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The Long War cover art

The Long War

By: Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter
Narrated by: Michael Fenton Stevens
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Editor reviews

The outstanding audiobook series The Long Earth is back after much anticipation with Book Two The Long War written by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter and expertly narrated by British actor Michael Fenton Stevens. There are murmurs of conflict spreading throughout the lands. The trolls of Long Earth are amassing while Valhalla is prickling with turmoil. There is nowhere to escape from the clutches of a full scale war. Lobsang seeks Joshua’s help but together can they put a stop to the inevitable? This epic series is filled with suspense, action and fantasy. Available now from Audible.

Summary

A generation after the events of The Long Earth, mankind has spread across the new worlds opened up by Stepping.

Where Joshua and Lobsang once pioneered, now fleets of airships link the stepwise Americas with trade and culture. Mankind is shaping the Long Earth - but in turn the Long Earth is shaping mankind...

A new ‘America’, called Valhalla, is emerging more than a million steps from Datum Earth, with core American values restated in the plentiful environment of the Long Earth - and Valhalla is growing restless under the control of the Datum government...

Meanwhile the Long Earth is suffused by the song of the trolls, graceful hive-mind humanoids. But the trolls are beginning to react to humanity’s thoughtless exploitation...

Joshua, now a married man, is summoned by Lobsang to deal with a gathering multiple crisis that threatens to plunge the Long Earth into a war unlike any mankind has waged before.

©2013 Terry and Lyn Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (P)2013 Random House Audiobooks

What listeners say about The Long War

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Disappointing

After reading and enjoying The Long Earth very much, I was keen to get to grips with The Long War. Sadly the plot leaves much to be desired and most of the characters seem to have mud for brains and little to no sense of empathy for the most part. For the last third of the book I was gritting my teeth determined to simply get to the end, however the last third is the worst; Joshua seems utterly determined to kill himself with stupidity, Sally and Lobsang appear happy hang him out to dry if it were not for the trolls and meanwhile the rest of the cast limp along like overly cooked spinach. Roberta appears to fulfill absolutely no purpose whatsoever! I cannot begin to imagine how two otherwise excellent authors could manage to turn out a story so poorly written. I imagine they have a third book in mind (this can be the only reason for the inclusion of the otherwise pointless Roberta); one can but hope they improve ... well, everything, when they work on it. After the poor experience of listening to The Long War, I won't be purchasing it however; I'm sure it'll turn up in a second hand bookstore at some point and I won't feel bad about abandoning it if I've paid second hand prices for it.

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12 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Slow start too drawn out

The language, world and narration are all good. However it felt like close to nothing happened in the first half of the book.

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4 people found this helpful

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Ran out of steam.

The first book was a fascinating stream of ideas, the second book was a damp squib. There were lots of initial story lines that went nowhere, deviations from the plot which appeared out of character and to be honest I found the last third to be pretty tedious. For instance, one of the characters had an old Sony Walkman, but we had been assured time and time again that no iron could be stepped, had someone spent a lot of time re-engineering an old walkman just to trade it for the equivalent of beads? Lots of socio-political ideas were raised, then discarded with an attitude ' it's all ok now'. I suspect this book was rushed out and not really thought through or developed. There was lots of potential, but the authors seem to have got bored with it, as indeed did I. Bu the way, there is no long war.

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4 people found this helpful

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satisfying sequel

Very satisfying sequel to "The Long Earth". All the great characters we got to know in book 1 are here with couple of new ones too. It is quite upbeat generally and nothing too unpleasant crops up, for me the overall feeling in the story verges more toward an utopian outcome rather than dystopian - but of course both are possible in the long earth.

Some new inhabitants of the long earth make an appearance and they are as peculiar as you would expect them to be. The story begins to gather a bit more to it in depth, details such as politics, possibilities of how to inhabit the long earth, different cultures emerging, how they interact etc are looked into. There are so many possibilities for the long earth I imagine it being quite a difficult thing to decide on which aspects to look at and expand on, if I had any complaint at all it would be that there could have been more! That is just me being greedy though and sorry that the book is finished.

Long and short of it - if you liked book 1 you will like book 2. But you will sadly have to wait for book 3. It seems such a huge universe to fit into a trilogy I cant imagine how the final instalment is going to finish and I expect to be left wanting more - which is a good thing.

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3 people found this helpful

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Hooked

Totally hooked, had to listen to the whole book twice, there was always something I had missed first time round in each chapter, can’t wait to get book two.

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2 people found this helpful

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Not as good as The Long Earth

Meandered along without the drive and excitement of the original. An Ok book, certainly not bad. Excellent narration however.

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First book better.

Enjoyed it, but found the first book more interesting and I missed the relationship between Joshua and Lobsang.

Like the first book, there is a big problem in the Long Earth that is built the whole way through the book that ends up being resolved very quickly in the end, without very much fuss, which let's the story down a bit.

Michael Fenton Stephens reads well although I found his Oirish accent to be a wee bit fiddledy-dee. But then again he was given a stereotypical Irish character to portray so he can't be held accountable I guess.

Thanks for the listen though.

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    2 out of 5 stars
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The Long, Lonnngggg, Snore

What would have made The Long War better?

The authors seem to have dragged this mid-point of the story out so much that I got totally bored, despite wanting to persist with the story.

Has The Long War put you off other books in this genre?

It put me off wanting to read the final part of the trilogy.

What about Michael Fenton Stevens’s performance did you like?

He was good, I felt he brought the story to life, he did the best he could with the sloooow progress of the story.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Boredom and disappointment, as I wanted to enjoy it, but just could not justify trying the third book as there are much better books to give a chance.

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Book 2 is even better than the 1st

Pratchett and Baxter are a golden combination. Cant wait to start the 3rd book. Theyre a collective masterpiece.

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1 person found this helpful

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enthralling, great development of the characters

and a few new ones too! I hope some of these are developed further in upcoming books.
thoroughly enjoyed it

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