- Book 1 of 5 : The Long Earth
- Listening Length : 11 hours and 30 minutes
- Release Date : June 19, 2012
- Publisher : Harper
- Program Type : Audiobook
- Language : English
- ASIN : B008CLSUV0
- Authors : Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter
- Read by: Michael Fenton Stevens
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter is the first book in the Long Earth Series. In this book set in the near future, the design for a simple device has been posted on the internet that allows anyone to ‘step’ from the Earth to a parallel Earth, and from there to another. In fact, there may be an infinite number of these parallel Earths, collectively known as The Long Earth. One strange aspect of the Long Earth is that no other instance of the planet seems to have any human population, other than explorers and settlers that came from the original “Datum Earth.”
The story is centered around Joshua Valienté who is a natural stepper. He does not need the device to step from one Earth to another. He is enlisted to go on a journey to explore the Long Earth with Lobsang, who claims to be a Tibetan motorcycle repairman reincarnated as an Artificial Intelligence. They travel across millions of the parallel Earths, usually just passing through but occasionally stopping for more thorough investigation. They encounter a couple of other humanoid species (elves and trolls) that also have the ability to step, and many different versions of the planet. Different environments, flora, fauna, etc. though most of them, especially closer to the Datum, are similar to the original, except for the lack of humans.
I enjoyed the book. As they move from Earth to Earth we get glimpses of myriad possible worlds, but that is also the problem with the story. It moves from glimpse to glimpse without all that much story holding the glimpses together. It is mostly just movement and description of the planets and move to the next. Terry Pratchett is an incredibly witty writer. He can tie together humor and story and whimsy. He doesn’t do much of that here. It is a fine story. An interesting set of worlds to visit, but there is not an overriding reason to come back for book two in the series.
Matt Truxaw’s newest book is Monster, which released on 1/12/2026. This urban fantasy, horror, thriller will keep you turning the pages.
He is also the author of the hard science fiction thrillers: “Plastiphobia/Plastivore” and “Anthrophobia: A Teacher’s Tale”
You can find them all on Amazon in Paperback, Hardback, Kindle and/or free to read with Kindle Unlimited.
When you read any of them, he would really appreciate a review/rating on Amazon or your favorite book seller/book reader site.
More about Matt:
He was born in Orange County California many years ago and he still lives there. He has been reading books for most of those years and writing up book reviews for the last few years. He gets MANY of his books out of the library/Libby so expect a lot of old science fiction classics book reviews and other science related reviews in addition to newer books he comes across.
If you want to be ‘in-the-loop’ on these and other works, you can follow his author’s page on Amazon or his Facebook page.
For more reviews and articles by Matt here on Amazing Stories (Click here).
Monster: A Novel by Matt Truxaw
