Near ? It isnt Adams is enough for me not to be lured in by people trying to milk his fame when they cant copy his writing, humor.
Im always alittle surprised by fans who are fan of series and not the author. Hitchhiker is nothing just another series without Adams writing.
I'd like to challenge you on some assumptions there, Conn.
First: Are you sure this is their motivation? Perhaps it is, but perhaps it is rather -- as is quite common in the literary world, where even great authors have indulged in it -- a desire to emulate, to carry on a tradition, to perform an
hommage to using the original writers' most famed creation... all of which are good, reasonable motivations, even if the result is seldom (though not never) great art.
Second: Unless one is attempting to an entirely slavish imitation/pastiche, one should never try to copy the other writers' writing (by which I assum you mean style, idiom, etc.), though they may, while still remaining true to themselves, be in tune with the original writer's humor. It is much the better thing, if one is motivated by something such as I mention above, if they do try to remain true to their own voice while singing a song in honor of a friend, as it were.
Third: One can be a fan either, or of both. And just because one takes pleasure in writings dealing with the original writer's creation which are performed by others is not necessarily a lack of respect for the first. It, too, can be motivated by many things, from simply enjoying further play in that particular mind field to a form of
hommage of its own. Often it is a combination of many things.
Several instances come to mind immediately. Harlan Ellison wrote an hommage which takes off from Fritz Leiber's "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" and, "Nedra at f:5.6" is by no means his most successful work, it nonetheless has considerable merit. There have been anthologies of works by various writers dealing with Moorcock's characters and multiverse, all from each individual writer's perspective, and done with the encouragement and even participation of Moorcock himself; and many of the stories included in them are damn' fine pieces. Even before such anthologies, a number of writers were writing stories centering on his character of Jerry Cornelius, which he then published in New Worlds; such writers included Norman Spinrad, Brian Aldiss, M. John Harrison, James Sallis, Langdon Jones, etc. Lovecraft enjoyed seeing what other people did with some of his material, feeling that citations of such things by a number of writers added to the verisimilitude of the works, giving them the feeling of genuine myth, especially as some presented contradictions, just as all myth cycles tend to have variants of their prime tales. Honoré de Balzac wrote a direct sequel to Maturin's
Melmoth the Wanderer, titled "Melmoth Reconcilie", which affectionately spoofed what he considered to be one of the great novels of all time. The German Romantics quite frequently borrowed from one or referred to one another's creations, utilizing them in their own works. The list is well-nigh endless.
What makes the difference, I would say, is a combination of the actual motivation, and the honesty of the second writers' own approach -- that is, is it merely imitation, or an extension from their own artistic vision. If it is the former, most often such an effort fails because it lacks a life of its own. If the latter, it often succeeds because it is done with affection, respect, and integrity, and becomes a new facet in the prism of the original creation; not the same, no, but not necessarily lesser, either.
Please note: I have not read the piece in question, nor do I expect to anytime in the future. While admiring Adams in many ways, I've never been that captivated by his work personally, so am not particularly inclined to follow on with it, no matter how good this one might be. But I do think it is important to question such a set of blanket assumptions which would rule out not only the lackluster pastiches which deserve no consideration, but also the many fine works which have enriched the world's literature as well, simply because they carried on where another writer left off.
