Combining the fantastical imagination of Terry Pratchett with the sci-fi skills of Stephen Baxter, The Long Earth is a great new addition to the world of science fiction. More than anything, it’s a fascinating “what if” glimpse into the discovery of a multiverse, looking at all the possibilities and problems that it would cause through a storyline that sees us travelling into a myriad new and relatively untouched earths.
The world, or more appropriately worlds that the two writers have created are based on an earth in the not too distant future in which a scientist discovers an infinitesimal number of adjacent earths that can be stepped into with relative ease. When the scientist releases the details of how to step into them on the Internet, a wave of children give the giant leap a try changing the course of history forever and sparking a voyage of discovery for many into the newfound great unknown.
The story picks up with natural stepper (someone that can make the transition without the need of a stepping device) Joshua Valienté as he is hired by a living computer called Lobsang to explore the outer reaches of what has come to be called the long earth. What follows is a modern day Jules Verne-like adventure into the worlds that stretch out in front of them, seemingly to infinity, in an air ship called the Mark Twain, which has been developed by Lobsang to be able to step rapidly through the Long Earth.
The story moves along at a good pace and there is a lot of human introspection, along social, economic, political and environmental commentary for a sci-fi novel, with some great insight into both the selfish negatives and altruistic positives of mankind. There is also a lot of mini-adventures along the way as Joshua and Lobsang stop to investigate some of the more interesting worlds from the relative comfort of their flying machine with Joshua finding himself in more than a few scrapes when he’s sent down to explore.
The Long Earth is just the beginning of the adventure though, as Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter have signed on to complete a five part series, and you’re probably better off knowing that before reading the book, so you don’t expect the full climax at the end of the novel. The writers have already followed up the first entry in the series with its sequel, The Long War, in 2013, and two more adventures, The Long Mars in 2014 and The Long Utopia in 2015. However, sadly Terry Pratchett passed away in March 2015, so didn’t get to finish the final novel with Stephen, but we’d expect that the two authors had already discussed the end of the sci-fi series prior to his death, keeping it as much of a collaboration as the first four books.
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter review: 3.8/5
