Some of you will know I'm a big fan of Terry Pratchett. I've read most of his many books. Most of those are set in a place called the Discworld where magic plays a strong part. He's written other books that are set in different worlds, including our own. The Long Earth series were a collaboration with Stephen Baxter. I'm not sure I've read any of his own books, but I read the original Long Earth a few years back. I saw this one on offer on Google and gave it a try.
The Long War takes place some time after the first book. I'll admit I don't remember all the details of that one and I may have to re-read it when I find time. This is a sprawling tale of many threads. The premise is that humanity discovers that our world is one of many parallel Earths, each in their own universe, and it is possible to 'step' between them. This opens up a whole new frontier of opportunities and millions of people choose to seek a new life on a fresh planet. That upsets those who want to stay behind as they lose a lot of the best people and they seek to keep some control. It's mostly set around the USA where the government declares it controls all the parallel equivalents and expects some taxes from the pioneers.
It's not all politics. This story explores artificial intelligence, diverging evolution and other possible lines it could take. The end result may not always be us.
You have to pay attention as it follows several sets of people who don't cross paths that often. There's lots of detail and some of the personalities don't really stand out enough to be memorable. There are lots of fascinating ideas about the implications of this scenario and I can see the writers had fun with that. It's not as funny as an average Pratchett book, but there are a few details that show his touch. I don't know how they split the writing and planning.
I did enjoy the book and will try to read the other three books in time. I need to not leave it so long, so I keep track of what was going on.
Until someone comes up with a Steem-based alternative I'm logging what I read on Goodreads. If you share my tastes then you may want to follow me there. It can be useful to get suggestions of other books, but I have such a backlog that's not a serious issue for me. My current stack of books will last me at least the rest of this year.
Steem on!
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