The Long Earth / Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter

The Long Earth
by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter

science fiction

copyright 2012
read in October 2013

rated 6/10: read to pass the time

My main problem with The Long Earth is that it lacks a point.

Sure, there's a huge Earth-threatening monster to be discovered -- but so what ?! Monster discovered, monster left alone. Threat still exists.

This book is -- as I understand it -- an introduction to a series. So the monster can be dealt with in later books. Which leaves very little point to this first book !

Interesting but not great characters travel across the Long Earth. Going places, meeting people, doing nothing much. The book is very much an exploration of a new world. And the impact of the new world on the old. With all the excitement of a textbook on geography.

Okay, the new world is an interesting idea. But the SF question of "what if" is largely replaced by "so what".

At the end of the book is the unpublished short story which was the germ of the idea. Very much a biff-sockee adventure yarn. Not great science fiction, so much more fun to read !

If The Long Earth grows into a series -- that will be interesting. If subsequent books focus on smaller aspects of the world -- that will be much better. If the scope of this first book had been narrower -- it would be a lot more fun to read.

An odyssey across an entire new world lacks the potential interest of a more detailed dip into just one part. This book offers too much of the general overview.

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Problems ? Solved

The Moon Maze Game / Larry Niven, Steven Barnes

The Moon Maze Game
by Larry Niven, Steven Barnes

science fiction

copyright 2011
read in October 2013

rated 6/10: read to pass the time

The core of the story is a virtual reality game. The game theme is Wells' First Men in the Moon. With other book by Wells thrown in to add variation.

What is it with HG Wells rip-offs? Is it the season ? Is it his birthday ? Is it just coincidence that this is the second that I have recently read ? Moon Maze at least adds a more modern story round the rip-off. Not that it really helps.

First, the science sucks. Or does it ? Heinlein, in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, had people leaping through the vacuum of space. On Mars, Schwarzenegger's eyes bulged badly. In Moon Maze, vacuum will lead to instant death by boiling blood. Which is correct ? My money is with Heinlein.

Then, the game sucks. Okay, it's a virtual reality game, not a screen simulation. Still... My impression is that the authors have never ever played a computer game. The book makes me think of non-players trying to impress readers with their own rather weak extensions to something that they have read about but never actually tried. (Sorry about the length of that sentence ! )

Finally (?) the story is weak, the successes are questionable and the explanations are unclear.

Willing suspension of disbelief ? Try, willing suspense of critical faculties... If you can do that, you can read this book.

Sort of fun. Could be better.

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Fatal Revenant / Stephen Donaldson

Fatal Revenant
by Stephen Donaldson
Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (2)

fantasy

copyright 2007
read in October 2013

rated 4 / 10: bad but could be read

This is a book which makes Financial Accounting seem interesting.

I'm studying a financial accounting unit online. Less than half way into Revenant and I preferred to do a bit more study. Doesn't say much for the book, does it !

Okay, there's a lot of action. Meet a new character -- there will be a ludicrously over-the-top battle. Visit a new place -- it will be destroyed by the side-effects of the next battle. Stop for a picnic lunch -- and the picnic ants will be gigantic fire-breathing chitinous dragons.

Then there's the pseudo-suspense...

A super-powered being will appear. A member, probably, of a race that no-one has heard of before now. This new character plans to destroy the heroine -- but first, will answer any three questions... So the heroine asks something like, How long do I have to ask the questions ? What time is it now ? Did you say, just three questions ? Then kicks herself for wasting the three questions...

So the POV character, the heroine, does not know what is going on. Everyone else does but they won't tell. The reader is left in the dark. This is not suspense -- it's a cheap trick by the author.

In the second half of the book the heroine decides exactly what she is going to do. It's her POV, so the reader will get some information ? Nope. I know but I'm not telling, she says...

And when she finally acts... Everyone groans... There are cries of, You should not have done that... And the book ends.

This is a book of action-packed adventure with very little purpose. There's a feeling that Donaldson is trying to wrap up loose ends in the millennia-long history of the Land. With a plethora of new super-villains to plug the gaps. Is it worth the effort ?

So far, so tedious. The first book was readable. This second book really dragged. Perhaps... the third one's the charm ?

But...

I can't stop there. I must mention a problem with a key feature of these books, the "Falls".

The Falls are places where every instant of time is present, all at once. Like a food-processor for time... Step inside a Fall and you are hit by whirling bits of the Land, each bit from a different era...

So how can a Fall move ?!

The Fall is here, now. And it's hitting you with stuff from here, ten minutes ago. And with stuff from here, ten minutes in the future. So the Fall was definitely here ten minutes ago. And will definitely be here ten minutes from now... So it *was* exactly here and it *will be* exactly here.

So how can it have moved ?!

And if a Fall exists -- and stretches from the distant past into the far future -- then how can it be banished in the present ?! By definition, it exists in the future. Yet -- when we reach that future -- it is not there.

Too much angst and not enough explanation. I can't claim to have enjoyed this book.

But I will be looking out for the final (?) Thomas Covenant book. If only to see who lives, who dies... and who is brought back to live to provide a possibly happy ending.

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Problems ? Solved