Teaser

One day, humanity discovers the ability to Step. To shift from one version of Earth to another. With seemingly endless Earths, all uninhabited, a new age of discovery begins . . .

Review

I absolutely adore Stephen Baxter. He has a uniquely British approach to science fiction, and even after thirty years and more than fifty books to his name, he is still reliably putting out brilliant books on an almost annual basis. Put simply, I think he is one of the greatest SF writers of all time. One thing he has become famous for is working collaboratively with other authors. He co-authored a novel with Alastair Reynolds, and four novels with the legendary Arthur C. Clarke. He was also one half of the team behind The Long Earth, and for me, this is where the trouble begins. Not with Baxter, but with the other half of the team.

Look. I am British. I enjoy genre fiction. I like laughing. But I have never understood the appeal of Terry Pratchett. I read Hogfather while I was in school, and that was more than enough for me. Only Baxter (and the fact that a friend gave me the entire Long Earth series for free) could tempt me back. Unfortunately the series begins with Lobsang, a Tibetan man reincarnated into digital form, introduced to us as a vending machine. It could never really recover from that.

The problem is not just that I don’t find Pratchett funny. It’s that he won’t stop going on about his little jokes. Musings on music are bandied about as if his opinions are some universally accepted truth. Characters contort themselves out of any genuine humanity in the name of serving comedic whim. Worst of all, Pratchett’s style is clear and direct. It’s never the characters telling jokes, it’s always Pratchett. You can feel him looming over your shoulder as you read, grinning from ear to ear and expecting you to laugh at how clever his punmanship is. There’s an infuriating smugness to it all that just annoyed me.

This is also a series where Baxter is not at his best. It happens, but average Baxter is still worth reading. However, wedged in alongside whatever it is that Pratchett’s doing, there’s precious little room for Baxter’s usual flair. There were points when I wondered if the book was aimed at children, because even the simplest science concepts are overexplained, as if Baxter wasn’t trusting his audience the way he usually does. But then there’d be some swearing and I was reminded that this is ostensibly a book for grownups. Childish grownups, one must imagine. The Long Earth is a great concept, but the series constantly skips around in time and space, so you never get to fully settle in any of the new worlds. Most of them may not exist as anything more complex than one little town. The worldbuilding never amounts to much more than foundations for something grander that never materialises.

It’s strange to look back over five books and realise how little of a series has stuck with you. There’s the old saying of something being a mile wide but an inch deep, and I think that’s very much the case here. There are hints of greatness here and there. The Long Mars is a highlight in this regard because it does genuinely new things with our crimson neighbour. the politics of the original Earth that run amok in the background could have made for a great thriller. But we never get enough of the good stuff. Instead we’re taken on a whirlwind tour of incredibly bland sights, never stopping for long enough to become interested. And why would we stop? There are more jokes up ahead, after all.

This is a rare miss for Baxter, and I don’t think I can entirely label the blame at Pratchett’s feet. All I can say is that this coming together of two of Britain’s literary heroes ends up being that worst of all things: boring.

Series Stats

• A Five-Volume Series
• Published 2012-2016