Discussion of "The Long Earth" by Pratchett and Baxter

[Crossroads Inc.]

Released just about a Year ago, "The Long Earth is a novel by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter that had been knocked around since all the way back during "The Color of Magic" days.

The basic idea is somewhat interesting...

A lone Scientist creates a device called a "Stepper" There is a small switch with "West-Off-East" on it. Clicking in either direction takes you to a totally new Earth, and in theory, an infinty of Earths. The "Rules" for this "Long Earth" are also interesting.

Firstly when you 'step' any iron (in metal form) gets left behind. You can mine and smelt iron on another Earth, but any Iron with you, say in the form of guns, batteries, electronics, etc simply plops down back on the Earth you came from.
Also you can only move "West and East" in a single line. So if you want to go to Earth 100,000 for instance, you have to step 100,000 times.
(this is is something that takes one band of settlers almost a year to do)
Stepping also moves you from Earth to Earth, but not in space. If I am on a three story building and Step, I am going to have a nasty full on the next planet.
Also the farther out you go from 'Earth Prime' the more strange the worlds become. (It is hinted that they follow lines of probality in terms of what can happen to a world.)

The story itself explores in some interesting ways just what this does to society. As you can imagine, Space is no longer a problem, overpopulation, resources, materials, oil. Suddenly our Earth has all the materials it could ever want. Of course there is a downside... The global Economy is depressed all over, gold, diamonds, gems and such are now almost worthless. Companies lose money as workers leave to go explore other worlds.
The central plot follows the adventure of a "Natural Stepper" (someone who can step without a box) by a huge corpororation that wants to explore, not just the 10k or 100k but far far into the "High Mega's" or over a Million Earths from ours. As one expects, the longer they go the more strange the worlds become, and the more strange things they find.

All in all it is a good read and of course leads to the question...
What would YOU do with a Stepper Box?

[Vendetta]

You missed a couple of things:

First of all, most people experience nausea on stepping, and the more steps they make in succession the worse it gets.

It's possible to step with a vehicle, as long as it has no iron components (in the book the long voyage they make is via airship)

The long earth has sapient nonhuman inhabitants with no appreciable technology, but all natural steppers, they are capable of communicating with humans. (it's actually implied that everyone is a natural stepper, the box is just a psychosematic aid, after all it is literally just a box with a switch on and a potato inside)

The sapient inhabitants of the Long Earth are migrating towards Earth Prime, it is implied that they are running away from something.



Also, the sequel, The Long War, is out, I have a copy at home but haven't started it yet. So all of this might be complete bunk by the time I've read that....

[Crossroads Inc.]

Well I did not wish to give TOO Much away, although those really aren't any big plot parts.
The "No Iron" part is something I am curious about, they use it as an excuse to keep (for the most part) People brining high technology with them, cell phones, lap tops, generators, etc. I am curious though how many HIgh Tech things today actually HAVE iron in them, even if jus ta small amount.

As for the next book "The Long War" well given how the first book ended and certain other things, I can already see what may happen in terms of those leaving Earth and those that stay behind.

Something I do like, from a Scinece stand point, is how "gradual" the transition of the Earths are. The journal of the settlers to Earth 100k (well, a bit beyond that) is a good example.

They go through a range of "Ice age" worlds, then arid desert worlds, then at last to "Corn belt" worlds. During the trip when they first go, they talk about how world by world, it gets colder and colder and colder, then snow, then ice and then whole glaciers. Then just as slowly, it starts to warm up, get hotter and hotter until the hit the arid "Minning worlds" Then (after some traveling in the mining worlds) It begins to get temperate as they approch the Corn belt worlds.

So it is interesting that clearly, the worlds are not random, they run along a very slow graduating line of "probability" in terms of changes to climate, and other outside forces. Personally I hope in the next book they go into perhaps just HOW They changes in Earths are created, and also if 'our' Earth is at the very certain.

The book only goes "West" on the trip, so the question is, is Earth 100k East the same as it is in the West? Or do you get a whole different range of probabilities?

[Argosh]

There's a next book? I thought it ended abruptly with the nuke. It'll be interesting to see where they go with the storyline, and if there is anything different in "East".

[Crossroads Inc.]

Dude Spoilers man, spoliers

[Crossroads Inc.]

Well reading the second book now, and all I have to say is "Well THAT Escalated quickly"

Next book takes place tens years after the first and, well, its "Colonial America" all over again, far off Earth declaring independence from an increasingly aggressive America. It is, well, a little insulting, I mean, the story takes place in a far future where the World over all seems far more accepting and progressive then today. Yet America (well the America of Earth Prime) is portrayed as this reactionary overbearing nation with a Bible thumping president that would make W Bush seem Liberal!

[Irbis]

Wait, how can gold lose worth if you can't bring metals with you? Or is it iron only? Because quite a lot of metals/alloys like nickel, chromium, titanium and brass can make for easy iron replacements in our technology if it's limited to iron.

[Argosh]

I think gold value dropped because everyone knew where the major deposits were historically on Earth and could find them on other Earths.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Wait, how can gold lose worth if you can't bring metals with you? Or is it iron only? Because quite a lot of metals/alloys like nickel, chromium, titanium and brass can make for easy iron replacements in our technology if it's limited to iron.

it is ONLY Iron that cannot travel between words. Within the first Days people were brining fist sized nuggets of gold back hom from Sutters smill

[Broomstick]

So.. you can't bring iron, but somehow what in your body must make the trip because if you strip all the iron out of a human body it dies, as it will no longer have hemoglobin to transport oxygen. Is that handily ignored?

[Luke Starkiller]

It's actually explicitly mentioned, in exactly that context. Elemental or alloyed iron is a no go; iron compounds, including rust, Step just fine.

[madd0ct0r]

good discussion here: http://richannel.org/collections/2012/t ... hen-baxter

[Vendetta]

I've finished the second one now.

I have to say, I felt the strongest element was when it was just being more of the first, an exploration of the long earth itself, and all the strange and wonderful things probability might throw up. A sort of Invisible Cities of Earths.

The independence story and the story of the other humanoids out in the Long Earth didn't really have much momentum, they're around for a while and then they stop, the places they play out in are more intriguing.

In that manner, it really feels like a Stephen Baxter story, because that's the sort of thing Baxter is good at.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I am a bit over half way through the second book and I tend to agree.

I keep getting this feeling that the story is just not going anywhere.
I Mean the setting for it is of course boundless, you could tell as many individual stories as you want. But the "Story" such as it is in the book doesn't really inspire, at least not in the same way as the first book. It is mostly Poltical problems going on in a ham fisted way that makes me thinks the cause of much of the problems were done just so there could BE Problems.

I mean, are we really to expect that with some settlements 10years or more old, that few had given any thought to setting up a Police force of some sort? Or Justice or courts? Or that not everyone has basments to hid from predatory stepping creatures?
The book mostly gives a "People are stupid" excuse, but the story takes place 10years after the first book, and more then 30 years after people have been stepping in general.

Curious how it finishes up, and also curious if what I feel like right now is A HUGE "Chekhovs Gun" turns out to be a dud.

[Irbis]

The "No Iron" part is something I am curious about, they use it as an excuse to keep (for the most part) People brining high technology with them, cell phones, lap tops, generators, etc. I am curious though how many HIgh Tech things today actually HAVE iron in them, even if jus ta small amount.

Not much, actually. With the rule "no pure iron" you can easily manufacture all of them, it's when you start running into things using bulk cheap iron (like railways, tanks or ships) when replacing would become problematic.

Some plot holes I have spotted in your summary:

A) no pure iron, just compounds. Ok, what happens if item is half rusty? Does it get tranported, half of item, or none? If I have brass hammer with iron core, does it go? How about human with iron bone plate?

B) You say that stepping from second floor can be bad. Ok, how they travel to ice Earths then? They have kilometres thick glaciers, do they need to build towers for safe stepping? What happens if your step ends in solid matter?

C) What exactly they mine? 96% of metal mined today is iron, with valuable metal price crash what exactly they can mine to be worth while? Also, how do they transport it? Modern furnace produces hundreds of tons of metal, do they cut it and transport it by hand?

D) Stepping predators - it's all nice and well, but how they scout the Earth prey is in? Step and step back? What stops people from simply changing area around to make simple steps useless? Build house on stilts or make earth shelter? Or even put electric/barbed wire on Earth -1 and +1 where the house is?

[Crossroads Inc.]

A) no pure iron, just compounds. Ok, what happens if item is half rusty? Does it get tranported, half of item, or none? If I have brass hammer with iron core, does it go? How about human with iron bone plate?

B) You say that stepping from second floor can be bad. Ok, how they travel to ice Earths then? They have kilometres thick glaciers, do they need to build towers for safe stepping? What happens if your step ends in solid matter?

C) What exactly they mine? 96% of metal mined today is iron, with valuable metal price crash what exactly they can mine to be worth while? Also, how do they transport it? Modern furnace produces hundreds of tons of metal, do they cut it and transport it by hand?

D) Stepping predators - it's all nice and well, but how they scout the Earth prey is in? Step and step back? What stops people from simply changing area around to make simple steps useless? Build house on stilts or make earth shelter? Or even put electric/barbed wire on Earth -1 and +1 where the house is?

A: Things get "Molecular" It parts of the story its noted that 'bits' of iron will vanish. Some of the first people who had things that had mixes of Iron wound up with them basically cut out. And its not pure iron, but metallic alloy with iron in it. SO if you had an Iron plate that was half rusty and you would step, you would end up with a pile of rust in your hands on the next world over. (Which could be used to clean iron I guess, since the iron is left behind on prime earth)

B: People traveling 'though' an ice world usually have to go around the big ice sheets, settlers had to take months traveling over land on a world without ice in order get to a location where they could safely step past glaciers and ice. As for stepping into solid matter, well its insta death

C: In the 'early days' most industry was very very small. Any ore or metal has to be carried by hand (until later when they develop transports that can step). From the books, metal is not that big an industry, it is mostly things like Lumber and food and organic products. Since Earth Prime is mostly clear cut of lumber.

D:The preds in the books stay FAR away from Earth prime, its not an issue there. In terms of attacking other Earth, it is mostly a quick "Step in a step out" scouting, and then a whole group steps in all at once. As for scape, well you can step away, but so can they. Stepping goes in a stright line, if you step, your just another world away, and Preds can easily follow you. And most 'Smart' people do move land around to make stepping harder in areas with lots of dangerous wildlife.

[Vendetta]

D) Stepping predators - it's all nice and well, but how they scout the Earth prey is in? Step and step back? What stops people from simply changing area around to make simple steps useless? Build house on stilts or make earth shelter? Or even put electric/barbed wire on Earth -1 and +1 where the house is?

There isn't a lot of conflict between humans and steppers, to be honest. They're more like "ambush the unwary and slaughter them all in their sleep" type of people. (The humanoids that can naturally step are basically capable of flint and wood tools and little beyond). (If you want real planning for transdimensional combat you want the Merchant Princes series)

They do retain, at least in the short term, a very clear picture of where the target will be in the world though, they can step out of one world in front of you and step back into it with the knife already coming towards your back (Or partway through a flying kick, you retain momentum on stepping, which means if you step into a gap, a parallel where Earth doesn't exist or isn't in the same place, you keep your angular momentum from the rotation of the earth you started from, There is such thing as a free launch).

The humanoids are effectively bounded by gap worlds, crossing them is dangerous.

[madd0ct0r]

how do people know if there's land on the other side of the step?

[Argosh]

They don't, there was that instance in the first book on the way West. Spoiler

No Earth, just vacuum.

[madd0ct0r]

so if you step and a body part hits solid matter on the other side, you loose the body part? How incredibly risky is stepping?

[Crossroads Inc.]

Not THAT Risky... If you know what you are doing.

The trip of the settlers going to world 100k+ does a very good job of going over ways of getting around Risks. For the most part, people would step (when possible) on small hills in large clearings. Geological featurs are similar from world to world, only changing over a long periord of time. The hill might not be thre in world 10,000, but it will be there for the next several 100. Also as you move down the line of words, you can see new features that you can use to step in safe clear spots.

I will be hounest, while the books go over the dangers of stepping and falling, or stepping and coming out into a dangerous world (one that has a near by volcano erupting or something like that) It does not make a specfic not of someone stepping out Halfway into something, stuck halfway in a tree or such.

It is mentioned that the very "Early days" of stepping were the most dangerous, but safe routes and zones were quickly mapped out, and in the second book, most people Stepp via special airships, avoidign most dangers all together.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Sooo.....

I finished the second book, and yeah, not exactly all that thrilling.
I get the feeling that Pratchett, for sadly obvious reasons, is trying to cram a whole series of books into just a handful.
I grew reading all the Discworld books and, while they are a large "series" each book was a single over all story. One book 'might' make refferance to things that happened in another, but for the most part it was one book per story line.
Another 'problem' (at least for me) is that the story is supposed to take place in a "Real world" set up, yet I keep coming across actions and events that make me shake my head in a 'People don't work like that' way. In Discworld books, all sorts of silly plot devices and actions could be explained away because of the primal 'makes for a better story' laws of phsyics the Discworld worked by. People as well would behave in ways 'real' people would never act, and I always could look past it because after all, it was all fantasy.
Here when I come across some of these aspects, it is jaring and snaps me out of the 'SoD' that I had set up.

But for the part, in "The Long Earth" I feel like he is trying to cram four or five books worth of 'Story' into just two or so. The first one was ok and nice, but the second one, it never seemed to follow on one set of people long enough for me to feel a real emotional connection to them.

Sure it linked the various story lines together, but there are four seperate story lines in the second book and it constantly jumps between them. For me, if you do something like that I would feel better having them spread out over two or three books, and in this it is just one. Again, for sad reasons, Pratchett may not have the time to do this...

It really makes me feel for what "could" have been if Pratchett had more time. I could easily see 'The Long Earth' be another Discworld in terms of endless story possibilities. But with his current condition, we may be lucky to get another two or three books

[Vendetta]

Nah, it's more like Baxter is rewriting the Manifold trilogy.


If anything, it's slightly less rambly and pointless than his usual work.