The Long Earth - Pratchett / Baxter

[ffutures]

OK, that was actually pretty good - it's more reminiscent of Pratchett's early SF than the Discworld stories, and the humour is much more low-key, and not the main point of the plot, but it's a good read and doesn't seem to suffer from Baxter's participation.

As I said in one of the comments to a previous post, this is an idea that Terry had in the eighties, wrote a large chunk, then found that his publishers wanted him to concentrate on more Discworld since sales were pretty much guaranteed. Baxter seems to have done a reasonably good job of writing around the bits that Terry did (and no, I don't know where things begin and end, except that I spotted a few ideas that Terry told me about back then, such as a church that worships God as a confidence trickster).

If you want something to compare it to, the Merchant Princes series by Charles Stross has a slightly similar premise, except that in The Long Earth most of the world's population is travelling into parallel worlds that are initially empty of humanity - one of the central ideas is that intelligence is evolutionarily very unlikely, and evolution is a lot more chaotic than we generally think, so timelines with intelligent life are extremely rare. There are intelligent alternatives, just nothing human.

The plot is basically a voyage of discovery, with some action, stories of how people adapted to the changes caused by dimensional travel, and occasional humour. It isn't going for continuous comedy, as in the Discworld books, but it was never meant to. It ends with the main problem of the story resolved, and a slightly clunky "come, Watson, the game's afoot" riff at the end to possibly pave the way for sequels.

Bottom line, I enjoyed it - it's not going to change anyone's life, but it's reasonably good fun. Recommended.

Comments

[mymatedave.livejournal.com]

A very good book, and if you're interested in a new one to read, I'd recommend John Scalzi's new book, Redshirts.

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It's a prestige posting, and Andrew is even more delighted when he's assigned to the ship's Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn't be better . . . although there are a few strange things going on . . . :

(1) every Away Mission involves a lethal confrontation with alien forces

(2) the ship's captain, the chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these encounters

(3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.

A very clever, witty story that while it gets meta, buys into the concept fully and deals with the consequences as well.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

You really want to see Spock in Manacles: The Musical...

http://www.lxnen.com/rogerbeccon/B/plays.html

[chuk-g.livejournal.com]

I thought about the same -- the setting it reminded me of (a little) was GURPS' Infinite Worlds. Liked it, definitely worth reading, but not as amazing as most of the good Discworld books or Good Omens. I'll get the next one if there are more.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

If you haven't already read them, Pratchett's other early SF is well worth reading - Strata in particular, and The Dark Side of the Sun also has some very good points.

[danel4d.livejournal.com]

It really does read to me like a hybrid of Pratchett and Baxter - a good thing, since I've always liked the idea of Baxter, but never really been able to get into any of his stories.