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The Long Utopia  By  cover art

The Long Utopia

By: Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter
Narrated by: Michael Fenton Stevens
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Publisher's summary

The fourth novel in Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's internationally best-selling Long Earth series, hailed as "a brilliant science fiction collaboration...a love letter to all Pratchett fans, readers, and lovers of wonder everywhere" (Io9).

It's 2045-2059. Human society continues to evolve on Datum Earth, its battered and weary origin planet, as the spread of humanity progresses throughout the many Earths beyond.

Lobsang, now an elderly and complex AI, suffers a breakdown and, disguised as a human, attempts to live a "normal" life on one of the millions of Long Earth worlds. His old friend, Joshua, now in his 50s, searches for his father and discovers a heretofore unknown family history. And the superintelligent posthumans known as "the Next" continue to adapt to life among "lesser" humans.

But an alarming new challenge looms. An alien planet has somehow become "entangled" with one of the Long Earth worlds, and, as Lobsang and Joshua learn, its voracious denizens intend to capture, conquer, and colonize the new universe - the Long Earth - they have inadvertently discovered.

World building, the intersection of universes, the coexistence of diverse species, and the cosmic meaning of the Long Earth itself are among the mind-expanding themes explored in this exciting new installment of Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's extraordinary Long Earth series.

©2015 Terry and Lyn Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers

What listeners say about The Long Utopia

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

The series is losing its way

I really enjoyed the earlier books in the series, but the plot (and worse, the constant exposition) is really getting pompous. The original stories looked at a million ways society would change given the sudden ability to "step." But as the series progresses, it becomes less of the interesting "what if" and more outlandish and self-important. The performance is excellent, as usual, but by halfway through, I couldn't stop rolling my eyes at the storyline.

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

My favorite book in the series thus far.

Completely absorbing and a true testament to the creativity in people. The way the lives of the characters come together is fantastic. The end of this book is astounding and had me choked up a bit.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Wonderful world

The world built is the best part of the book, for me, and this continues to deliver on the natural consequences of an unnatural phenomenon. I would describe this series as reliable, consistent, and interesting, but not as riveting or brilliant.

Before going into the few negatives: I fully plan to finish the series and enjoy it greatly.

Some things I don't like:
The exposition is very painful. Not only do the authors assume that you have forgotten everything from book to book, or that you for some reason decided to start in the middle of a series (and all of that is forgivable), but what truly irks me is the way the exposition is shoehorned into dialog. Characters waste time saying things that everybody present already knows, or saying things their character wouldn't say, especially the Next, all for the sake of explaining things to the reader.
If you need to communicate something to the reader, just write it like you describe a planet or a person - not in dialog! Anything is better than compromising characters for that.

In the narration, characters sometimes lose their accents or voice pitches. Women become men and Nelson loses his South African accent. It's small but has given me a few moments of confusion.

The chapters also feel a bit disjointed at times, not in the way us as viewers get moved between time periods, but in the writing - it seems sometimes like chapters were written separately and out of order, then edited together, and not always enough to flow properly, leading to repeating information.

Overall, though, enjoying quite a bit. Great worldsbuilding.

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1 person found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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Waste of time

This book was absolutely insane and had some of the worst ideas about how to do things that I've ever heard. This book spreads itself too thin as well, there are tons of characters with millions of worlds and the writers decide to write in nonessential back story going back hundreds of years. So much so that you are able to skip entire chapters without missing out on any of the actual story and without being lost later on. The writing was repetitive and drawn out enough to ensure not being lost, almost as if they expected this to be a TV show with "Last time on.." segment reminders scattered throughout. I've listened to many books on Audible that I've disliked, but this is the first I've thought was so terrible that I had to review it.

Can anyone tell me what that Joshua guy was even in the book for? His character did absolutely nothing of note yet we heard his entire family history and had to sit through the reunion of him and his father.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Another good book in an excellent series.

God I love almost everything Terry Pratchett has had a hand in. I literally laugh out loud and cry real tears from these books. RIP Sir Terry Pratchett.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A rewarding ending to the series

Any additional comments?

I tremendously enjoyed the first novel, The Long Earth. Unfortunately none of the rest of the novels ever really recaptured the sense of adventure and exploration found in the first (Although The Long Mars came close)

I mostly enjoyed this last novel. It mostly answered a lot of questions raised by the first three novels, but still left a lot unanswered. I'm not sure there is much else to do with the series. But all in all it was fun to listen to and I enjoyed Michael Fenton Steven's performance.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

American accent

when affecting an American accent the British phrases and words really stuck out as wrong

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Short Review

Everything you'd expect from TP and SB. Glorious ending. I'll be subscribing to audible in order to finish the series, and I won't regret it.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

This is as good as a Disk World novel

For me this is the best of the Long World books that I have listened to. It is as good as a Disk World novel, though not funny, not fantasy, and not a spoof of a genre. I'm glad Baxter partnered with him on the series. Typically, when someone like Pratchett publishes a novel outside of his usual genre the results will be something that looks like an apprentice piece, only worth reading by fans who will read anything by the author. The Long Earth series, written by Pratchett and Baxter, is solid science fiction that I will listen to or read again in the future. They are a worthy series of books. I'm glad Pratchett got to do some science fiction.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Audible: pls stop requiring a written review

I just want to submit a quick star review, and being forced to write a headline plus 15 words min is lame

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