Yes, in that order.
So I’ve had it on my mind to read The Long Earth collaboration between Stephen Baxter & Terry Pratchett for several years, and recently found the time/space between other books to finally tackle this one.
However…
Due to a tagging/metadata error on my ebook library, I mistakenly had the 3rd book (The Long Mars) labelled as the first book (The Long Earth). Being largely oblivious to this error, I proceeded to get to the end of the book before even realising. After this I proceeded to backfill the missing 2 books.
This definitely created an interesting first reading impression. I remember distinctly thinking it was a very unique way to tell a story with so many elements referencing past experiences/events that go largely unexplored, leaving a massive amount of the exposition and worldbuilding up to the reader to interpret and accept right from the get go. This is then explained much more naturally when you consider there are 2 whole books worth of content they are referring back to! I actually quite enjoyed this process of reading. It really added to the mystery of the novel and its characters & events, and then allowed me to step back in time to fill in the backstory almost like an unintentional prequel novel (though granted with a mild to moderate scattering of spoilers to the plot).
As for the story itself, I’m somewhat conflicted.
Pros & Cons
The world and concepts set out in the story is fascinating. A lot of thought has clearly gone into the implications that seemingly simple concept of “stepping” would have on society as we know it and it really makes the story surprisingly relatable in its telling (something we sometimes forget in SciFi when we start strapping the latest giant death laser to our planet sized space stations). It allows the authors to tell a grounded story about people, while also retaining the wonder and fascination of exploring the unknown. Combine this with a fairly strong cast of unique and (more importantly) actually interesting characters and The Long Earth has all it needs to draw you into its story.
I found the overall pacing of the books quite pleasant and relaxing, never really dragging its feet through long tedious sections for long, and rarely accelerating to a breakneck pace (though this wasn’t always necessarily a good thing, see below). Overall, I had a very easy time picking up and reading the TLE in short sittings at lunch over several weeks.
That all being said, there are some issues I have. First and foremost, if you are expecting a fresh Pratchett series in the vein of Discworld, this absolutely isn’t it. I’m not overly familiar with Baxter’s work, but I am assuming he took the lead in terms of this project. Unlike Good Omens, there is none of Pratchett’s signature absurd humour here, and if his name wasn’t on the front of it, I’d never have guessed he was even involved.
Also, I have felt a bit of a trend now after reading through 3 books, that the story’s climax kinda just seems to… flop (cue childish sniggering). While excellent at building tension and motion towards something big happening in each book, when the story reaches that apex, it’s seemingly resolved almost comically quickly in the space of a few pages, and we’re straight into the aftermath in the next chapter. Equally annoyingly seemingly Earth shattering events have a tendency to happen in the closing chapters of each book, only for the next book to pick up after a considerable time jump, leaving the actual resolution of these crises to be told in the form of a retrospective.
I’m not sure if this is a deliberate stylistic choice, but it does feel somewhat unsatisfying in terms of plot resolution. I’ve ended up thinking “That’s it?” at the end of each book, when the pieces being set up promised so much more in terms of an exciting resolution. Part of me hopes this is all setting the pieces for some mega ending in book 5, but I’m at least sceptical at this point.
Overall I’m pleasantly enjoying The Long Earth, and will read the last 2 books. But the series hasn’t grabbed me and dragged me into a Blitzkrieg binge read to find out what happens next in the way some other series has, which is a shame given the high hopes I had.
Score
Because what’s a review without reducing a complex piece of fiction down to an arbitrary rating out of 10:
6/10