New Hitchhiker's novel?

[Tripe H. Redux]

No, he originated the character, have you listened to the radio show?

Mark Wing Davey is Zaphod

[Princess Dragon Mom]

No, he originated the character, have you listened to the radio show?

Mark Wing Davey is Zaphod

Okay.  I listened to the Radio show yes but not until after I read the books. Thing is, and I say again, as Douglas Adams intended him to be, Zaphod was based upon American culture. In the books he's described as tanned and blond. The fact a British man was cast as Zaphod in the Radio Play has everything to do with geography. I'd say since the Radio play was British based they would hire 100% British actors.

[Tripe H. Redux]

The radio shows came first. All that is in the books eaither is taken from the shows or is influenced by them (the specific actors performances and the like).

These people are the characters regardless of how they were originally conceived.

The Book: Peter Jones
Arthur Dent: Simon Jones
Ford Prefect: Geoffrey McGivern
Zaphod Beeblebrox: Mark Wing-Davey
Trillian: Susan Sheridan
Marvin the Paranoid Android: Stephen Moore

How these people played them shaped how they were portrayed subsequently. The best you can say for Rockwell is that he's doing a poor takeoff of Wing-Davey.

The fact a British man was cast as Zaphod in the Radio Play has everything to do with geography.

No, it doesn't, it has everything to do with theatrical connections. Zaphod is a parody of Americans (or actually, as I said earlier, Transatlantic types), having a British actor play him only helps with the parody aspect.

Listen to the sound of the foyer of Megadodo Publications, those aren't supposed to be Americans per se, but rather the sort of media peopl;e who affect an American accent due to the perceived Coolness in doing so.

Oh and Adams based Zaphod on a friend from Cambridge who, in his words

had that nervous sort of hyperenergetic way of trying to appear relaxed.

Now, I don't know the nationality of Johnny Simpson, and I don't have Don't Panic to hand to see if it states it or not*, but there's little there to suggest a surfer dude and much more to suggest the hipster/media bod sort of person.

*about page 200 or so if anyone want's to take a look.

[ScottH]

How these people played them shaped how they were portrayed subsequently. The best you can say for Rockwell is that he's doing a poor takeoff of Wing-Davey.

That's pure speculation, it's possibly Sam Rockwell hadn't even listened to the radio show or watched the TV movie

[Tripe H. Redux]

No, not intentionally doing a takeoff, what is achieved is at best a poor takeoff.

Regardless of what he intended that is what it comes across as.

But that's besides the point since what we're actually talking about is the book, saying "Zaphod in the new book doesn't sound like Sam Rockwell" is completely asinine, I would hope he doesn't considering the Zaphod of the books is at least partially (and a fairly large partial amount) on Wing-Davey, who in turn is originating a character based on somebody from Cambridge that Adams knew.

Oh and what TV movie? There's a six part TV series, but there isn't a TV movie unless it's some sort of edited version of the series.

Lest people imagine that I'm not aware that this is exactly what some PBS, and presumably other broadcasters did to the series; I know, however if you are referring to the TV incarnation you really sahould refer to it as what it was rather than what some other broadcaster did to it.

[Relaxing Dragon]

I completely spaced on the new book being released, so I just bought it today.

Only about half a chapter in so far, but it seems pretty good. Made me laugh in a few parts, seems to capture Adams' style nicely (perhaps it tires too hard to do so in parts, but I'm OK with that). I'll have to finish reading it, though, before I say anything else.

[Imrahil]

I'm sort of with Doctor on Zaphod being an American surfer type. I swear I read that somewhere--the original scripts book maybe?  And I'm one of those who came to the series first through the Radio shows back in the early 80s before I ever picked up the books.

Anyway, I'm about 60 pages into this book.  He generally gets Arthur and Ford right--I can hear Jones and McGivern reading their lines at any rate--but he gets the guide sort of wrong (and the "guide entry" format is very distracting, but occasionally used for a laugh).  His Trillian is not so great, and I'm very disappointed that Random is still around.

I've only just hit his Zaphod, but I'm having a lot of cognitive dissonance trying to reconcile this Zaphod with Adams'. 

So far the book is not bad, per se; it's just that it reminds me on almost every page how sad it is that DA is no longer with us.  It makes me very melancholy.

Oh, and one thing the guy does which drives me fucking CRAZY is that he has sentence fragments about thrice per page. 

[Relaxing Dragon]

I finished it recently, and I really enjoyed it. He seems to be trying really hard to channel Adams' style, and seems to go on a lot more description tangents, but I'm OK with that. Story was pretty interesting, characters acted like they should (even managed to get me to start caring about Random. Tough thing to do), and all in all, it was pretty funny. Definitely had me laughing at a lot of lines.

I'm not a fan about how the Guide Mark 2 was just randomly eliminated towards the beginning. That was a cool thing, shouldn't just have a bridge dropped on it like that.

And I liked how Zaphod was in the book, seemed exactly how I imagined him to be.

[Tripe H. Redux]

OK I'm about forty pages in, I did actually really like the cigarette a few pages back.

His grasp of how to use "Frood" is a wee bit wonky though.

[Relaxing Dragon]

I've seen people bring up the use of Frood (and, slightly less frequently, how zark isn't supposed to be capitalized or some such thing). I don't see a problem, but then, I was never totally sure how to use it either.

[Tripe H. Redux]

It's fairly easy to understand:

Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with

Hoopy: really together guy

Frood: really amazingly together guy

Hence a phrase which has passed into hitch hiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is."

 

[Relaxing Dragon]

Seems easy enough to use as an adjective.

[PrinceOfSpace]

I will preface this by saying that I have not read the new Hitchhiker's book, nor do I plan on doing so. I was a HUGE fan of Douglas Adams' books, and actually really enjoyed the movie. But I have read the Artemis Fowl series and did not enjoy it, so I don't really like the idea of having the author run with one of my favorite book series of all time. I agree that it seems too Dune-y, and THIS one isn't even done by a son or cousin or relation of Douglas Adams. It's kind of like the Wheel of Time series, too....I LOVE Brandon Sanderson's stuff, but I don't think he should've picked up the Wheel of TIme series for Robert Jordan after he passed. It's not that I'm saying they don't DESERVE it...but, to me, some things should stay with their original makers and not be taken anywhere else. I'm sorry if Robert Jordan died  before he was finished with his series...but that means that's it, sorry. I mean....I would feel pretty weird about reading the new Stephen King's Dark Tower novel if Stephen King died and someone else picked it up, even if that person was Joe Hill. (And yes, I am aware of the Dark Tower comic book series. But Stephen King has his hands very deep in that project)  Or if Terry Goodkind had died and someone tried to finish his series. Or Terry Brooks or Terry Pratchett. Or George R.R. Martin. I don't care if the people taking over the project care, or are big fans themselves, or try to stay as true to the series as they can. It's just...not the same.

[bratpop]

I think continuing an author's series is okay, but it shouldn't be done on this kind of unsolicited basis. It's either the kind of thing that's such a huge phenomenon that gets so far from the original author that it can be an ongoing franchise like Conan, Star Wars, Star Trek... or whatever, or it's exclusively linked to its author like HHGG, Lord of the Rings, or what have you. Even though Star Wars is, or at least should be, exclusively George Lucas at least where the original medium is concerned, he set the whole book series off by authorizing the first novel by Alan Dean Foster to be written.

If they did a whole series of Hitchhiker's books by alternating authors to get as many published as they could because there was a fanbase and public demand for it, then okay. You can't argue with public demand. But when they're just trying to make an extra buck out of something nobody needed more of through imitation of the original, that's just not right. Especially when some slick, schmoozing besuited slime worked his oily magic to convince the poor wife of a dead man that it was really respectful to exploit his life's work with a cheap knockoff.

If Douglas had ever sold the rights of Hitchhiker's in any form during his life and allowed any production of it to take place without his involvement, you'd have some argument for the validity of this project. But he was always involved. It was his baby. It was not a franchise. It was a single entity that symbiotically existed in many different forms.

There was, to my knowledge, only one HHGG product made that Douglas was not involved in. A particularly dull looking video game by Pandemic that never got released. AS GOD INTENDED IT.

As far as I'm concerned, this is an UNAUTHORIZED continuation. There's no such word as, "authorswifeized." I don't believe in estates controlled by relatives with no creative talent or understanding of it.

[Imrahil]

I still enjoyed it.