New Hitchhiker’s Guide to be published… seven years after the author’s death

You know, it was bad enough reading the posthumously published A Salmon of Doubt — what with its snippets and explanations of changes that Douglas Adams PLANNED to make, ultimately turning the long-desired Dirk Gently story into a sixth Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy installment — but the idea of letting someone else entirely write a final book? That just seems like trouble to me. At least A Salmon of Doubt was cobbled together from various differing versions found on Mr. Adams’s‘s hard drive — taking the best bits from each — and thus maintaining some of Douglas’ intentions. Having someone completely create something from scratch just to “put an upbeat end to it” actually kind of offends me.

Look: I feel lousy enough that they actually succeeded in putting out a movie version, thus selling a poor interpretation of the thing we all love and adore to those who never understood it. (I imagine the un-initiated viewing that movie and saying “THAT’s what those nerds were reading all the time? Geez. What NERDS.”)

Seriously, world, STOP WITH THE DOING WHAT YOU THINK DEAD PEOPLE WOULD HAVE WANTED just so you can make a buck. I sincerely doubt that Douglas would want someone else to determine the fates of his characters.

What’s next? Putting a hit out on J.K. so that Beverly Cleary can write the “eighth Potter book?”

Arg.

(This was brought to my attention by Michael Hanscom, who maintains a fantastic set of interesting links, many of which I’m not aware at the time I read them.)