![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowynMy library has a new section at the very front for "new and anticipated" titles, that you have to walk through to get to the reserves and the check-out area. This is how I found out that Pratchett is writing an sf series with Baxter. The series is on book 3 and no one told me. Apparently none of y'all are as devoted Pratchett fans as I thought.
The Long Earth is nothing like the Discworld books: it's arguably fantasy rather than sf, but it's definitely not humor. It's mostly about exploration and social/political/cultural change in the face of new technology. The premise is that mankind discovers how to travel to an apparently infinite series of parallel Earths by "stepping", one Earth at a time to the next Earth over. There are two directions of travel, arbitarily labelled "east" and "west". All of the parallel Earths (at least at first) appear to be devoid of human or other civilization: they're untamed wildernesses.
A lot of the book is about how humanity reacts to this development, which gives the reader plenty of time to consider the authors' various assumptions about human behavior and desires. In my case, this was way too much time to think about it. I could suspend disbelief and accept the parallel Earths without difficulty, but I frequently found it hard to accept the authors' portrayal of its impact. Various details, large and small, would throw me out of the narrative, over and over again.
Some things I liked about the book: the nuns who raised one of the protagonists were quirky, entertaining, and believable, though seen almost entirely through the lens of the protagonist's memories rather than directly. There were rival interests at work in the book, but few villains. The heroism displayed by some of the characters was understated and delightful for that.
But around page 200 or so, I was mostly bored by the book. I didn't feel engaged by the characters and the central mysteries didn't seem to be getting anywhere. I considered dropping it and reading something else. I forgot to bring it with me to read at lunch. Still, I persevered and it did get better towards the end, but I'm ambivalent about reading the sequel. The sequel is The Long War, and the general lack of war in the The Long Earth was one of the things I liked about it. Lut read both and wants to read The Long Mars, but he admits that if this had been the first Pratchett novel he'd read, it might've been the last.
I'm not disappointed that the book isn't humor: I didn't expect it to be, and I tend to like Pratchett books better when he's not trying so hard to be funny. I just didn't find this particular book that engaging. I might give the sequel a shot anyhow -- like I said, it got better towards the end -- but this one comes in at 6, and I'm planning to read something different next.
The Long Earth is nothing like the Discworld books: it's arguably fantasy rather than sf, but it's definitely not humor. It's mostly about exploration and social/political/cultural change in the face of new technology. The premise is that mankind discovers how to travel to an apparently infinite series of parallel Earths by "stepping", one Earth at a time to the next Earth over. There are two directions of travel, arbitarily labelled "east" and "west". All of the parallel Earths (at least at first) appear to be devoid of human or other civilization: they're untamed wildernesses.
A lot of the book is about how humanity reacts to this development, which gives the reader plenty of time to consider the authors' various assumptions about human behavior and desires. In my case, this was way too much time to think about it. I could suspend disbelief and accept the parallel Earths without difficulty, but I frequently found it hard to accept the authors' portrayal of its impact. Various details, large and small, would throw me out of the narrative, over and over again.
Some things I liked about the book: the nuns who raised one of the protagonists were quirky, entertaining, and believable, though seen almost entirely through the lens of the protagonist's memories rather than directly. There were rival interests at work in the book, but few villains. The heroism displayed by some of the characters was understated and delightful for that.
But around page 200 or so, I was mostly bored by the book. I didn't feel engaged by the characters and the central mysteries didn't seem to be getting anywhere. I considered dropping it and reading something else. I forgot to bring it with me to read at lunch. Still, I persevered and it did get better towards the end, but I'm ambivalent about reading the sequel. The sequel is The Long War, and the general lack of war in the The Long Earth was one of the things I liked about it. Lut read both and wants to read The Long Mars, but he admits that if this had been the first Pratchett novel he'd read, it might've been the last.
I'm not disappointed that the book isn't humor: I didn't expect it to be, and I tend to like Pratchett books better when he's not trying so hard to be funny. I just didn't find this particular book that engaging. I might give the sequel a shot anyhow -- like I said, it got better towards the end -- but this one comes in at 6, and I'm planning to read something different next.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-07-30 07:13 pm (UTC)* Main character was too Superior.
* Book was sprinkled with lots of possibilities not pursued.
* Pacing was painful; past a point, some elements were starting to get repetitive.
* Conflict felt almost nonexistent at first, then kind of forced in toward the end, and then anticlimactic in its presumed "resolution."
* Might've had Pratchett's name on the cover, but didn't "feel" Pratchett except in little bits and pieces.
Regards the willful suspension of disbelief when it comes to major global paradigm shifts, I feel like the burder is lesser when: 1) The paradigm shift is FRESH AND NEW, and we can't expect anyone to have adapted to it yet. 2) The paradigm shift is promptly accompanied by moving the viewpoint character(s) AWAY from the familiar world (e.g., to some other planet, so we won't directly see what's going on back on Mundane Earth). OR, 3) We move far enough into the future, and the history is vague enough that we can forgive the writers and imagine that whatever we expect should have happened in reaction to the Global Paradigm Shift, perhaps that happened somewhere in the timeline and just hasn't been MENTIONED in this story because we're too busy with other things.
Otherwise, I find myself reading stories with some major thing that shakes up the world, and I'll fixate over some petty point.
But ... I'm a little LESS likely to do that if the characters are engaging. I didn't read this myself, but I gathered from Gwendel's take that the characters either weren't all that enthralling, or whenever they were, we didn't get to stick with them for very long before moving on to another viewpoint. A good story and good characters can make me forgive any gaping holes in the plot (at least partially) or the "technology" of the setting. I would EXPECT Pratchett to have that covered, but I'm guessing he wasn't in best form here in that regard, and the "Sci-Fi Idea" crowded out proper character development.