The Long Earth by Terry PratchettMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Reading this was a slog! I love Terry Pratchett books, and though I've never read Stephen Baxter, the combination clearly doesn't work - for me at least. As another reviewer said, the result is that it came out flat.
It is a brilliant concept, that there are endless identical, parallel worlds which we are able to 'step' to, but the writer spent too much time repetitively explaining it, and describing it, losing what could be a dynamic story in its midst. I had hoped that something amazing was going to happen at the end, but it didn't really, just the usual human destruction. And it didn't feel like a climax of any kind, it was told in the same monotonous monotone narrative used throughout the book.
There were elements where it attempted to get interesting. They kept returning to characters, but not quite building anything substantial besides the main narrative of the lead character and some strange human robot, which felt like a cross between CP3O and Hal 9000, who was unlikeable and spent most of the book over explaining everything.
It was a real shame, and I have the rest of the books in the series, but I'll be returning them to the charity shop I found them in.
Not a recommendation from me. I think people rave about it because of the authors involved, rather than on the merit of the book.
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