The Long Utopia - No spoilers

[The Mad Collector]

OK first up this book has been out for a while and no thread has been created to discuss it. I can't be the only one here who has read it surely

The Long Earth series has been a bit of a roller coaster ride with frankly a lot more down than up until now. Inexplicable plot leaps, poor characterisation and what appeared to be a general conflict between the writing styles of the two authors has led to a series that I know a lot of people have given up on usually after the first book and most likely after the second. It has been extremely frustrating if like me you like the works of both authors to see something clearly not working. Having said that The Long Mars was good for most of the book only really falling apart near the end as though the two authors couldn't agree on how to wrap the story up and The Long Utopia is much better.

This time the characters feel more complete and properly researched with back story that at least makes sense within the context of a science fiction book; especially in the part which must have used some of Terry's research for one of his other non-Discworld works. Still not sure I like the ending, but overall this was a far better book than the three that went before it but unfortunately reading this one will make no sense if you haven't fought your way through what came before.

So has anyone else read this book?

 

[Tonyblack]

Yep, I read it. I actually tried to prepare myself by reading the previous books before Utopia came out, but didn't get around to rereading Mars. I have to say that I did enjoy the books a lot more on the second reading - although I'm not sure I'd bother again. Once I finished Utopia, I started again on Mars.

Regarding Utopia - I agree the ending was disappointing. I think this is because they were setting up the last of the books. But I did enjoy the book. The whole thing about the Victorian steppers and how they fell out of favour was very interesting, but I did see it coming. The rescue was a bit of a surprise as well. I liked the fact that these steppers were somewhat dodgy - it would have been too easy to make them pillars of society. It was good that we got some background of both Joshua and Sally's ancestors. Having said that, the whole business of Nelson doing this research felt a bit contrived, just to get the history in place.

I particularly liked the glimpses we got of the post Yellowstone Earth and how that major natural event changed the planet so completely. It's a sobering thought that, with all the worry about man-made climate change and how we need to do something about it - Nature could and probably will cause much of the planet to be uninhabitable all by itself. And we don't have other Earths to escape to.

I enjoyed the sections about the beetle creatures smashing one of the Long Earths to bits to harvest the raw materials - using a Dyson motor so as to have material for a Dyson sphere. That was real, good old fashioned, Science Fiction. It was a very interesting way of colonisation.

And I also enjoyed George/Lobsang and Agnes's retirement as pioneers. Of course that was never going to last.

This book had a lot in it. Almost too many strands to try to follow. Yes, it explained a lot and also took the reader a lot further. I think the last book, when it comes out, will be a nice ending to the series. If Stephen Baxter continues with the series after that, I doubt very much that I will continue.

 

[raisindot]

Agree with Mad that this has been a totally inconsistent series. The first book was pretty good because it kept things simple. The second book was terrible, a long-winded snooze with too many characters, too much exposition, and a climax that was a complete snoozer. The third book was much better, since it largely eschewed endless backstories and exposition and focused on plot. An outlandish plot, but it (mostly) worked.

Now The Long Utopia. It's definitely mixed. The central "story" about the beetles is pretty interested even if the resolution is a little bit half-assed (I for one do not believe that we have seen the last of Sally, Stan or Lobsang Mark 10). The best thing Baxter (and I truly believe at this point that Pterry had very little to do with the writing of this one) with the beetles is give them "human" masks and a propensity for "play." This made them something more than mindless Borg wannabees. I imagine the beetles used the "masks" as a very quaint way of trying not to look "too alien" to the humans. Although I feel there are just endless numbers of plot holes in this story. For example, why are the beetles terraforming Planetarium if they can beathe in space (as the end of the book seemed to indicate)? And why tear apart a perfectly habitable long earth like wossisname that they could have used as a base for further expansion and simply gutted the moon and all of the other rocky planets for spare material to "fund" their expansion int our neighborhood? And certainly if the beetles could step from their world to the Long Earth, they would have seen many humans stepping to other long Earths. So why didn't they start stepping to the other Long Earths a lot earlier? And if they had been building their Dyson motor long before the first Earthers got here, why wasn't the entire planet crawling with beetles? They weren't afraid of humans, so why hide out in a cellar, when they were clearly working in every part of the planet?

I also found the Valiiente backstory to be largely uninteresting and overly written. My guess is that Pterry, who loved Victorian literature, wants this here. But it didn't add much and contradicted the whole setup of the first book that suggested that Joshua Valiente "introduced" stepping to the world as a reality even though a few people (Sally and a couple early steppers) had done it before. The Valiente backstory poses that hundreds--maybe thousands--of steppers were living in the Victorian age and their inbreeding program bred hundreds more. It's inconceivable that a "secret" like stepping would have remained out of the public consciousness until the beginning of the 21st century.

Finally, there was too much emphasis on unimportant characters. Do we really need yet more Nelson, one of the more tiresome characters of the series? Couldn't Rocky have been ditched as soon as Stan's arc fell into full swing? Why so much time devoted to the stupid robo-cat?

Much of the writing was incredibly awkward with far too much description. Did we really need pages of description of post-Yellowstone Datum London? Or of the "Long Bronx" when Joshua was visiting his father? DId we really need characters to endlessly speak exposition dialogue relating what happened in previous books?

The good things in the book were very good, but there was just so much dross. And the whole thing did seem to be a setup for the last book. I think it would be neat if beetles were discovered carving up other Long Earths (either having already started stepping along the Long Earth trail or "south stepping" from "Long Planetariums" and somehow the humans, trolls, Beagles, kobolds, Next and Singulars all had to work together to get rid of them. But in a politically correct, friendly, non-violent and peacefully negotiated settlement, of course.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Well, I've now read this one... and unfortunately, I have to agree that it's a mixed bag. Even so, it was a lot better than "The Long War", which was the last book in this series that I read. I skipped "The Long Mars" and went straight ahead to TLU.

I thought the background exposition about Joshua's and Sally's families was interesting. The Victorian stuff (I can definitely recognise Terry's hand in that!) was a little off-putting, since it contradicts what we were told in "The Long Earth", but fun nonetheless.

The three intersecting subplots were good, and I had no trouble following up what's what and who's who. They reminded me more of scenes in a film rather than chapters in a book. I also didn't mind Nelson's research scenes, even if I could expect them.

i wasn't too upset to see Sally and Stan go. Like Cuddy in "Men at Arms", Stan was a peripheral character that we never got to see much or form an attachment to. On the other hand, Sally always struck me as an unsympathetic character, so I never had too much sympathy for her. I don't think she'll come back from falling into a stream of lava. If she does come back in The Long Cosmos, then I don't think I'll read any further.

I'm not sure why, but the idea of the beetles overrunning New Springfield, and blowing up the planet, reminded me - just a little - of the Zerg in the game Starcraft. Does anyone agree?

All in all, TLU is certainly not perfect, but a huge improvement on "The Long War". I haven't read "The Long Mars" yet - is it worthwhile?

 

[Tonyblack]

I enjoyed The Long Mars a lot.

 

[raisindot]

The Long Mars is leagues better than The Long War because it is largely plot-driven. Character development and endless exposition take a back seat to a Niven-esque "Ringworld" hard-science type narrative, which is a virtue. To me, it's the second best book in the series (so far).

 

[Penfold]

I'm afraid I gave up a little way into 'The Long War', - I just put it down and never picked it up again.

 

[janet]

I'm afraid I gave up a little way into 'The Long War', - I just put it down and never picked it up again.

I did exactly the same and left it at that for months before going back, starting at the beginning and reading it right through. I was surprised that I enjoyed the book after that shaky start but it was worth the effort. I'm now almost finished The Long Mars.