Last year i decided to read more, and by more i mean a lot more. So i decided to do my best to read 24 books, which are 2 each month. After a long year of reading, working and studying I was really happy that i was able to accomplish this goal. The amount of learning i got from reading that amount was great and it encouraged me to have a even harder goal this year: 36 books.

One of the “bad” things about last year goal was that I did not made any effort in documenting what i read that i have already forgotten a couple of books and the only productive thing I did after reading those books where recommending to a couple of people. So this year I will make a blog post for every book that i read. That will make me post more AND hopefully encourage other people to read =)

I just finished the first book of the year and here is of course, the first post:

Number: 1 of 36 of 2010
Title: And another thing…
Author: Eoin Colfer
Link: http://www.amazon.com/Another-Thing-Eoin-Colfer/dp/1401323588
Score: 6.5 where 0 is very bad and 10 is the original hitchhiker guide to the galaxy
Comment:
First of all, I don’t know who Eoin Colfer is or why was he entitled to write a sequel of THGTTG but what I do know is that he is not Douglas Adams. Having said that it is always cool to dive into the beautiful universe of Arthur Dent, Ford, Trillian and FeedleBox(haha). In general I enjoyed reading this book, but sadly it did not make it for me.
There are a couple of things that i really didn’t like for example the author decided to incorporate a lot of “real life” technologies into common use inside the story, including a lot of use of the sub-etha(some sort of internet) where there is a concept of sites pretty similar to blogs and youtube. Also a lot of characters have mobile phones (smart phones actually) that they use to communicate, take pictures and all that jazz. The smart-phone was not something i remember in the first 5 books of THGTTG and I have to admit that its funny to see “gods” like thor having gadgets but again, I think that Douglas made a great job settling a different kind of narrative.
Other thing that was unbalanced was the religions. We know that in a universe full of dolphins and towels there where a couple of important (and no so important) religions on the first books but this one actually takes a LOT of time around creating, understanding and mocking religion related stuff.
Also I have a very hard time connecting some of the main characters on the other books to this one, especially Arthur and Ford.

It is very important to mention that even with all this “bad” things (in my opinion of course) the book is still very fun. Eion was able to narrate a good, funny, intellectual, challenging book. Also he was able to include some very cool new stuff like the “dark matter” ship and some profound Vogon philosophy. He was able to bring back a beloved (and under-appreciated) character like Bowerick Wowbagger.
Finally I think the book represent the SAME Zaphod that we have seen before in the movies, books and radio series. So that was great!

Quotes:

“Presuming your application is successful, where do you see yourself in five year’s time?
Cthulhu brightened. Thank you, Hastur, he beamed into space. In five years i will have razes this planet, eaten its young and stacked your skulls high in my honor.”

“Oooh, all the other gods were forced to coo. What an amazing mortal who looks nothing like Odin. And pretend that it was totally non-ridiculous that a mortal could move faster than the speed of cameras and change size whenever it suited him. You would think he’d have made an effort with the fake name, Loki had mental brained to Heimdall. I mean, Wodin. Come on”

“Make people comfortable, then sell them whatever you like”

“This was partly the fault of the space itself, as the sleeve of dark matter is largely an emotional construct and can serve as an accelerant for feeling that might otherwise have taken years to develop.”

“You tried to pick up a friend of mine.
Pick up? What kind of pick up?
You know the kind where you lift something off the ground?
Yes.
Well, not that kind”

“We are back, baby. Religion is the new atheism”

“You make me wanna be organic”

Ideas:
There are two dynamics or ideas I think are worth implementing in software, life or other hack into the construct of space:

1. While traveling in dark matter, emotions grow WAY faster, its interesting to think what could be doing by exploiting with technology like this.
2. There is a religion called The Temple of Softly Softly, that realized that most of the Universe’s major wars had been caused by zealots aggressively spreading their own religion, so they decided that their own method of baptism would be completely painless and could be performed without the knowledge of the baptized. All it took was for one of the faithful to point his smallest digit in your direction for five seconds and softly say Beep, then as far as they were concerned, you were a member of the church. This is something very viral and i can imagine ten or twenty twitter games, iphone apps and pixels related code around this idea.

Recommend? If you are looking at some THHGTTH themed sarcastic novel: READ IT. Otherwise if you expect something as good as the original thing, your will be very angry at some of the details and some of the narrative. If you have not read any of the original Douglas Adams trilogy (of five) please go read them NOW!