Book Review - The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

Terry Pratchett is one of my favourite authors and I have been a fan of his books since I was about fifteen.  I love the way he writes – he writes with a delightful humour, his books are light, fun reading and he paints fascinating and intriguing worlds.  The characters are loveable and funny – they utter some wonderful lines and every now and then give me a good old LOL.  So I was looking forward to reading this science fiction venture he co-wrote with Stephen Baxter, but I found it a huge disappointment.  It lacked humour, the characters weren't easy to like and the usual clever way Pratchett plots his stories was missing.  The story is really an ode to evolution – more philosophy than science fiction adventure – and with a strong anti-God and anti-Christianity message.  This was what turned me off the most.

I am writing this assuming the reader already is familiar with the book - spoiler alert.

This imaginary world of a Long Earth – millions of other earths that you can just step between, one after the other in a chain - raises all kinds of fascinating questions.  What would become the new valuables if suddenly everybody could access as much gold, silver etc as they want?  Would people keep working for other people if they could go off on their own and be self-sufficient?  What would happen to technology – would we still need it with abundant natural food supplies?  Would we go backwards and return to being simple hunter-gatherers?  Would we stop living in cities and instead spread out and roam endlessly across the earths?  The book touched on each of these and they are all very interesting ideas.  But on the other hand it's a premise that kind of kills itself as a concept for a novel.  Unlimited resources eliminate problems thus removing large scale challenges, dangers and consequently - excitement. 

The two main characters are Lobsang and Joshua.  Lobsang is an omnipotent computer program with the mission to explore the Long Earth.  He is a machine who has been given the legal definition of a human being by the courts.  Now, the authors could have treated this character and his premise as a satire of the modern human rights movement and our court systems.  Or, they could have treated him as a mystery we were challenged to unravel – is he really a reincarnated Tibetan, or is he a very clever computer fooling us all?  Instead he seems to be a poor attempt at a joke and a vehicle for narration.  Often he is like an alien being learning to be human, although this doesn't make any sense – other times we are reminded of his Tibetaness.  

Joshua, we are told, is special - unique, a hero, a celebrity, a legend.  Unfortunately he does very little to show or prove to us he is worthy of legendary status.  Sure, he is a reluctant hero, but just why everybody is in awe of him, and Selena and Sally are jealous of him, is hard to fathom.  People are amazed he can step without getting sick – so what?  The colonists easily overcome this by taking tablets.  He despises being around people in the beginning of the book, and is condescending when rescuing the first stepping children.  He's irritated because Sarah doesn't sing like he tells her to, instead she starts praying.  When the others join in he tells them to shut up.  "And I thought she was clever," he thinks.  He's awkward with Selena because "he hasn't had much time with women".  Are nuns not women?  The nuns he was raised by are his best friends.  He constantly thinks about them and talks about them and it's them he misses when away from the Datum.   Our hero is a loner, but oh what a dreadful thing for the male protagonist to be a virgin – the authors feel it necessary to let us know early on that although he prefers to be as far away from humanity as possible, don't worry, he has in fact had a few "brief relationships with pleasure."  Not relationships with people – no, the most essential requirement for humanity is to have had some – no matter how brief – relationship with "pleasure".

We are introduced to various characters who don't seem to have an awful lot of point to them, especially when some of them aren't heard from again.  We step from Jim Russo to Hermione Dawes to the Green family to some Australian Aborigines.  Cop Monica Jansson investigates the emergence of stepping then almost completely fades out of the story only to reappear at the end dealing with the final drama.  This last crisis is a predictable terrorist plot which lacks any real sense of suspense or danger.  It is far too easy to just "step" out of harm's way.

Lobsang and Joshua travel through the multiple earths, finding the majority of them to be inhabitable, or at the very least to have breathable air.  Lobsang declares that he has been expecting an earth without a moon – "After all, the moon was itself a contingency, an outcome of accidental collisions during the creation of the solar system."  But still our heroes only encounter one "Gap" where there is no earth.  In my opinion, this is unrealistic and improbable.  If these millions of alternative earths had evolved randomly in alternate dimensions, a large percentage of them would be unsuitable for human life, and in fact, not even there.  If the earth is a result of random explosions and collisions, surely it is itself a contingency.  Joshua and Lobsang should have come across a lot more Gaps, and a lot more earths without oxygen, without gravity, too cold, too something for Joshua to be able to leave their ship.  The suitability of the earth for human life is extremely unique in the universe.

The Long Earth seems to be a kind of utopia in the authors' eyes – a dream of a perfect future where we evolve into superior beings and everyone happily does as they like.  Those who can't step – and who spout biblical rhetoric – are the evolutionary errors who will quickly become extinct.  Joshua is an example of the future of mankind with his natural stepping ability - this is pointed out by one of his Catholic nuns.  Humanity is inherently good – crime is caused by overcrowding and deprivation, definitely not by basic human nature.  With unlimited resources humans will be good and not kill each other.  Crime is caused by social pressures, therefore there is very little crime outside the Datum earth where resources are huge and people are scarce.  Monica tells us that it's a lie to say that crime has increased because of stepping.  It's her opinion that burglaries/rapes/murders/attacks-by-stepping are more "urban fears" than reality.  The fact that practically anyone can easily get into any building anywhere anytime by stepping hardly seems to concern her.   

The authors display a conspicuous hatred of Christianity.  All the main characters are atheists who revel in evolution and delight in its wonders, even the reverends and nuns.  (The nuns are pretty cool – the most likeable characters in the book, although as confused about Christianity as Pratchett and Baxter).

The novel's villain is Brian Cowley, a man opposed to stepping.  Lesbian cop Monica despises him quite passionately.  She sees him "spewing out his manipulative bile, folksy homespun anecdotes hiding some smart, but very divisive and dangerous politics."  Apparently, hatred "seeped like sweat out of the guy's face."  Strong words from Monica.  If there were millions of alternative earths and we could just step between them, to do so would be perfectly natural.  Of course, anyone who couldn't step would also naturally resent those who could.  But Brian is a bad guy and he stirs up violence.  The authors give him the same words to say regarding people who step as Christians use to describe homosexuality - unnatural, abomination, unholy.  The word God uses to describe the act of same-gender sex is detestable or abomination (Leviticus 18:22).  Whether or not it's right for Christians to go around calling people abominations could be an article in itself.  But the point I'm making is that the book implies that Christians are as foolish, and evil, as the ridiculous Brian and need to be harshly opposed.  Even though they will all soon become extinct like Neanderthals. 

We meet Hermione Dawes in chapter ten where she leaves her job as secretary to the prime minister and steps out into the Long Earth.  She is fifty-something, never married and happy about that.   It's an interesting introduction to her... but to what purpose?  All we see of her again is a brief reappearance in chapter eighteen where she is married to a "cowgirl".  Did the Long Earth help her suddenly realise she was gay?  Widespread adoption of homosexuality and the subsequent decline in reproduction will probably do wonders for the advancement of human evolution.  The authors tell us that extinction is a catalyst for evolutionary change.   

Sister Agnes taught Joshua that the purpose of life was to be all that you could be (and to help others to be all they could be).  There is no God, so we are free to do everything we see fit in our own eyes.  "Reincarnation is a cornerstone of world faith."  But Christianity is a thing to be mocked.  "Religious nuts" declare the Long Earth to be a sign of biblical end times.  (The bible tells us the end will be marked by wars, earthquakes, plagues, death and huge catastrophic events and losses – quite the opposite to the emergence of unlimited resources.  But there are always nutters).

We jump to the story of Nelson Azikiwe, a colleague of Lobsang.  Nelson's mum raised him "in Jesus", who she seems to consider a different person to the "god" of the Israelites.  This "god" is responsible for loading humanity with troubles, but thank the gods – Nelson Mandela sits on god's right side to advise him and keep him in check!  No wonder Nelson Azikiwe had to "persevere" for his mum's sake in this Jesus religion of hers.  Yet he goes on to take Holy Orders and take charge of an English parish, presumably so he can instead impart on them his Religion of Evolution.  He talks with another Reverend, David Blessed, who drinks a lot.  Nelson tells David of his questions - how has man become a man, what are they supposed to be doing there in the context of the Long Earth and what is it all for?  Nelson had pondered these questions and come to the conclusion that he was too clever for his own God, "so to speak."  This despite remaining ignorant of the answers.  So he had became a palaeontologist, but later returned to the Church, after finding no evidence of humans in the other earths.  He says:  "I thought, why not get to grips with theology?  Take it seriously.  See what I am able to tease out of it.  My tentative preliminary conclusion, by the way, is that there is no God.  No offence."

"Oh, none taken."

"That means I must find out what there is instead."

Here we have two practising pastors who are so atheistic that they aren't at all flustered by the other's lack of belief in God, in fact, they are expecting it.

Sally Linsay steps out to go in search of her father and figure out what it was all for.  The Single Tremendous Organism wonders what it is all for.  Joshua, Lobsang and Nelson all wonder the same thing.  To what purpose?

They cannot help but attempt to personify a greater power – the Universe – Nature – Mother Earth – as behind it all.  Even Monica Jansson's response on her first arrival in the next earth is "Oh.  My.  God."  Despite her "lifelong belief system of agnosticism shading to outright atheism."  They dismiss God but are still stuck with all the hard questions.   And they will be forever searching for the truth and not finding it, because their hearts are hard.   It's all there – all the answers – in the Bible – the Word of God.  The answers to what it's all for, to what purpose – God has already told us.  He has already told us the end, and he told us it right from the beginning.  God is the first scientist.  He created science.  All of science bows to his rules.  There is proof that there is a God – God's existence is proven, irrefutably - through science, through the universe, through the Bible, through your life personally – if you look for that proof – REALLY look for it you will find it.  On the other hand, if you consider yourself to be cleverer than God, and if all you ever do is a tentative preliminary surface examination then you will come to the same erroneous conclusion as Nelson Azikiwe.  That you used to be an ape and you are going to continue to do whatever seems good in your own eyes because you are your own god.  And that you still don't actually have any answers.

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.  Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure."  Luke 10:21