Independent game developer Hothead Games is working on a new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game.

The announcement was made on May 25, 2011 — Towel Day — by Megadodo Publications, who you might recognize as the publishers of the actual Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy sited within the novel of the same name by the late Douglas Adams.

As many of you know, while he was working on the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams cut his teeth and refined his craft with the crew of Doctor Who, back when Tom Baker was portraying the fourth incarnation of the Doctor. Adams served as script editor for the series, and also is credited as writing a few episodes of the show.

One of the most infamous episodes written by Adams was once called Shada. This Doctor Who serial was never completed or fully broadcast due to industrial action and protests that happened at the time.

Where am I going with this? Well, as it turns out, the BBC is about to launch a new show called Dirk Gently; which is based on the novels Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul written by Douglas Adams. These two novels, in part, form the basis of the unaired Shada episode of Doctor Who.

Essentially, what happened was Adams decided to take the concepts he really enjoyed from the unaired episode and created a whole new adventure focusing on the detective known as Dirk Gently.

By T. Walters

Today is a special holiday. I’m not referring to Memorial Day or Geek Pride Day (though those are special in their own rights), but Towel Day. What is Towel Day, you ask? It is the holiday observed by fans of the Douglas Adams book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

It all started in 2001 when someone on an internet forum suggested that the day two weeks after the anniversary of Douglas’ untimely death on May 11, 2001 from cardiac arrest should be turned into a holiday celebrating his life’s work. Thus, Towel Day was born.

The stipulations of the holiday vary, but it always includes the small detail of carrying around a towel for most, if not all, of the day. This is based on a passage in chapter 3 of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that goes like this…

Penguin has launched the cover for And Another Thing…, the new sequel to Douglas Adams‘ classic series Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

It was announced in September 2008 that Eoin Colfer, best-selling author of the Artemis Fowl novels, would pen the sixth Hitchhiker’s novel, to be published in October 2009.

Adams, whose final Hitchhiker’s novel was 1992’s Mostly Harmless, had said in interviews that he’d like to do a new Hitchhiker’s novel that would truly end the series.