. If not then where have you been for the past 30 years? I can’t tell you how excited I am about today’s show, because there is a new instalment to the Hitchhiker’s Guide, and this is the man behind it, Eoin Colfer. Welcome to the programme

E: Thank you. Thank you

H: A new instalment

E: I know

H: This is the 6^th book in the trilogy, which we’ll talk about – it’s not making any sense anyway. How on earth did you come to be involved in this great Douglas Adams juggernaut?

E: It was a surprise to me as it was to most people. I think now it’s possibly my heroic profile but people tell me that my sense of humour and my Artemis Fowl books is a little bit along the lines of Douglas and a lot of my readers tell me they like my books and Douglas’s books, so I think Douglas Adams’ agent recognised this common thread and so he asked me would I consider writing the 6^th book in the series

H: I mean it’s not like you’re unknown, you’re an international best-selling author for the Artemis Fowl series anyway, so does that mean that literary agents kind of talk amongst themselves and go well it might be that we’re thinking about this, that would slot onto there. But taking on the mantel of Hitchhiker’s is a huge thing

E: Yes it is, it’s a very, very unusual situation and the reason I’m doing this is not really to be the new Hitchhiker guy, it’s kind of to point to the old Hitchhiker guy and say look this is there, you guys, your 18 year olds or whatever and you haven’t – and if you think the movie is all Hitchhiker’s about then you haven’t seen anything, you’ve got to read these 5 funniest books ever written and so read mine, and then go back and read –

H: Ok we’ll do it in that order!

E: You can do it – or if you’re a fan of mine you can go back and read those other 5 and then read this one

H: Fantastic

E: But it’s kind of a stand-alone so you can do it either way

H: Well we’re live this afternoon on the programme, and you can send your questions to Eoin right now. If you are watching on the page there will be a little box to be able to write your question in, send it to us, it comes through on my studio computer here. And indeed we’ve had a question in from Nicholas Botty, thank you for writing in Nicholas. He says “what’s the main reason for Hitchhiker’s endearing success and cult following?” You’ve already said it’s the 5 funniest books ever

E: Yes Nicholas, I think there’s a couple of reasons one – at the time that it came out there was nothing like this. This was basically the start of a new genre, comedy satire sci-fi. So all of us teenagers who were into sci-fi and who were anti-everything, suddenly this guy came along who was anti-establishment, anti-bureaucracy, anti-relgion, anti-everything established, and we all thought that is totally us. We are also anti-everythning and it’s hilariously funny and it pokes fun at a genre that was quite worthy, you know everything – everybody was chosen and everybody had a mission or was descended from a prince or had a birthmark on their arm, that opened the door and a pyramid, and it was all very – everything was ordained, and it became –

H: But how did Douglas Adams think about that, because you’ve got to bear in mind these were originally created in 1978 as radio plays. Was it ever actually destined to be a book in the first place?

E: It wasn’t destined but the radio plays were in part a mickey take of Star Wars and Star Trek and all of these movies where these kind of heroes were born and trained by the Jedi or whatever, and into this stumbles Arthur Dent – and where – you know Star Wars had Luke Skywalker looking wistfully, and fantastic I might say, I love Star Wars. Arthur was going round trying to get a cup of tea, and it was just a breath of fresh – it was like a hurricane of fresh air that came in and just blew away all that staidness, and introduced me as a writer to the fact – my God you can be funny in Sci-fi and that really has shaped my career

H: Great way to start a series – blow up the earth. Why not? Skylor Stevens has sent us a question, thank you Skylor, saying “did you have any information on where Douglas Adams himself wanted to go with this story after the 5^th book, when you began writing “And Another Thing”?

E: I knew there were notes, Douglas had made some notes, but what I knew was that Douglas had – because as you say at the end of the last book everyone is killed – ostensibly killed, so Douglas had brought –

H: Incredible, so you had a flat playing field to go from in a way?

E: Yes. It was handy because I could start a completely new adventure, but before I could do that I had to have these people escape the planet Earth just before it blew up, and the way Douglas did that, he wrote a radio show, was they all had babel fish in their ear. Now you and I know that means –

H: A universal translator

E: A universal translator, and at the sign of danger the babel fish transported them to miliwaves, and that works beautifully on the radio but it doesn’t work in a novel because all drama’s then gone, every time there’s tension –

H: I guess yes

E: There’s no – so I’m pointing a gun at you and you’re saying I’ve got a babel fish, you’re gone. So every time there was danger I would have had to have someone hold down the entire cast and pull the fish out of their ears, so it didn’t really work. So what I did was I brought them back in another way, and then brand new adventure

H: It kind of answers Gabrielle’s question, thank you for writing to us Gabrielle. She says “did you write on Douglas’s annotations or did you start all by yourself in effect?”

E: I just did my own thing. I started by myself. I didn’t want there to be confusion over who wrote the book. I didn’t want people to say oh all the good bits are Douglas Adams and all the bad bits are obviously Eoin Colfer

H: I can see as a best-selling author yourself you don’t want that, yes, under any circumstances

E: No. I want to be responsible whether people like it or they don’t like it, it’s me

H: We’re on the verge of the weekend where the book is being published. As a writer now you must be at the nervy point, because you don’t know whether it’s going to be accepted and liked, at all

E: No. Oh no I’m convinced it won’t be liked, and that’s the – I have no logical reason for that, all the signs are good. All the reviewers love it. All the journalists love it, but for – in my mind everyone will hate it and shortly after that there will be a localised tornado in London and I will be killed! And that’s the way I live my life, so I’m always looking at the – I’m a bit of a Marvin without the planet-sized brain. I’m a little bit paranoid – a paranoid humanoid I suppose!

H: We have a question from Trillion – character of course – from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, saying “which was the most difficult part of writing And Another Thing?” What was the tough bit?

E: The tough bit I think was trying to walk a line between being myself and maintaining the feel of a Hitchhiker book, because even though I wanted to write in my own style and my own syntax, I didn’t want you to read this book and think this is not a Hitchhiker book, I’m not feeling any nostalgia here, it feels like a different series completely, with just the same names. So it’s like a betrayal in a way. So I was trying to walk that line that made you feel all warm and fuzzy and 1979-y, but still fresh and new and 2009’y – so that was – that’s not great- obviously I’m a writer and that was a lovely sentence!

H: Difficult thing to do in any respect if you think about it, and bridging a 30 year gap of a whole new generation of people reading it as well, must actually be quite difficult?

E: I was a little daunting, but what I did was, I have a – or I had at the time a little garden shed, so – which I bought so I could be like Roald Dahl and write in my garden, so I’d go out – I went out there and I literally shut myself off. I don’t want to hear what’s on the internet, I don’t want to hear modern music, I’m going to put on Kate Bush, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, I’m going to write this book and I’m going to have a blast, and I’m going to enjoy this 6 months, because after this 6 months it might not be so happy. So I really – that’s what I did. I kind of created this mood for myself and locked myself away

H:Well this show is going out not only in the UK but all the way around the world and the universe as well, on the internet, and Gaspar from Portugal has sent us a question, thank you, all the way from Portugal – here’s the question – “was it fun to write the book, and what about those deadlines, did they make a whooshing sound as they flew by?”

E: Douglas’s name is flying about, yes deadlines, he loves the whooshing sound. No it was a huge amount of fun and I was actually early delivering it, I was a month early. It was on quite a tight schedule because I really wanted it to be out for the 30^th celebration of Hichhiker, and I met Douglas’s brother just after I’d handed in the book, and he said you know I’m really happy about the book. He said but I have two problems with you – he said you are too short and you’re too prompt. So I said if that’s the worst thing anyone says I’ll be quite happy with that

H: Too prompt is interesting isn’t it because Douglas was never prompt with his scripts

E: He was kind of known –

H: Was he?

E: I mean it’s – the legends that surround Douglas’s writing are fantastic, he had to be locked in a room and feed pages under his door during the radio show and his agent booked him a suite in some big hotel and more or less stood at his shoulder as he wrote, and I know these are true, and he wrote a lot in the bath and he would sit in this big bath and write, and I don’t have any of that eccentricities. I mean I’ll have to invent stuff, like I’ve got a false eye or something and I write a lot you know with a pen strapped to my elbow, I don’t know

H: Seriously, you heard it here first. The false eye, it may not be true but you heard it here first! Ruth has sent us a question – “how do you cope with the fact that some potential readers will have read only some of Douglas Adams’s books, or maybe only seen the adaptations or the film perhaps, whilst others know every syllable off by heart and expect you to continue the narrative in that way?”

E: Yes that’s going to be a problem. Again you’re on the fine line there. You don’t want it to be so steeped in references that newcomers to it won’t be able to get anything, and they’ll get past page 6 and they won’t know what’s going on and who’s who. So you’ve got to try and keep it simple. Not simple but clear. So what I did, I picked what I needed from the other books, from my strand. So there are certain parts of the other stories, Miliwaves for example, that I don’t talk about at all, because I don’t need it for this story. I just tried to keep it pretty much the central characters on a new adventure. But there are enough references and in-joked there – I hope – that the veterans like myself – it’s a funny thing, I wrote myself when I was – I wrote this book for two people – myself now and myself when I was 17

H: And don’t they say that the best writing is when you write to entertain yourself?

E: Well I hope they say that. That sounds reasonable, but I – when you’re in a room on your own you can actually do that, you can imagine this kind of guy whose 17, he’s like a beanpole, he’s got hair and it’s dark – and he’s very cynical and sarcastic. And that was me then, and then flash forward 30 years now, I’m much more, much mellower, I’ll accept much more but I want those references to those Hitchhikers books –

H: Of course

E: That I love, so I tried to make both those people happy

H: Eoin let’s talk about this incredible chair that you’re sitting in – it’s an egg chair. It has a very special cushion which is cowhide. How did this come about?

E: This is the Hitchhiker egg chair which is one of a very limited run of 42 chairs of course

H: 42 – now how could that be a reference to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy I wonder?

E: If I tell you that we would both disappear

H: Well I think we probably would wouldn’t we? Yes we’ve got to keep that to ourselves, yes

E: So it is made – the egg chair is reference, but we were trying to come up with something – a symbol of Hitchhiker, a limited edition of something and the egg chair company said well we’d love to do a limited run of the chair so the white leather is meant to remind you of the heart of gold spaceship. This is the Ameglian major cow who sacrificed himself to be in this chair. The leg is brushed steel like Marvin and on the back you’ll see there’s the earth exploding as it does in at least two Hitchhiker books

H: I think it’s very sad to think that Marvin and his poor leg has made the leg of the chair, but you know, such is life! We’ve got some quick fire questions, so as quick as you can here – Oscar says “who would you throw a shoe at?”

E: Who would I throw a shoe at? I’m trying to think is there anyone who only had one shoe and would need a shoe? Or I might throw a shoe to get it autographed by someone, so maybe Mick Jagger, I would like to throw a shoe at Mick Jagger

H: Good answer

E: And see if he would write on it

H: Beatrice says “have you ever forgotten your towel?”

E: I have and I was actually asked this before, I remember I was in Mexico recently, and there was this thing to get down to get the beds by the beach, and so it was my job to get down and get the beds, and you know down 10 flights in the elevator, run around the back, get out to the bed, and then of course I forgot my towel, and I thought how ironic as I’m in the middle of writing a Hitchhiker book that I have now forgotten my towel and someone else took my bed!

H: Of course Arthur’s guide around the universe, not only the Hitchhiker’s guide, was Ford Prefect – I’ve got a question in from Ford Perfect, who says “what is the ultimate question for the ultimate answer?”

E: Well I don’t know, I suppose the ultimate question these days is you know did I make it through to Boot camp Simon?

H: Yes you’re probably right! Yes

E: But if I – I don’t know what the ultimate answer is. As you know they cannot – they are mutually exclusive, if you know one you cannot know the other, or you will disappear

H: Ok well be careful asking those kinds of questions

E: Be careful

H: Then. Kiara says “does Fenchurch ever show up again?”

E: Yes – well it’s – she’s felt mostly by her absence because Arthur is totally pining for Fenchurch. I thought he didn’t really miss her enough in book 5, and that she was the love of his life, so this has affected him as a person now. He’s really – he really misses her and he really wants to find her, and maybe he does, but I can’t – if I tell you that it’s right at the end and it would ruin the ending for you so she comes back a little – in a strange way shall we say?

H: You’re just going to have to read it I’m afraid, that’s the thing

E: That’s a very muddy answer

H: Daniel says “in And Another Thing, do you revive Marvin?”

E: Now ok Daniel, I don’t and the reason why is that I think personally the death of Marvin is one of the most beautiful scenes in all Hitchhikers, and he dies looking up at the word of God, you know in the arms of Arthur Dent, one of the characters, and he’s dead, and you just can’t – I think it would be terrible to bring him back

H: I think a lot of people are going to be sad and it was possibly the most asked question that we’ve had in today. I’m not at all surprised because he was such a fabulous character. What about other characters – are we going to see all of our favourites barring Marvin back?

E: Yes I mean Zaphoid had been out for two books and he just had to come back. For me he’s always been my favourite character so he’s definitely back and he’s more vacuous than ever, but maybe a genius, we’re not sure

H: I just can’t help remembering the TV series with actor’s head and obviously stuck on head- but that was the great thing about the TV series wasn’t it?

E: You’re already laughing

H: It was a bit chunky

E: It was chunky, it looked cheap, but that was the charm of it, and that’s the way it was supposed to be, and at the time that was big budget. Now people say that was so cheap, but that broke the bank for the BBC, that series, but – and still the head wobbled every time he moved and it was hilarious. It was just – you just waited to see this ridiculous head coming on

H: Got a question here from Gruntos the Flatulent!

E: Ok

H: If you could play any character in a future radio adaptation of your book

E: Oh

H: Who or what would it be?

E: I think –

H: Without giving too much away obviously

E: I think – yes there’s a new character in it who is an Irish character and his name is kind of a riff on Douglas’s old joke of car names, like Ford Prefect, so he’s called Hillman Hunter and he is a little Irish evangelist come property developer

H: Interesting

E: I know. And he gives – we say he gives really good Leprechauns but when he’s trying to charm people he says oh bejesus begorra bejesus, when underneath he’s a real shark

H: Ok

E: And I think I would like to play that part as I already – I have the accent, so I wouldn’t require –

H: Based a little bit on you Eoin perhaps?

E: Well a little but I’m far, far nicer and you know less devious. He wants to control what’s left of the human race

H: Emmy has sent us a question in, and of course you can still send your questions in before the end of the show. Emmy says “are any of the new Hitchhikers characters you’ve added b based on Artemis Fowl people?” of course your award-winning series of books?

E: No I – although I did kind of use my – I have this habit of using my brothers – I have 4 brothers – and I have a habit of using them as inspiration, certain parts of their character so one of the character, Thora the Thundergod who wants to be you know a rock musician, he’s kind of based a little bit on my brother Donnyl who was an actor when he was younger. So I did use him a little bit, and the other new character I have is a Vogun whose evolving, whose a nice little guy –

H: A Vogun gone good – heavens!

E: Exactly

H: I didn’t think I would ever see the day

E: Well no one did, so he’s a kind of in the closet good Vogun, because if he tells anybody, he will be possibly flushed out of Airlock just for being nice

H: I can imagine

E: And I have a lovely – my 6 year old son is a little hippy, you know Zen, cool dude, so I based him a little bit on Sean and the way he’s just so relaxed, and everybody loves him. And Constant Moan is a little bit like that

H: Fantastic. Anna from Italy, so another international question’s come in, thank you for sending those in. “Will there me a 7^th Artemis book and whatever happened to Minerva?”

E: There will be a 7^th Artemis book, I’m working on that at the moment and Minerva was almost Artemis’s girlfriend but she ran off with a skier in Austria and left poor Artemis on the piste alone – so it’s – he’s gone back to his evil ways, and back to his workshop and trying to forget ladies

H: Interesting stuff. This weekend is a big weekend

E: Yes

H: The launch weekend of the book but also Hitchcon, a huge convention – tell us what you’re be doing at Hitchcon? Gerry especially wants to know what you’re going to be doing this weekend

E: Well first of all I’m going to be donning my dressing gown at 11 o’clock and I’m going down to the South Bank Centre for the largest photo of Hitchhiker fans ever

H: So you’re calling – you’re calling for as many Hitchhiker fans as you can get, in London this weekend?

E: Yes we want to try and get this photograph of – you know as many as we can get, and someone’s going to go up high and take this photo of all of us. And I think it will be great maybe in ten years time to say look there’s me and there’s your brother, and there’s my uncle

H: And I understand that tickets are still available for that now

E: Yes you can get your tickets from the South Bank Centre or you can go to 6of3.com I think and get them there, so – but it’s a great day. Disaster Area are playing, you know the original band, with Harry Shear from the Simpsons, of Simpsons fame and of course Spinal Tap fame, Andrew Sachs is the voice of the book. They’re putting Radio Play on stage, and I will be the Dish of the Day so I will be the – I’m playing the cow which should be very interesting. And we’re having some music from the Blizzards, there’s going to be a panel with Hitchhiker experts such as Ed Victors – friend and agent – and many other people who were involved with Hitchhiker. I think Clive Anderson is moderating that, and then I’m going to do the first ever reading from the book. So it’s going to be – and a big signing then after, if you want to be one of the first few to get a signed first edition, come on down to the South Bank centre on Sunday

H: After the reading, you’re taking the book on tour and you’re doing a tour yourself – a worldwide tour or just UK and is it with the chair?

E: The chair is coming with me. I am hoping that at the end of the tour I can kind of sneak out the back door with the chair, see how that goes!

H: Put it over your shoulders –

E: Yes no one would notice the chair would they? I’ll get a big, baggy jumper. No I’m going to UK this week, I’m up to Scotland on Monday, to Glasgow, we’re going to Manchester, we’re going all around. We’re going to the Cheltenham book fair and then back to Ireland for a couple of days, and then to the United States

H: Ah well that ties in very nicely with Ally’s question – “do you plan on doing a book tour in the United States any time soon? That would be awesome?” I think she just wants to know when

E: I am going over there on Sunday 18^th, we start in New York and then we move – we’re going all over the country for about two weeks. And it’s all – you can find out all about that on my own website which is just Eoincolfer.com

H: Excellent stuff, and of course the other website that we’ve been talking about today is 6of3.com the 6 and then “of” and then the 3.com, so very interesting website with lots of information on there as well. Julia has sent an interesting question in – I don’t know whether you’ll be able to reveal this point – “will the correct question finally be revealed?”

E: There is some hints and clues about the question, and someone actually kind of gives an answer to the question, but it’s not pointed so you have to read it and be waiting for it and see it

H: Ok well Kevin, following on from that says “it has been said that the number 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything is that while at university the price of a pint of beer in the student’s union was 42p for Douglas Adams.” Is that true?

E: If you need any more proof than that I’m sure the price of beer is always an indicator of, you know, the important things in life. For me – I’ve been trying desperately to find a 42 in my life. That will be like an omen of why I’m doing this book and I couldn’t find anything for a long time and I think wow I’m 44 now, so I was nearly 42 when I got this job, I have 43 publishers, so that’s no good – but then my mother said to me, well you grew up in number 42, in High Street in Wexlers, so I thought no way, she said no 42, that was the number of the house you were born in so –

H: Fantastic. We’ve had Eoin so many questions in this afternoon. One from me and one final one from a viewer this afternoon. Anna Rafferty says, and it’s a question that I hadn’t thought about asking but it’s a very sensible question – “why is the new book called And Another Thing?”

E: It’s on a couple of levels but one of it – of course it’s a quote from Douglas, or it’s part of a quote from Douglas where he says the “thunder echoed over the mountain like a man thing. And another thing” 20 minutes after losing the argument. So this is like an echo from over the mountains of time to bring you back to your childhood. And it’s also like a man with a finger up saying there’s one more story, another thing, one more story. So I thought it was apt

H: And one question from me that is also shared by Dan, this is the 6^th book in the trilogy – will there be a 7^th from you?

E: Not from me no. I wanted to do one, it’s a tribute, it’s a show, it’s a labour of love, it’s to point the way for the faithful, and those yet to be faithful to the brilliance of the Hitchhiker. To do any more would be to say this is my series now and I’m trying to take it on which is really – would be very presumptuous and silly, so I don’t’ want to do that. I’m back to leprechauns now, I’m back to the world of leprechauns

H: Eoin Colfer, author of “And Another Thing”, the 6^th book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, thank you so much for joining us, and the very best of luck with the book. I know you don’t need it

E: Thank you

H: If you’d like to find out more ahead of the book release, or going and buying it yourself, go to www.6of3.com and I hope you’ll join us again for another Entertainment Show very soon. Bye bye

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