Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter: The Long Earth

Hi again

This review is about The Long Earth; the first novel in the The Long Earth Series; a novel written by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett.
The book has 425 pages and a very beautiful cover.

 “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. Where has the mud, blood and blasted landscape of no-man's-land gone? For that matter, where has Percy gone?
2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Police officer Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive--some said mad, others allege dangerous--scientist who seems to have vanished. Sifting through the wreckage, Jansson finds a curious gadget: a box containing some rudimentary wiring, a three-way switch, and...a potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way humankind views the world forever.”

I enjoyed this novel; it is something very different from what I’m used to reading.

I thought it a very absorbing, interesting and easy read. The writing style is absolutely engaging with easy to understand information and lovely references to other cultural works, it’s very accessible. The story itself is quite fast paced.

The authors show us what these Long Earths could mean for families, politics and the world economy. And that’s a fascinating and promising idea that is cleverly worked out in this first novel in the series. It made me think about our existence on Earth and our possible futures.

The different POV’s made the idea behind the novel more real because we could see it from very, very different perspectives. A child doesn’t see the same possibilities as a politician for example. This way we know what’s going on back at Datum Earth and at other Earths.

I didn’t care for the ending though.
Other than that, I liked the novel; I just didn’t really love it.

Not an amazing novel but I am very interested in finding out where this series will go.

Happy reading.
Helena