The Long Earth by Terry PratchettMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Jacket Blurb: The possibilites are endless. Just be careful what you wish for....)
1916: The Western Front. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong, and the wind in the leaves. Where has the mud, blood and blasted landscape of no-man's-land gone? For that matter, where has Percy gone?
2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Police officer Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive--some said mad, others allege dangerous--scientist who seems to have vanished. Sifting through the wreckage, Jansson finds a curious gadget: a box containing some rudimentary wiring, a three-way switch, and...a potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way humankind views the world forever.
The first novel in an exciting new collaboration between Discworld creator Terry Pratchett and the acclaimed SF writer Stephen Baxter, The Long Earth transports readers to the ends of the earth and far beyond. All it takes is a single step....
Read as an audio book.
Well, this was a pleasantly boring read. Not so boring that I didn't finish...though come to think of it I think I have about five minutes left to listen too. But this isn't exactly gripping. No, much like the floating zepplin our main character travels in, the book just kinda meanders along.
Since I read as an audio book, I'm going to butcher the spelling of the names - Lapsang was probably the most interesting character and he's a soul that resides in a floating ship. It's a bit more complicated than that - but he's on a mission to find the ends of the Earths. He's blunt to the point of rudeness and somewhat arrogant, which is probably the most emotion anyone shows in the whole darn book. Shimi, the ship cat, was the best surprise of all.
Joshua, our main human character. Boring. Nothing here engaged me.
Sally, a supporting character. A bit more interesting that Joshua, but her purpose seems to be to complain and rant at Joshua.
And there was a handful of other characters that held promise, but their story lines were short and left hanging.
Premise of the book is Lapsang recruits Joshua to fly with him to the Ends of the Earths as part of a research gathering trip. Joshua is Lapsang's fail safe, that if anything happens to Lapsang, it will be up to Joshua to bring back the information. As they "step" through the worlds, Lapsang regales Joshua with the history of "stepping" and what happened to whom and when. They meet fantastical beasts, dedicated pioneers, other humanoids, and ultimately, what they find is beyond comprehension.
And...it was all pleasantly boring. Now I don't need to have dramatic space opera and galactic battles in all my scifi, and I certainly don't mind a "thinking" book every now and then again, but this was just "meh". A book that if I had stop listening to at any point and picked up something else, I wouldn't have come back to finish and held no regrets in not doing so.
Definitely not for everyone, and thus, recommended with reservations.
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