The Long Earth

WHAT
An ambitious and interesting but underdeveloped plot. You find an infinite number of Earths, but all of them are empty. The book seems to be about how people would react to the idea, not about the different worlds themselves, and the authors fails to make that an engaging tale.

PLOT
People have discovered how to travel between alternate versions of our Earth. Anyone can do it and it only takes a second. There is a man who can do it without side effects, and this ability makes him a person of interest for the parties interested in exploring the most distant Earths that others have a hard time to reach.

SUMMARY
The multiverse theory is true and there is possibly an infinite number of Earths just like our own, representing different versions of what could have been our reality if certain circumstances were different. Think butterfly effect.

These Earths collectively are known as The Long Earth and any person can “step” into them with the help of an easily made device. The travel is also very fast, it takes only a second to do it, but there are some side effects. Stepping through these different Earths causes the individual to become nauseous for about 15 minutes, inducing vomit during that period.

So far people haven't stepped trough many Earths, because there is no need for so many planets. The ones they did explored seems to be almost identical to ours, but in different periods of time, and none of them have shown any sign of life. But already some interesting consequences have started to develop. Gold and other precious metals have lost their value, because now everybody can go to a different Earth and locate a gold ore site that is already known in our Earth.

Criminals have found new ways to commit felony through stepping, because it makes for a very easy mode of escaping. Laws have also been affected. Does the America from an alternative Earth falls into our own America's jurisdiction?

The story focus on a man that is capable of stepping without the help of any device and no side effects whatsoever, and a dead Tibetan monk reincarnated into a computer. This talking computer have found a way to travel through Earths much faster. Together they will travel to the farthest Earth they could possible find. You know, for the lul.

ANALYSIS
Starting with the talking computer, I expect that somewhere in this or the next books it will show why is he relevant to the plot. Maybe he was the one who created the Long Earth or something of that proportion. Otherwise this is just the “talking dog” that everyone treats like a normal character in the plot.

My summary shows all the interesting parts of what I read. You have all this worlds, that could have anything possible happening in them. That is a lot of potential, yet they're all empty. And they are also all too similar to ours. The things I described above could have been the introduction to the book, fitting in one page. This was however 20% of the book, and it didn't show signs it would get any better.

Too much time is spent on developing characters that I did not care about, and details that didn't seem to matter. In other words, I did not like the setting and the world building of the authors. The dialog was boring as well.

I find this story to suffer from the same problem as many other books I've (tried to) read that were also from famous authors and had a promising idea: it focus too much on the boring parts. This is the case of Journey to the Center of the Earth, for instance.


Read 2:40/11:30 23%

This is a good book, but not as good a book as it would have been had it been better.

My understanding of the genesis is that the original concept was Pratchett's from the ‘80's, and the execution was truly collaborative. The writing has definite Pratchettesque moments, and the book starts out very well, but in the end I get the feeling that this is a story that wants to be written by a collaboration between Brian Stableford and Baxter's sometime collaborator Arthur C Clarke, not Sir Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter.

The positives are pretty considerable: the authors tell the story of a huge shift in physical possibility (“stepping” between alternate Earths) over the few decades following it from multiple points of view, interspersed with amusing anecdotes regarding particularly unfortunate encounters with the unknown, often involving the Four Horsemen of the New Apocalypse: Greed, Confusion, Inability to Follow Rules, and Miscellaneous Abrasions (or something like that.)

But the evolutionary speculations are a walking shadow of Stableford's far deeper insights, and the eerie evocation of lost civilizations and alternate solar systems fall short of Clarke's inimitable (apparently) poetry.

“Not as good as Stableford or Clarke” is admittedly fainting with damned praise. I'm not familiar with Baxter's stand-alone work (and I've avoided Clarke collaborations since the Gentry Lee debacle) so I have a tendency to assume it's all his fault, which is hardly fair. It may well be that it's really the fault of the story itself, which does seem to want a particular type of telling. On the other hand, the Disc World stories wanted a particular type of telling too, and it took a few runs at it for Pratchett to develop that voice, so I have every expectation that future books in this series will take us in new and interesting directions as the authors find their feet in the remarkable universe they have created.

A lot of people mentioned this book felt like a travelogue with a sci-fi twist. I didn't really understand that until I read it.

The pace is slow, almost relaxing. Conflict arises, but it's dealt with quickly and things continue. The premise and first few chapters hint at action and drama and excitement, but the book never really delivers it. I can't say that's my main problem; my main problem with this story is that I just didn't care much about the characters or anything that happened to them. I didn't care about the Long Earth, or the troll migration, or Happy Landings.

The worst thing I can say about this book is that it's underwhelming, and I imagine I'll soon forget it. It's not a bad story, and I was entertained. The entire book just feels like a prologue to the real story.

Fun and entertaining sci-fi story in which characters investigate different parallel versions of Earth.

Most of the book is taken up by explaining the backstory of “stepping”–the way that humans on our Earth learn to travel from parallel world to parallel world.

Once these new “Earth” are discovered, there are philosophical implications to such as how an endless supply of habitable planets provides humanity with new resources to exploit, old-west-style pioneering, and opportunities for a new life. As one character puts it:

“An end to scarcity and, may we hope, war. And perhaps a new meaning to life.”

“You have traveled far across the contingency tree of the possible, on a planet where dramatic but quasi-random extinction events periodically obliterate much of family life, leaving room for evolutionary innovation.”

This was great. And I'm looking forward to the sequel (although at the time I started I was not aware of a sequel existing.. silly me).

The plot starts out in Madison, Wisconsin (USA) with a technical diagram of a device being posted online for the whole world to see. Quickly children/teens start assembling the device from parts they picked up at the Electronics store. As soon as they have they flick the switch, and ppooooff.. they have no idea where they are, and feel sick upto the point of throwing up. What happened?
They “stepped” to a parallel version of Earth.

A very original plot and interesting features that combines different paths of evolution and lots of other ingenious stuff. A funny and light footed read, with an exciting and original story. 5 stars.

The last third of this novel really came together for me; I don't know if it was that the pace picked up slightly or that it became a simpler narrative, but when it finished, I literally stopped cycling on the bike path (listening to the audiobook) and said “it can't stop there!”.
Style-wise it reminded me of Ringworld in that it was more about the concept of the world-building than a plot. That really bothered me in Ringworld, which I lemmed, but there was enough plot in this to keep me going. The concept of the long Earth was really cool and thought-provoking, especially the thought of how different colonies of humans will evolve differently, potentially even becoming different races with time.

Sir Terry, I miss you. I've had this book on the shelf for a while now, and this seemed the appropriate time to read it. The writing style is more Baxter than Pratchett, but Pratchett's signature satire is definitely evident especially in all scenes with Lobsang. Is Lobsang a history monk who stepped over from Discworld? I'm assuming so.

The concept of The Long Earth is a really neat one: what would humanity do if scarcity was no longer an issue, and what would Earth do if humans were no longer an issue? These dual questions make this book part sci if adventure and part philosophical treatise. There are a few points I took a bit of issue with (a family abandoning their son forever just to be at the forefront of the new adventure still doesn't sit right without knowing much more about that family) and the ending basically breathes into the sequel rather than containing a single novel, but overall it's a fascinating take on the parallel worlds trope with healthy doses of science and humor. I'll definitely be picking up the next one.

The Long Earth begins with the depiction of several strange experiences: Private Percy finds himself suddenly in a quiet, empty forest, when just moments before, he was being shelled in France during World War II; Maria Valiente is struggling through childbirth when she finds herself transported somewhere else; and a mysterious organism becomes self aware, but for what reason? Quickly moving to the heart of the story, readers are introduced to Joshua Valiente, who is in turn introduced to Lobsang, a computer-based entity who claims to be a reincarnated Tibetan motorcycle repairman, and therefore human. After enlisting Joshua to join him in his airship, they set out across the Long Earth, to explore millions of different versions of the planet. The journey is well worth reading, and turns up some surprising and extraordinarily intriguing worlds.

It's not entirely clear in The Long Earth which sections were written by which author. Certainly the plot has some very specific influences by both, but it's not really possible to point to any particular section and claim to know who it was written by–a testament to the excellent writing by both of these master authors. The idea of alternate dimensions, in which Earth exists in various forms has been done before, but never like this. The Long Earth is an excellent book, wrapped around a story that's both unique, and yet familiar. The story picks right up, and never really lets go.

Throughout The Long Earth, the story shifts from Joshua and Lobsang to other characters–such as the police officer who first found Joshua, the night people began Stepping, to a teenage girl whose family left everything behind–including their son–to move far out into the Long Earth and settle in a new place. The characters are well fleshed out, and have their own agendas, giving them further depth and rendering them more believable. The seemingly trivial events of one family end up having remarkable consequences by the end of the book, and set the stage for the followup novel, The Long War, due out later in 2013.

In The Long Earth, flashbacks across history also detail that Stepping has been happening long before Step Day, and reveals that there's more going on than is initially apparent. It's clear that Lobsang has a hidden agenda, and knowledge of things that he's not willing to share with Joshua until absolutely necessary–or even afterward, when Joshua has barely escaped with his life. In many ways, this book is a collection of short stories, revealing both the events in the book, as well as those that led up to it. The character from the prologue, Private Percy, is revisited later in the book, as Lobsang reveals his ultimate fate. The stories serve to lend variety to the novel, and split up the action–sometimes frustratingly, other times not–into manageable chunks.

Most of the plot threads opened in the book are well-executed, and very little is left unsettled. Since this book is the first in a series, there is of course the cliffhanger ending, but it's fitting, and comes completely out of left-field. For a collaboration novel, The Long Earth is a fine example of what two extremely talented authors can accomplish together, combining the best of both into a single volume of amazing fiction. It's an excellent book on its own, and provides an addictive story that readers will be eagerly awaiting until the next novel comes out.

I found “The Long Earth” to be an interesting thought experiment, populated with interesting characters, all in search of a plot. The narrative wandered around from present to past and back, often without warning, but I never really found it jarring. I just didn't feel the story went anywhere, or if it did, it was extremely subtle. Still, it was enjoyable enough that I've already picked up the sequel.

Novels generally contain a scenario, a story, and characters. This one contains a large scenario without a great deal of story or characterization.

For decades, authors have been writing scenarios involving parallel timetracks with an alternative version of Earth in each. Usually some kind of machine is required to travel between them; usually only a limited number of worlds are visited during the story.

In this novel, stepping from one Earth to another requires only a simple machine, and some people can do it with no machine at all. The number of alternative Earths is infinite, and we visit many of them. Unusually in my fictional experience (and most implausibly), humanity seems to have evolved successfully only on our particular Earth, so the others are mostly wilderness, and there are no alternative human histories to encounter.

The scenario is large (an infinite amount of habitable land to be explored), the largeness of it is quite well conveyed, and on first reading I was quite well entertained by the exploration of this largeness. However, the story (such as it is) mainly consists of a few characters doing their best to explore it all.

Most of the characters that we see appear only briefly and inconsequentially. There are a few main characters, but each of them is abnormal in some way and somewhat detached from the rest of humanity.

Thus, if you like this book (and I quite liked it), it must be mainly the scenario that appeals to you. Unlike some readers, I quite liked the main characters, but they lack deep appeal even to me.

The story, such as it is, doesn't have an ending in the normal sense, it just comes to an abrupt stop for no apparent reason, as though the computer crashed at that point. I suppose I'll try reading the next volume whenever it appears, to see whether there is some point to it all.

I note that the exploration of infinite alternative Earths in this book somewhat reminds me of the exploration of near-infinite future Earths in Vernor Vinge's Marooned in real time.

Bit of a disappointment, really. A bunch of puns spread through it was about the only indication Pratchett was in the room. That, and the thing where the 'stepper' that moves people between different dimensions is powered by a potato. But the scooting between alternate dimensions seemed like a travelogue of 'Tuesday, Must be Belgium'. It finished on an interesting note, but was it interesting enough to send me to the next book in the series? Not so far.

So after typing this all out, I realized I have a number of thoughts....if you haven't read the Discworld, or much of Terry Pratchett, this probably won't feel relevant to a critique of this book,  it's a subjective review, I realize. 
Disclaimer done, onto the ranting! 

Solidifies my preference for Terry Pratchett's fantasy over his sci-fi. I was unwilling previously to come to any solid conclusion as to the strength of his sci-fi as his previous SF books are among his earliest works, but given the publishing date on the start of this series, I feel safe in saying it just doesn't have the same life as his fantasy.
 I acknowledge that the Discworld books, especially the earlier volumes are usually more about the adventure than the people involved. While wonderful exceptions in the persons of Moist Von Lipwig, Tiffany Aching and my fave, Samuel Vimes exist, personal development always felt secondary to larger social commentary, which, don't get me wrong, worked very well. 
But in this sci-fi series, about 50% of the social commentary space is now speculative science, and that combined with the very shallow reaches at interpersonal storytelling leaves it feeling a bit empty. 
I don't know the level of Stephen Baxter's influence on this overall vibe, I've never read from him solo and I could not detect a unique voice.
 Even more distressing, there's almost no evidence of the quirky, cheeky, even hilarious warmth I so love about Pratchett's writing in the Discworld series. 
This book was published between Snuff and Raising Steam so I KNOW it can't be down just to the tragedy of Pratchett's final years managing the effects of his Alzheimer's. 
As a series starter, it ends disatisfactorily, not quite on a cliffhanger, presumably to get you to read on, and because so much was covered there was no way it would all be tied up in one book. But even being desperate for those remaining works written by an author now passed, I'm not sure there's enough of his voice evident here to make me want to continue. 
This also makes me lean further towards my developing hypothesis that rather than having a preference for either sci fi or fantasy, I need works in either genre to not go so high concept that they lose moments of human warmth and humour. 
If you have an interest in archaeology/the evolution of early man, the potential of AI/reincarnation, whatever branch of physics multiverse is covered under, or politics/manifest destiny BS there's a number of interesting threads explored here. 
Do not get me started on why the two British authors decided to set not only the bulk of the action, but the bulk of the characters as American (without being able to leave some of their palpably English idioms behind)?!
Perhaps as a result of my difficulty in staying invested in the story, it struck me that the premise could make a good video game (don't trust my assessment, I never got the hang of that form of entertainment): traveling between parallel worlds, not always very different from modern earth, so not too much a strain on the design department, with an option to either explore further, encounter species, OR set up a new civilization/pioneering on a certain world. 

Perks: badass Harley riding, fed clobbering nun; robot cat that acts as a humane live trap for rodents; the times I could count on one hand that AI/reincarnated Lobsang was amusing in his incongruity i.e. sampling experiences/interacting with humans
 
Definite NOs: the ‘for the plot' basically unexamined abandoning of one kid to go off and explore the universe, a family we barely hear from in relation to this kid after the abandoning, a kid we don't hear from until the resentment has reached catastrophic proportions;
 I don't need the guy in his twenties appraising the attractiveness of the girl who ‘looked in her late teens' 😑 ; Sinister ‘paradise filter' on one world apparently ableist as well. 

Even in Ankh-Morpork, the famously corrupt city of the Discworld, I felt like the best bits of humanity were shining among the worst, and even the worst had the option for redemption.  Maybe it's a function of speculative sci fi that the worst case scenario is examined a little more often, but I felt like there were a lot less moments to remember humanity's positive as well as negative traits in this book. 

Will I eventually cave and sample the next book in the series? Probably. Although the fact that it's called The Long War is not making me more enthusiastic. 🤷🏼‍♂️