“Declan Burke is his own genre. The Lammisters dazzles, beguiles and transcends. Virtuoso from start to finish.” – Eoin McNamee “This bourbon-smooth riot of jazz-age excess, high satire and Wodehouse flamboyance is a pitch-perfect bullseye of comic brilliance.” – Irish Independent Books of the Year 2019 “This rapid-fire novel deserves a place on any bookshelf that grants asylum to PG Wodehouse, Flann O’Brien or Kyril Bonfiglioli.” – Eoin Colfer, Guardian Best Books of the Year 2019 “The funniest book of the year.” – Sunday Independent “Declan Burke is one funny bastard. The Lammisters ... conducts a forensic analysis on the anatomy of a story.” – Liz Nugent “Burke’s exuberant prose takes centre stage … He plays with language like a jazz soloist stretching the boundaries of musical theory.” – Totally Dublin “A mega-meta smorgasbord of inventive language ... linguistic verve not just on every page but every line.Irish Times “Above all, The Lammisters gives the impression of a writer enjoying himself. And so, dear reader, should you.” – Sunday Times “A triumph of absurdity, which burlesques the literary canon from Shakespeare, Pope and Austen to Flann O’Brien … The Lammisters is very clever indeed.” – The Guardian

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Why Stop Now, Just When We’re Hating It?

Gosh, Dan Brown, eh? Bless his cotton socks. As Norman Mailer once said of Jack Kerouac, “That’s not writing, it’s typing.” Or words (and people) to that effect. Anyway, never mind the symbollocks – the sixth, and Eoin Colfer’s contribution, in the increasingly improbable Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy is coming to a mostly harmless planet near you. To wit:
You may not have noticed, but there’s something stirring in the Galaxy…
  Despite the efforts of the Vogons, and even those of a more-than-typically troubled teenager, the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy continues, much to the delight of its fans (and to the annoyance of the Vogons).
  AND ANOTHER THING, the 6th book in the Hitchhiker’s trilogy, or rather ‘double trilogy’ as it has now become, has been written by the brilliantly funny Eoin Colfer, international number-one bestselling author of the Artemis Fowl novels. Colfer is not unaccustomed to strange going-ons and far-fetched story-lines with his celebrated Artemis Fowl novels. Widow Jane Belson said of Eoin Colfer, “I love his books and could not think of a better person to transport Arthur, Zaphod and Marvin to pastures new.”
  Douglas Adams himself once said: “I suspect at some point in the future I will write a sixth Hitchhiker book. Five seems to be a wrong kind of number, six is a better kind of number.”
  Colfer, a fan of Hitchhiker since his schooldays, said:
  “I have decided to embark on a very different project. Something unique that I hope will interest you as much as it does me. I have written the official 6th book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Series. Most of you have probably already read Douglas Adams’ insanely brilliant space series. If you haven’t then you don’t know funny. Take it from me, the Hitchhiker books are bar none the funniest sci-fi books ever written. People have laughed so much reading Hitchhikers that they have had to have organs removed. One guy in France popped an eyeball. I kid you not.”
  “So, what’s it all about, this Hitchhikers, I hear you cry. Actually I don’t hear you, if I did I would be sitting outside in your driveway, which would be a bit freaky and show how few friends I have. What’s it all about, this Hitchhikers, I imagine you cry. It’s about Arthur Dent, one of the last humans left alive after the Earth has been destroyed by the remorseless Vogons. Arthur manages to hitch a ride on a spaceship and go planet-hopping with his friends Ford Prefect, the Betelgeusean journalist. Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed president of the galaxy, pirate and worst dressed man in the universe, and and Marvin, the paranoid android.
  “All this hitching and adventuring went on for five books and then Douglas Adams passed away before he could write book six. Hitchhiker has been heard on radio, seen on TV and enjoyed on the cinema screen; there was even a musical version. But the story could never end, until now. I am going to continue on where Douglas left off.
  “Unfortunately for me, he left off on rather a large cliff-hanger. Everyone was dead. Which means I have rather a large challenge ahead of me, but it is one I am looking forward to.
  “The book will be out later this year. It will be called AND ANOTHER THING. And I really hope you will board the spaceship with me so we can travel through Douglas Adams’ hilarious galaxy together, which will save me having to hang around in your driveway.
  “See you at Barnard’s Star.”

2 comments:

Mercurius Aulicus said...

Sorry to be pedantic - but Truman Capote is supposed to have said something along the lines of "It isn't writing at all - it's typing".

Declan Burke said...

No apologies necessary, squire - as far as I know, it's part of the disease that pedants can't help it. Although, to be unashamedly pedantic about it, the bit about "words (and people) to that effect" should have alerted even a raging pedant to the fact that I wasn't being, y'know, exactly pedantic about the quote's origins.

Gosh, pedantry is fun ...