The Long Earth by Terry Prachett and Stephen Baxter

[lightreads]

The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Exploration out into the wild, uncharted transdimensional earths, where something is stirring.

I wish I could blame Baxter for this, since I came into this already thinking he's a hack. But Pratchett's name is up there too, and even though I'd bet you Baxter was in the driver's seat from about the 20% mark on, when you put your name on the cover of a book, it's yours and you gotta own it.

And this is a pretty bad book to have to own. Oddly paced, anti-climactic, sociologically far-fetched. This particular iteration of multidimensional earths is such a fertile concept, though, that I would have cut it a lot of slack if it hadn't gone for a spectacular ten-seconds-to-buzzer three point shot at ablism on nearly the last page. Like, my jaw actually dropped.

The context – two characters are discussing an unusual community many dimensions away from earth. It is held up as idyllic, the sort of magical place where people who need to seem to collect. And in the context of theorizing that it represents the next stage in sociological evolution, a better kind of world, it is noted with significance that you know who never seems to end up in that community? Violent criminals, and people with disabilities.

Yep. Those dirty awful broken disabled people, gotta leave those behind right next to your rapists in order to make a better world.

Baxter I would expect this from. But Terry Pratchett, what the actual fuck?




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Comments

[marycontrary]

I feel that the 'idyllic' community was supposed to strike me as creepy based on that -- that something was collecting people on purpose, and that its exclusion of disabled people was an early warning that it was up to no good. That was one of a bunch of floating plot strands that didn't pay off, so I don't think I can make a well-supported case for my view, though.

[lightreads]

Yeah, I could be talked into that, though it'd take some work. There was a bit of footwork about how Joshua felt uncomfortable there, etc., though then again he's supposed to be uncomfortable basically anywhere within two dimensions of another functioning intelligence, so I wasn't sure what to make of that. The particular conjunction of violent people and disabilities had my eyebrows so very high, though.

Of course I didn't realize until the very last page that this wasn't a standalone. And don't think I care enough to continue, so, there it shall lie.

[kate_nepveu]

_Snuff_ made me so sad that I think I'm done with reading new Pratchett.

[sashajwolf]

Ugh, thanks for the warning.

[livingbyfiction]

I've been told that Pyongyang is a paradise that is utterly free from disabled people and violent criminals. Not creepy at all.