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2013 Book Review #11: The Long Earth
Title: The Long Earth
Authors: Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
Genre: Near-term world hopping sf
Thingummies: 1.5
Synopsis: There are parallel Earths devoid of people. That's it, really--nothing actually happens.
Thoughts: You know how famous authors will occasionally complain about how readers will come up to them at cons and tell them that they have this amazing idea for a book; the author should write the reader's idea, and then they can split the money. The moral to this kind of story is always that this is a ridiculously ignorant concept--ideas are easy, it's execution that's hard.
This is a novel in which two extremely prolific authors forgot this.
Well, to be honest, calling this a "novel" strikes me as generous. There are some people in it; I've seen ten page short stories that featured more memorable characters with better developed arcs. Some things happen, but they're not really so much a plot as just some events, with some slightly bigger events kinda near the end that don't actually resolve anything. There are settings--oh, so many settings. But while each one has the potential to be a thought experiment, in actuality, each one receives a brief description and no development. Most role-playing supplements do a better job of creating intriguing worlds. More than anything else, this feels like a novel-length list of ideas for a forty book series, each of which could be developed into a story but hasn't been yet.
The book concludes with a note that the story begins in Madison, WI, because the authors were there for a con and so could do research. I would have guessed that they looked at Google Maps for five minutes, for all the individuality the Madison setting displays. Umm, there's a government building. And some cafes. And I think there was a lake or something.
This is a terrible thing to say, but I'm kind of hoping that Pratchett only agreed to this because he was worried about having enough money for his medical care and was hoping he could get a couple bucks more for his heirs out of this.
I have more to rant about, in far more specificity--from the incredible lameness of the ending to the number of issues raised and then never resolved to various gaping plot holes to the sheer number of potentially interesting ideas that are somehow presented in a way that make them completely uninteresting and then dropped. Because honestly, this book pissed me off in its incredible waste of potential. But you know what? It's not actually worth anyone's time. Mine to write them, or yours to read them. And certainly it's not worth your time to read the book itself.
Authors: Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
Genre: Near-term world hopping sf
Thingummies: 1.5
Synopsis: There are parallel Earths devoid of people. That's it, really--nothing actually happens.
Thoughts: You know how famous authors will occasionally complain about how readers will come up to them at cons and tell them that they have this amazing idea for a book; the author should write the reader's idea, and then they can split the money. The moral to this kind of story is always that this is a ridiculously ignorant concept--ideas are easy, it's execution that's hard.
This is a novel in which two extremely prolific authors forgot this.
Well, to be honest, calling this a "novel" strikes me as generous. There are some people in it; I've seen ten page short stories that featured more memorable characters with better developed arcs. Some things happen, but they're not really so much a plot as just some events, with some slightly bigger events kinda near the end that don't actually resolve anything. There are settings--oh, so many settings. But while each one has the potential to be a thought experiment, in actuality, each one receives a brief description and no development. Most role-playing supplements do a better job of creating intriguing worlds. More than anything else, this feels like a novel-length list of ideas for a forty book series, each of which could be developed into a story but hasn't been yet.
The book concludes with a note that the story begins in Madison, WI, because the authors were there for a con and so could do research. I would have guessed that they looked at Google Maps for five minutes, for all the individuality the Madison setting displays. Umm, there's a government building. And some cafes. And I think there was a lake or something.
This is a terrible thing to say, but I'm kind of hoping that Pratchett only agreed to this because he was worried about having enough money for his medical care and was hoping he could get a couple bucks more for his heirs out of this.
I have more to rant about, in far more specificity--from the incredible lameness of the ending to the number of issues raised and then never resolved to various gaping plot holes to the sheer number of potentially interesting ideas that are somehow presented in a way that make them completely uninteresting and then dropped. Because honestly, this book pissed me off in its incredible waste of potential. But you know what? It's not actually worth anyone's time. Mine to write them, or yours to read them. And certainly it's not worth your time to read the book itself.