The Long Earth: (Long Earth 1) - Couverture souple

The UK's bestselling fantasy writer and a giant of British SF combine forces to write an astonishing, mind-bending new series... The Long Earth.

2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Junior cop Sally Jansson is called out to the house of Willis Lynsey, a reclusive scientist, for an animal-cruelty complaint: the man was seen forcing a horse in through the door of his home. Inside there is no horse. But Sally finds a kind of home-made utility belt. She straps this on -- and 'steps' sideways into an America covered with virgin forest. Willis came here with equipment and animals, meaning to explore and colonise. And when Sally gets back, she finds Willis has put the secret of the belt on the internet. The great migration has begun...

The Long Earth: our Earth is but one of a chain of parallel worlds, lying side by side in a higher space of possibilities, each differing from its neighbours by a little (or a lot): an infinite landscape of infinite possibilities. And the further away you travel, the stranger the worlds get. The sun and moon always shine, the basic laws of physics are the same. However, the chance events which have shaped our particular version of Earth, such as the dinosaur-killer asteroid impact, might not have happened and things may well have turned out rather differently. But only our Earth hosts mankind.

"An absorbing collaborative effort from two SF giants...a marriage made in fan heaven - Pratchett's warmth and humanity allied to Baxter's extraordinarily fertile science-fictional imagination...there's much to enjoy...a charming, absorbing and somehow spacious piece of imagineering" (Adam Roberts GUARDIAN)

"The idea of parallel Earths is one of the most enduring that science fiction has given us, but rarely has it been explored with quite so much gusto as in this new novel by two of the giants of British speculative fiction...a triumph...accessible, fun and thoughtful" (David Barnett INDEPENDENT)

"***** Literary alchemy...In the hands of Pratchett and Baxter, the possibilites are almost infinite...a story that revels in big ideas...you can sense the excitement of the authors as they toy with the labyrinthine possibilities of their premise, and it's infectious...thrillingly expansive, joyously inventive and utterly engrossing" (SFX)

"[Pratchett] succeeds in working seamlessly with Baxter...adding a welcome shot of fun to the world of science fiction" (Alison Flood SUNDAY TIMES)

"Wonderfully rich fantasy, full of ingenuity, humour and some rather deep thoughts" (READERS' DIGEST)