I thought that having this book take place several years after the first one worked well. There are a lot of things I liked: Terry Pratchett's extreme hatred of elves, everything to do with the Rectangles, the existence of the Gap space program (although that is another part that I felt could have been done without to streamline things a bit), Finn McCool, the post-scarcity philosophy stuff, 'the Healed Drum', 'Bosun Higgs'. Similarly, I thought a lot of the Franklin crew's subplot was interesting but irrelevant, and in the end the whole book seemed like a bunch of good ideas randomly mashed together, without much structure.

I think my main problem was that there were too many plot threads, which made it all a bit confusing to keep track of in particular, I'm not sure what the point of any of Nelson's subplot was, and while the Chinese expedition subplot was interesting, it didn't really add anything. Sequel to 'The Long Earth' I really wanted to like this, and I still love the setting, but I'm just not feeling this one. It seems that he alone can confront the perfect storm of crises that threatens to plunge all of the Long Earth into war.Ī war unlike any that has been waged before. Joshua, now married and a father, is summoned by Lobsang. But in the face of humankind's inexorable advance, they are beginning to fall silent . . .

In the intervening years, the song of the trolls-graceful, hive-mind humanoids-has suffused the Long Earth. And like the American revolutionaries of old, the Valhallans resent being controlled from afar by the Datum government. A new America that has christened itself 'Valhalla' has emerged more than a million steps from the original Datum Earth. Humankind is shaping the Long Earth, but in turn the Long Earth is shaping humankind.

Now 'civilization' flourishes, and fleets of airships link the multiple Earths through exploration, trade, and culture. Humankind has spread across the new worlds opened up by stepping, which Joshua and Lobsang explored a mere decade ago.

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