Other authors on the list include: Darren Shan, Robert Muchamore and Charlie Fletcher.

Last year (2007-2008), the Doncaster Book Award was won by Derek Landy’s Skulduggery Pleasant.

So get on over to the site and write a review!

Airman Reviews

“Which thing do you love or hate the most about writing, and why?”

“I love being alone.” Very loud and disbelieving laughs. “No, it’s a great luxury for any person to have a couple of hours on their own, in their own office, to put on their own music. Like most Dads…, when you’re older and you’re a Dad Charlie, you will realise that you are the only person in the world that likes the music you like. For some reason when I put on good music in our house, that I paid for, everyone starts screaming that you’re an idiot. Even in the car now, as soon as I get in the car, my son is at the dial to change the radio station. So, when I’m in my office I can put on 1970s David Bowie,” loud laughs, “Led Zeppelin, and nobody says anything, and it’s fantastic. I’ve downloaded all my old CDs to iTunes and I just sit there and I listen to this music. It’s a huge luxury to do that, which most people do not have. When you’ve got kids you do not have two hours in the day to have your music going as you work, so I appreciate that. It’s really nice.

What I hate about it is, erm, I don’t think I hate anything about it. I don’t like the time when you send in a book and you’re waiting for your editor to get back to you, because you don’t know if it’s any good. You’ve been in your room for a year and a half and you’re too close to it. You’ve re-read it a hundred times, and you’ve forgotten what excited you about it, and what were the funny bits, and so you’re waiting for two weeks for the phone call from the editor. Luckily so far it’s been pretty good. I’ve had two editors killed.” Very loud laughs. “Only in my mind.” More laughing. “They’re still alive.”

Read the full interview here:

The Bookwitch, Charlie and Eoin at the Cheltenham Festival

Eoin Colfer with Ryan Tubridy

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Description: Join hysterically funny and utterly brilliant bestselling author Eoin Colfer as he talks about the latest jaw-dropping adventure, Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox. A must for Fowl fans everywhere.

Price: £7
Event URL: http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com

I first read the Hitchhiker’s Guide in my late teens when Ted Roche, a libertine friend of mine, pressed it into my sweaty palms and hissed at me with fanatical intensity that I must read it or be ridiculed forever by the school literati. Relax, dude, I remember saying with eighties’ insouciance. Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.

But I was scared. Petrified in fact. If one was not a sportsman, the only other circle to belong to was the readers’ circle. Places were limited and expulsions were swift and ruthless. If one had not read the livre du jour then one would not be offered book swapsies on Friday. If this happened, then a person might be forced to turn to his own siblings for conversation.

So, in this spirit of  quasi-persecution I scuttled home after double chemistry and found a quiet bathroom where I could settle down and read what I was certain would be a thinly veiled version of Star Wars. Vogons destroy the Earth and a single hero survives. Please. I could almost write the rest myself.

Never have I been so happy to be proven wrong.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was like nothing I had read before, or since for that matter. If you have read it then you know exactly what I am talking about. If you haven’t then read it now, moron. The problem is the hyperbole puts people off. If it’s so popular then it must be middle of the road, brimming with clichés and easily digested on the sands of Ibiza.

All false assumptions. The Guide is a slice of satirical genius. A marvel of quantum tomfoolery. A dissection of the absurdities of our human condition. A space odyssey that forces us to face ourselves and collapse in hysterics. Imagine if Messrs. Hawking and Fry were locked in a room with the entire cast of Monty Python and forced to write a book which would subsequently be edited by Pink Floyd, then the result would need a lot of work before it could be cut from Douglas Adams’ first draft.

For the next couple of decades I followed the exploits of Arthur Dent and his intergalactic troupe as they stumbled through space and time befuddled and bereft, drinking tea in the face of impossible odds and generally failing to find enlightenment at every turn. It’s like a quest for the holy grail where the grail is neither holy nor grail-shaped. I travelled with Arthur Dent as he lost his planet, learned to fly, found love, made sandwiches, got to know his daughter, found his planet again briefly and finally got blown to atoms.

Blown to atoms! Surely not, but no need to panic, Douglas Adams would surely reassemble Arthur somehow in the next book.

But as we all know, the next book never came and the legions of Hitchhiker fans were left with their hearts beating a little too quickly for all eternity.

It became a whimsy of mine to finish the story, just for my own peace of mind. I often wondered how Douglas Adams would have resurrected his beloved characters. And now, almost quarter of a century after first reading Hitchhiker, I have been given the incredible opportunity of writing the next chapter in the saga myself. In an actual book rather than in my head.

My first reaction was semi-outrage that anyone should be allowed to tamper with this incredible series. But on reflection I realised that this is a wonderful opportunity to work with characters I have loved since childhood and give them something of my own voice while holding onto the spirit of Douglas Adams and not laying a single finger on his five books.

Once again I am terrified by a Hitchhiker book and this time it is my own. I feel more pressure to perform now than I ever have with my own books, and that is why I am bloody determined that this will be the best thing I have ever written. And if it isn’t then I will make sure that the cover is extremely pretty.

For the first time in decades I feel the uncertainty that I last felt in my teenage years. There are people out there that really want to like this book. Ted Roche is one. I will track him down in eight months time, with a proof copy in my sweaty grip, press it into his hands and tell him with fanatical intensity that he really has to read this book. Then I will sit on the corner of his sofa until he is finished and await the verdict.

©Eoin Colfer
Wexford, September 2008

And Another Thing (MP3 File)

Actor Simon Jones (Arthur Dent in the H2G2 tv and radio series. File courtesy of Penguin Books.

London, 17 September 2008

Penguin announced today that it is to publish the sixth novel in the ever-more increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. Eight years after the tragically early death of its creator, Douglas Adams, widow Jane Belson has sanctioned the project to be written by the international number-one bestselling children’s writer, Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl novels. The new book is entitled “And Another Thing…” and will be published in hardback by Penguin in October 2009. The deal was done with Sophie Hicks and Ed Victor of Ed Victor Ltd., agents for both Colfer and the Douglas Adams estate.

Douglas Adams himself said in an interview: ‘I suspect at some point in the future I will write a sixth Hitchhiker book … I would love to finish Hitchhiker on a slightly more upbeat note. Five seems to be a wrong kind of number, six is a better kind of number.’ *

Jane Belson, the widow of Douglas Adams said, ‘I am delighted that Eoin Colfer has agreed to continue the Hitchhiker series. I love his books and could not think of a better person to transport Arthur, Zaphod and Marvin to pastures new. The project has my full support.’

Eoin Colfer has introduced a new generation of readers to the absurdities of life, the universe and everything through his bestselling Artemis Fowl series, in which a teenage criminal mastermind wreaks havoc in this world, the next and any others that happen to be nearby. The Sunday Times has said, ‘Colfer has the ability to make you laugh twice over: first in sheer subversive joy at the inventiveness of the writing, and again at the energy of the humour.’

Colfer has been a fan of Hitchhiker since his schooldays and said, ‘Being given the chance to write this book is like suddenly being offered the superpower of your choice. For years I have been finishing this incredible story in my head and now I have the opportunity to do it in the real world. It is a gift from the gods. So, thank you Thor and Odin.’

Penguin Managing Director, Helen Fraser commented, ‘In 1992 I was lucky enough to be involved in the publication of Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams’s last brilliant volume of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. He was an extraordinary writer, with an ability to come at the reader from the most unexpected angles, knock them off balance and make them laugh at the same time. Eoin Colfer is an inspired choice as Douglas’s successor. Eoin burst on the world in 2001 with his incredibly popular Artemis Fowl series, which is beloved by readers of all ages. He is a huge talent and a fantastically funny writer, and this new book will bring as many new young readers to Douglas Adams’s work as it will introduce adults to the brilliance of Eoin Colfer.’

Press Release on Penguin site