And for reasons more to do with continuity than plot, Joshua Valiente and the now multiverse-spanning artificial intelligence known as Lobsang are once again embarking on a jolly. Which is all well and good; as a continuation and expansion of the world-building masterclass that was The Long Earth, it works perfectly well.
The problem is, I’m not sure that’s really what the franchise needed at this point; it certainly isn’t what the title leads us to expect – and therein hangs the source of my uncertainty about this book. It’s not that it’s a bad book as such; it’s just… somewhat disappointing on a number of levels.
To start with the elephant in the room: There. Is. No. War.
There are rumours of war, some sort of Long Earth Cold War, maybe, but… no. The title just doesn’t reflect the content of the story, and maybe that just set me up to be disappointed by the book as a whole.
I said in my review of The Long Earth that both Pratchett and Baxter have written stuff that I didn’t much care for, as well as stuff I’ve absolutely loved; and as if to prove that point, they join forces and put out a mediocre sequel to their first collaboration. There just isn’t enough depth to this beyond the world-building, which is a shame.
There were some nice ideas – like how those in power want to exert their control over a group of ex-pats a million worlds away based on something as arbitrary as geography – that didn’t quite get explored deeply enough; and there were other things, like the Chinese expedition to East five squillion or something, that filled pages without really adding to what plot there was.
Given that this is not the last book in the series, I remain hopeful that volume three will live up to its potential and redeem the series for me.
So, I liked it, but it doesn’t add enough to the first book for me to give it a resounding thumbs up – at least, not yet. It was just good enough for me to go on to book three, The Long Mars, and see if the wider story can live up to its potential – but if nobody goes to Mars, we’re through.