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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Eoin Colfer
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July 17 - July 18, 2025
Bifrost jumped with the impact of giant footsteps as Heimdall jogged leisurely along the bridge, grin wider than the crooked mayor of Optimisia with dental implants who has just won the planetary lotto on his birthday and discovered that his chief love rival from high school was recently cuckolded and that the prosecution’s case against him has collapsed.
Heimdall was known for being so alert that he needed no sleep. They used to say in the taverns of Scandinavia that he could see grass grow and hear a leaf fall on the other side of an ocean. But that was a long time ago, and these days Heimdall often snuck off for a snooze after his latte and had been known to miss the sound of autumn altogether.
“No no,” said Hel in the tone of a guilty teenager blocking her mother at the door to a bedroom that is full of boys and drugs, stolen jewelry, and possibly music playing backward.
“Erm, yes. I should think so. The computer has…eh…isolated their frequency, so we should be able to send a self-destruct signal, which I am doing…now.” The remaining missiles exploded in flashes of pink and electric white, gears and pistons thunking into the ice shell. “Well done,” said Heimdall, tears of relief on his tanned cheeks. “Odin shall hear of your labors this day.”
It occurred to Heimdall that he should get on with the head squeezing before Zaphod could get the name out, but a sudden nervousness gagged him for a vital moment. And instinctive exploitation of vital moments was one of Zaphod’s few areas of expertise.
Guide Note: Technically speaking, Doxy Ribonu-Clegg did not invent the Sub-Etha, rather he discovered its existence. The Sub-Etha waves had been around for at least as long as the gods, just waiting for someone to pump some data into them. The legend goes that Ribonu-Clegg had been lying on his back in a field on his home planet. As he gazed blearily up through the wedge of space suspended above him, it occurred to the renowned professor that all this space was loaded with information and that perhaps it would be possible to transport some information of his own through the cosmic conduits if
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“Happiness? That would never do, would it?” “Not when your mother is making out with that horrible alien right under your nose. Disgusting.” Ford nodded with a wisdom beyond his ears. “Ah, yes the deBeouf Principle. I read about that in a thing with actual pages in it. A quaint thing where you flip the paper over.”
Arthur frowned. “Yes…but. There was the whole bathrobe and pajamas period. How unlucky can you get? Not to mention being stranded on…”
“It was a billion to one against you surviving, but you did. Twice. That seems pretty lucky. That’s like fictional hero lucky.”
Odin’s son Baldur is quoted as saying: “Everything is massive and huge and brilliant, you mortals with your puny stuff and things have no idea what real brilliant stuff is. We have stuff that would blow your little minds and then other stuff in jars, sort of lotion, that would put your minds back together again. Then there’s this cosmic cow who like licked Valhalla out of the ice and an old guy who sweated Odin’s father out of his armpit. That kind of stuff happens every day on Asgard.”
The Viking jumped to his feet. “Fine. I’m a reanimated dead Viking. Okay? We die in battle to get here and then they reanimate us as bloody civil servants. I was the captain of my own bloody longboat. We tore up England, kicked the stuffing out of those Saxons. And for that I get a desk job. A shagging desk job, if you can believe that. Me! Eric the Red Hand. Red because of all the blood that was dripping from it, you understand. Not my own blood either.” Eric stopped shouting mainly because his eyes had wormed their way loose again. “Wow,” said Zaphod. “You’ve really been carrying that
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“I’m looking for Thor.” Eric tutted. “No problem finding him. Well of Urd. Go straight down to Yggdrasil, the giant ash tree, then left, and don’t give any money to the unicorns, it just encourages them. And if you see a guy with like a hook nose, answers to the name Leif, tell him that I think we got our eyeballs mixed up.” Even Zaphod had no trouble finding the golden tree, though he was distracted by hordes of zombie-like reanimated Vikings shuffling along the cobbled streets, clutching dry cleaning in their bony hands, or trailing listlessly after tiny dogs.
“This is ridiculous,” he said eventually.
“That’s a little cryptic, Marilyn. Could you ask for clarification?” Before Marilyn could respond, a woman materialized in Hillman’s interview chair. From his recent interviews, Hillman had become accustomed to a flickering style of materialization, but this woman arrived like somebody had flicked a switch. “Jaysus!” he yelped. “Actually no. The name is Gaia, Hillman Hunter,” she said, her voice sonorous and comforting. “Ah, yes. Gaia, the Earth Mother.” Hillman sifted through the stack of résumés on his desk. “I hadn’t made my mind up about you.” Gaia trained her deep brown eyes on Hillman.
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“I am the Earth Mother, without an Earth, come to a new home. I could be happy here, Hillman. You could be happy too.” “Yes, Earth Mother. Happy as a pig in…very happy.”
The Earth Mother spread her arms, and Hillman could smell the summers of his youth. “The women will be broad-breasted and fertile, and the men will desire them.” “About fecking time too.”
“I remember once Uranus hid the Cyclops in Tartarus so he couldn’t see the light. This caused me considerable pain as, you may not know this about me, as Tartarus was my bowels in a reflexology kind of a way. So I fashioned a great flint sickle, and when Uranus entered my chamber for his weekly how’s-your-father, I had my son Chronos chop his doodle off with the sickle.” Gaia clapped delightedly at the memory. “Oh, that was a night and a half. But I think I’ve answered your question. Firm but fair, that’s my motto. I still have that sickle somewhere; you never know when a few drops of dry
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Zaphod stepped into as foul a den of broken dreams as he had ever been thrown out of, and felt instantly at home. This is my kind of place, he thought. Even the air in here is dangerous. And it was. The germs huddled together and drifted through the murky air in colored clouds, trying vainly to infect the ossified zombies and demigods.
“It’s not Thor you should worry about,” said the barman, jerking a thumb toward a dark alcove at the rear of the bar. “It’s those other little bastards.” Zaphod winked with supreme confidence. “Don’t worry. I’ve been in show business for years; I know how to handle bastards.”
Hillman Hunter was more than just a stereotypical Irishman, he was a stereotype Paddy from a bygone era, as imagined by an expatriate Celt, with emerald-tinted spectacles and a head full of whiskey and nostalgia.
With regards to diddle-ee-aye Irishness, Hillman Hunter was the whole bag of potatoes.
😂
Innisfree. The island inspiration for Nano’s all-time favorite movie: The Quiet Man. The celluloid home of his own personality template. Fate was dropping him a wink, destiny was slipping him a brown bag, providence was beating him over the head with the hint hammer. Hillman outbid a shadow corporation, which could have been traced back to a leisure group on Barnard’s Star by anyone with sub-etha capabilities, and purchased the island, complete with permission for a retreat that the nuns had been planning to build for weekend sherry parties. And on that first misty morning, as he putted across
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No one will fall for this, scoffed the tourist board. Highly improbable. Which of course almost guaranteed that the entire venture would be a huge success.
When he wasn’t negotiating with builders, Hillman spent his time trying to find a god suitable to rule the planet, a task which was not proving as enjoyable as he had envisaged. Hillman had imagined himself engaging in philosophical conversations on the nature of happiness, or being wowed by awesome displays of godly power. Instead he had been forced to grind his way through a sludge of padded résumés in which demigods tried to make themselves sound a lot more significant than they actually were.
Inside the Tanngrisnir there was not a single passenger who had not been substantially altered by the journey. 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 feelings that might otherwise have taken years to develop. For a being of the light, gazing even for a moment into the heart of dark space has an effect equivalent to a dozen near-death experiences. It’s the Universe’s way of telling you to get on with your life. Which is a good thing if the feeling budding in a person’s heart is a good
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“Are you sure about this?” said Thor, frowning suspiciously at Buff Orpington, who was trying to heft Mjöllnir.
Guide Note: Bowerick Wowbagger or, as the H2G2 describes him, that green frood with the hoopy ship who goes around insulting people, has to this point shared three tender moments in real space with Trillian Astra or, as WooHoo magazine dubbed her, “The Lucky Gal Who Bagged the Bagger,” and each of these moments had to be paid for by other unfortunate individuals at antipodal points in the universe.
“It sounds selfish when you put it like that.” Trillian wiped her cheeks. “No, I understand perfectly. You’ve had a terrible time being immortal in that wonderful ship of yours. Drinking beer and insulting people, not to mention being incredibly handsome and charming. It’s been hell for you, I realize that.”
“You make it sound glamorous.”
Bowerick Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was feeling a little lightheaded, and it was a feeling he relished, as it reminded him of when he was mortal. He dragged himself from the crack in the earth and lay gasping in crisped curls of grass as the uBid ship fell to pieces behind him. More intrigue, he thought. I can’t say that today hasn’t been interesting.
Arthur’s tactlessness is only surpassed by that of Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox,
Random watched Wowbagger shoot off into the sky, but the sight did not fill her with a sense of triumph as she had believed it would. In fact, she felt that in some tiny way she herself might be a little responsible for the friction that had existed between them. This feeling soon passed and the triumph came flooding in. That’s right, you green freak. Off you go to the afterlife.
Ford spouted the standard line. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide is a hundred percent accurate. Reality, however, is not as reliable.”
There is no such thing as a happy ending. Every culture has a maxim that makes this point, while nowhere in the Universe is there a single gravestone that reads, He Loved Everything About His Life, Especially the Dying Bit at the End.
Barely a week had passed since the aborted Vogon attack, and already people had forgotten how lucky they were to be alive,
Random leaned her elbows on the desk. “I’ve heard that Nano is what you used to call your grandmother.” Hillman was rattled. “Is it? I don’t remember. Actually, I think you’re right. My goodness, sure I haven’t thought about that in years, bejaysus.” “Don’t bother.” “What?” “Every time you’re in trouble, out comes Paddy the Leprechaun and his cutesy Oirish accent.” “That’s ridiculous,” spluttered Hillman, moving on to another level of rattled. “I am Irish.” “Not that Irish. The truth of the matter is that you named the entire planet after your granny.”
Random’s jaw jutted. “Maybe, but naming planets and inventing rousing slogans sounds like the seeds of dictatorship to me.” “Thor is lord here,” said Hillman solemnly. “Not me.”
“You were only dead for twenty minutes,” said Random sweetly. “So you probably only lost about half your IQ. Not that anyone will notice.”
“Keep your hand,” said Random. “We can shake after the contracts are signed.” Hillman pushed back his chair. “I can see you’re going to be a bucket of chuckles. Okay then, girlie. Be here at eight sharp tomorrow morning, expect me about ten thirty. You can have the tea ready.”
If I know Fenchurch, she’s not finished talking yet, thought Arthur, still fighting his way out of a bemused fugue. There are more stories to come. He was right. Fenchurch tapped him on the forearm, tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, and opened her mouth. “And another thing…,” she said.
Guide Note: Arthur Dent’s almost incredible bad luck created a providence vacuum which led to unbelievably good fortune for a being on the other side of the Universe. A certain Mr. A. Grajag, a little known sportscaster from Un Hye, was successfully resuscitated after six months of near flat lines on his hospital monitor following a space collision with a uBid cargo ship. He awoke to a cocktail reception from the planetary lotto committee to celebrate his numbers coming up as opposed to his number being up. At the same moment, his childhood sweetheart, who had recognized Mr. Grajag from his
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The End of one of the Middles.
