The Long Earth (series)

The Long Earth is a series of five science fiction novels co-written by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. They tell the story of what happens when humanity at large discovers they can “step” into one of a seemingly infinite number of parallel universes, spreading out across versions of Earth that get progressively stranger the further you go, but have one thing in common: humans didn’t evolve on any of them. The collection of worlds become known as “the Long Earth”, and the two directions in which humans can “step” are labelled East and West.

Many of the main characters are from Madison, Wisconsin, and much of the series is centred around the United States and its equivalent on other worlds. The later novels expand beyond Earth to Mars and the wider cosmos.

Books

The Long Earth series comprises five novels:

• The Long Earth - primarily set in 2030, but also chronicles the history of the world since “Step Day” in 2015
• The Long War - set in 2040
• The Long Mars - set in 2045
• The Long Utopia - takes place mostly between 2052 and 2059, but also has a subplot set in the 1800s
• The Long Cosmos - set in 2070 and 2071

In addition, they draw on ideas first expressed by Terry in his short story “The High Meggas”, written around 1986 but not published until it was included in early editions of The Long Earth in 2012. It’s also collected in A Blink of the Screen. As an earlier expression of the same idea, “The High Meggas” isn’t canonical to the novel series.

Characters

The series features a very large ensemble cast, but some of the most important characters introduced in the first novel include:

• Joshua Valienté, a teenager who becomes famous for saving stranded kids on Step Day, and later for an expedition deep into the Long Earth
• Lobsang, an artificial intelligence with an android body who claims to be the reincarnation of a Tibetan motorcycle repairman
• Sally Linsay, a mysterious survivalist who has secret ways of travelling in the Long Earth
• Sister Agnes, the nun who runs the Home in Madison where Joshua was raised
• Nelson Azikiwe, a palaeontologist who becomes a priest in the wake of Step Day
• Helen Green, a young woman whose family are part of the early waves of Long Earth settlement

External links

• The Long Earth at the L-Space wiki
• The Long Earth on Wikipedia
• The Long Earth Wiki on fandom.com