The Long Earth is the result of Discworld overlord Sir Terry Pratchett teaming up with the prolific SF-writer Stephen Baxter. And while it has it’s charms (for instance, it features a nun who is a devoted Jim Steinman fan), in the end it left me feeling unsatisfied.
The concept of the novel is that there are unfathomable parallel Earths just a thought away of the regular one. When stepping between these Earths became possible, humanity started to explore them. The further you step away from our Earth, how unlikelier they become. The Long Earth explores the possibilities, but in the end, it kinda gets you nowhere in particular. I didn’t really get invested in the main characters (a young man with a natural ability to step and a Tibetan motor repair man reincarnated as an Artificial Intelligence) or in what happened to them.
As such, I’m not too sure if I want to invest time in the next instalments of the series.
- Book read
- Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter — The Long Earth
- First Line
- In a forest glade: Private Percy woke up to bird song.