The Long Earth

author: Terry Pratchett

name: Wayne

average rating: 3.67

book published: 2012

rating: 3

read at: 2013/08/08

date added: 2013/08/11

shelves:

review:

For Terry Pratchett fans, this book will feel like a disappointment. When I think of writers who should collaborate with Sir Terry, I confess that Stephen Baxter is not a name that lept readily to mind. Having said that, The Long Earth is an interesting book, and ultimately a rollicking adventure about the desire to explore and discover.



Instructions for a simple, but mysterious box (powered by a potato) show up, and children build it. When they throw the switch, they find themselves on an alternate Earth. This box is called a stepper and it's discovery opens up pioneering and exploring to alternate earths. There are folks who are natural "steppers." Able to go between worlds without machinery or the subsequent nausea of the travel, but most are reliant on the simple boxes with the potatoes.



Without spoiling too much, there is an aloof, but likeable, hero, an artificial intelligence that is charming (overly so at times), and a journey to discover what lies on all these parallel worlds. Think of it more as a sociological or anthropological journey, rather than one with a military conflict, and you may find yourself enjoying the journey, drifting above parallel earths flashing by and changing. I really did enjoy it, but it is different, and when it is all said and done, not a lot has happened (at least after the initial discovery of all those earths).





via Wayne's bookshelf: read http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/667155964?utm_medium=api&utm_source=rss