The Long Earth

A Novel

De: Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter

Narrado por: Michael Fenton Stevens

The first novel in a brilliant collaboration between the visionary Discworld® creator Terry Pratchett and acclaimed science fiction novelist Stephen Baxter, The Long Earth transports readers to an infinity of new worlds—a series of parallel “earths"" with doorways leading to adventure, intrigue, excitement, and an escape into the furthest reaches of the imagination. All it takes is a single step. . . .

The possibilities are endless. (Just be careful what you wish for. . . .)

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 have 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 say 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.

The Long Earth is an adventure of the highest order and will captivate science fiction fans of all stripes, readers of Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen, and anyone who enjoyed the Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman collaboration Good Omens.

Other books in the Long Earth series include:

• The Long War
• The Long Mars
• The Long Utopia
• The Long Cosmos

An unlikely pair of authors

I love Terry Pratchett almost better than life itself. I've read a little Stephen Baxter, but nothing recently. I was a little apprehensive when I read that they were collaborating. I was afraid I'd be disappointed.

I wasn't.

The book is science fiction. It's obviously the beginning of a series, and there are lots of threads left dangling. But I really liked the idea of the multiple Earths that people suddenly learned how to "step" into. I'd've loved to have a little more actual STORY rather than just foundation-laying, but I still enjoyed the book.

The narrator does an EXCELLENT job. Again, I'm used to Nigel Planer or Stephen Briggs with Pratchett, and I was worried that I wouldn't like this narrator. But his use of voices and accents was exceptionally good, and really helped to make the characters stand out one from another. I thoroughly enjoyed his performance. Well done all around.

ONE Complaint

This was a fantastic story. Not typical Pratchett whimsy, but highly imaginative. My only gripe is with the narrator. He's really not too bad, but this is a story full of American characters and he's British. As I got deeper into the book, the bad dialects started to wear on me and I became painfully aware of the miscues. I wouldn't do well voicing 15 different British characters either. The main character is named Joshua and somewhere around the 50th time you hear it pronounced "Joshu-er" it's irritating.

Not what I expected.

The story was fair and the premise was somewhat interesting. Regrettably, I could not tell that Terry Pratchett had anything to do with this book. The wit and humor I have loved in the 30+ books of his I have read was absent. If I had been reading it as a physical book, I doubt that I would have finished.

Not a Pratchett

As a long time fan of Terry Pratchett, I can tell you that this isn't a Terry Pratchett book. At least, there is little that would cause a Pratchett fan to think so. There's no humor, no amusing human element, no charm or wit. It's a fairly flat narrative, in fact. It's a sci fi that deals with time travel and other dimensions - hardly original stuff, but not bad either. In my opinion, there are better sci fi works out there.

daydream

This has been such a great book. Well explored concept with many points of view.