SPOILERS Long Earth question/paradox (crosses all books--spoilers)

[raisindot]

I'm quoting Llaneel's excellent post from a discussion in the Non-DW books forum because he raises an excellent narrative point:

I am reading the long earth. After the first few pages, I was hooked. But......

I had to stop at chapter 25.

It is the chapter where Joshua and the ship pass over the world that was completely underwater.

I think it is world 175k+. Joshua is about to take a dip aand the ship sends an aquatic autonomous unit to check it out.

Anyway....

I could not continue. Why? Because I'm trying to figure out how the humans are getting passed this world? I understand the flying ship but what about all the humans walking?

This is a great question. If you're not a natural stepper like Joshua or Sally, and don't have access to a ship, you generally have to wait a minute or so when you step from one world to the next. But if step into this world, you're instantly underwater and likely to drown before you can step to the next place. Or what happens if you step into one of the uninhabitable worlds? Or how did they step across a "gap" world? Was that possible to do without a ship? I suppose one could argue that non-expert steppers never went beyond this particular water world--only those who could negotiate the "soft paths" did--but that seems a bit spurious.

This is a real narrative flaw that Baxter and Pterry didn't really think through.

 

[Tonyblack]

Re: Long Earth question/paradox (crosses all books--spoilers

It's something I have considered often while reading these books. The further you go the more likely you are to meet different geography. You could emerge inside a mountain, or over the equivalent of the Grand canyon. Clearly the airships work for things like this, but even Joshua and Lobsang had a problem in an airship when it emerged in a gap. We did learn that trying to Step into a place where there was, for example, a tree, meant that the stepper would be pushed to the side rather than materialising inside the tree. And we know that on Step-Day many kids broke bones after stepping from upstairs bedrooms.

I think to a degree, it's a case of accepting these potential problems. It's a Sci-Fi series and it is often the case in such series that there are inconsistencies. Another one that bugged me was in The Long Mars where they managed to get a sample of the space elevator cable - HOW? You wouldn't be able to cut such a thing with anything but specialised cutters and if the cable was severed, the whole thing would immediately shoot off into space with the cable whipping around severing anything close by.

When it come to Science Fiction, you either read it with a slight suspension of belief, or you read books by Sci-Fi authors who go into great detail explaining how something could possibly work (Arthur C. Clarke for example).

And let's face it - the whole premise of The Long Earth is highly unlikely in the first place!

 

[raisindot]

Re: Long Earth question/paradox (crosses all books--spoilers

Well, yeah, Tony, you're right...considering the incredible un-evenness of the series, the little science bugaboos were the least of its problems.

 

[Tonyblack]

Re: Long Earth question/paradox (crosses all books--spoilers

I was listening to the radio the other day and they were interviewing an author (Fredrick Forsythe I think) who said something along the lines of: you can write a story with all sorts of unlikely twists and turns and even impossible ones - but if you write that Piccadilly Circus Underground station is on the Circle Line and you will really annoy your readers. Personally, I really enjoy the sort of Sci-Fi that makes sense and, to a great degree, some of the unanswered questions in the Long Earth series, were jarring to me. The series had some interesting ideas though. The idea, for example of finding an Earth where you were the only human being on the whole planet could be an attractive idea to some - to others it would be horrifying. The spirit of adventure in the books was also something I found interesting. I was reminded of the early settlers in the Americas who set off west having sold everything and embarked on a very dangerous expedition into a new and dangerous land that many of them were totally unprepared for.

 

[raisindot]

Re: Long Earth question/paradox (crosses all books--spoilers

Yes, there were many, many things you had to "suspend disbelief" for in the series. Oddly enough, the concept of the endless series of alternate earths was one of the most plausible things about the series. It's how the humans interacted with these worlds that I often found too implausible. The idea that within 10-20 years closer worlds on either side of Datum Earth or millions of worlds away could be so built up that they were nearly copies of the Datum cities, or that iron couldn't be transported between long Earths, or that the long ships could somehow (even with Lobsang's help) do the jumps. It also didn't make that much sense to me why people wanted to travel so many worlds away from Datum Earth, when all you would need are 10-2- long Earths in total to provide nearly complete solitude for anyone who wanted it. Or why none of the trolls ever visited Datum Earth. Or why none of the other long Earths ever became a totally overpopulated and built-up world like Datum earth. Or why so little of the series ever explores the "east" worlds, where one would imagine different kinds of weirdness was going on.

To me the biggest problem of the series was there wasn't enough Nivenish-style Ringworld exploration to it. Far too much of it was wasted on long-winded, boring back stories and characters (like the insuffferable Nelson) who added nothing to it.

 

[Vimesy]

Re: Long Earth question/paradox (crosses all books--spoilers

Nelson? Remind me who he was again. I read Long Earth quite some time ago.
Anyway, my main point is that people want to point huge expeditions to explore the long earth "Because it's there," as Hillary said.

 

[raisindot]

Re: Long Earth question/paradox (crosses all books--spoilers

I can't remember how he was introduced, but Nelson was a minister of some sort who somehow got roped into the narrative. Maybe he was supposed to represent the religious/moral side of things to counter all the scientific/military/political stuff, but I would have thought that the Sister Agnes Mark 3 android would have taken care of that. Nelson was by far the most useless character of the series. Baxter spends endless amounts of precious narrative and backstory on him. I ended up skipping whole chapters where he was the main plot point. In the end he matters a teensy little bit because apparently he had a son who got taken away by one of the floating island thingamabobs and gets him back at the big floating island happy family reunion in the "Cosmos" world.

 

[Tonyblack]

Re: Long Earth question/paradox (crosses all books--spoilers

I have to agree that Nelson's part in the story never really took off.

 

[The Mad Collector]

Re: Long Earth question/paradox (crosses all books--spoilers

I have to agree that Nelson's part in the story never really took off.

and have never took off, he actually managed to go down from there