The Long Earth: (Long Earth 1)

Terry Pratchett · Stephen Baxter

June 2012 · Random House

About this eBook

'A charming, absorbing and somehow spacious piece of imagineering' Guardian
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1916: the Western Front. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong, and the wind in the leaves in the trees. Where has the mud, blood and blasted landscape of No Man's Land gone?

2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Cop Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive (some said mad, others dangerous) scientist when she finds a curious gadget - a box containing some wiring, a three-way switch and a...potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way Mankind views his world for ever.

And that is an understatement if ever there was one...
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This is the first novel in The Long Earth series.

Ratings and reviews

I last read a book by Terry Pratchett some years ago. It was a Discworld novel, but I can't remember which one. As I read The Long Earth, though, I found myself smiling on many occasions as I thought, "Ah, Terry Pratchett, how I've missed you!" Although it has its moments, this one's not nearly as funny as Discworld. But then, it's not meant to be. It's meant to be a somewhat serious look into the possibilities of Infinite Worlds. And it could happen. I don't want to give too much away, but there are plenty of "What would *I* do?" moments as our intrepid adventures travel through The Long Earth to parallel dimensions, and discover things about themselves, the world, and the meaning of life. And even though it's meant to be serious, Sir Terry just can't help put his humorous stamp on pretty much everything. I mean, the means to "Step" (which is what the book calls travelling between dimensions) is powered by a potato, for Pete's sake. I'm sure that wasn't Mr Baxter's idea!

Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett are great writers in their own right, so this collaboration draws on the strengths of both and turns out to be a clever new spin on what sci-fi means. Not only is the concept of stepping a great, new sci-fi concept, but using chapter length as a device to control the pace and energy of the story is something I haven't come across before and something that works tremendously well. It makes for a gripping read and a book you just can't put down. On to the sequel... and then the third book to be released in June.

Interesting idea. Hooked me immediately and couldn't put it down for much of the first third. But once it settled in to the second half, the story didn't seem to advance in any meaningful way until near the end when it suddenly throws a flurry of plot developments at the reader crammed into the last few dozen pages. It's almost as though it's nothing more than a needlessly long prologue to the ACTUAL story still to come in subsequent books. Still, an easy three stars for the premise and characters.

About the author

Terry Pratchett (Author)
Terry Pratchett was the acclaimed creator of the global bestselling Discworld series, the first of which, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983. His fortieth Discworld novel, Raising Steam, was published in 2013. His books have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he was the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, as well as being awarded a knighthood for services to literature. He died in March 2015.

www.terrypratchett.co.uk
@terryandrob

Stephen Baxter (Author)
Stephen Baxter is one of the UK's most acclaimed writers of science fiction and a multi-award winner. His many books include the classic Xeelee sequence, the Time's Odyssey novels (written with Arthur C. Clarke) and Time Ships, a sequel to H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine, a Doctor Who novel, The Wheel of Ice, and most recently the epic, far-future novels Proxima and Ultima. He lives in Northumberland.