My Review of "The Long War" by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

When I started The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, I made a few assumptions. One of those was that there would be a war. I wasn’t entirely wrong in that assumption, but like many things on the long earth, war isn’t exactly what it once was. More than that, there is a lot going on in this story that has little to do with that conflict.

This is the second book in the series. It takes place ten years after the last and it’s still focused on the long earth, an endless array of parallel worlds that have almost everything except humans. Though there are a few other species that are intelligent.

Josua the main character from The Long Earth has married and settled down and things seem normal. But the colonies on the long earth are questioning why they’re expected to pay taxes to the first world when they get nothing from them and a conflict is growing. A conflict that comes to a head when several scientists are killed by a troll mother when they try to take her child for experimentation. It also leads to the trolls, an intelligent and kind race who have until now been helping the humans across the long earth beginning to disappear.

Once again, this book is mostly interested in the idea and ramifications of the long earth. It has characters who are interesting, but I never truly connected with many of them. And that’s because while both the characters and the plot are fine, it is the idea of the long earth that still takes central stage.

The most fun part of the book is the final “battle” between the soldiers and the colonists, mostly because it clarifies that the soldiers will not stop the rebellion. The colonists clearly see no real threat from the soldiers as they simply leave the world they are in and then return a few steps away whenever they try to arrest them. The soldiers might kill some of them, but that would only make things worse.

I enjoyed The Long War by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett, but it just didn’t really grab me. If you love either of these authors or love the first book, then you’re likely to enjoy this as much. If you weren’t sure about the series the first time, this is unlikely to change your mind.