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Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter – The Long War | Review

Title: The Long War

Author: Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 512

Rating 3.75/5

This book wasn’t as good as the first book in the series, but it wasn’t a total failure either. It’s also going to be difficult for me to review, because as the second book in the series, I can’t say a huge amount about it without spoiling both this book and the one before it. It was pretty good though, even if “The Long War” is a bit of a misnomer because no shots were fired. It was kind of anticlimactic in that way.

It was also a little jarring because a big chunk of time has passed between the end of the last book and the start of this one. Joshua Valiente has married Helen, who was a little girl during the first book, and so it almost feels a little bit wrong. I’m not entirely sure what the age difference is, but it has to be a fair amount.

The Long War was also longer than the first book, and I feel like it suffered because of it. It was dragging by the end, and I ended up skim reading the last fifty pages or so, at least until something big happened right at the end. Unfortunately, that’s starting to feel a little bit old and worn, because the same thing happened in the first book. I’m now fully expecting it to happen in books three and four as well. Sure, it’s not unusual for books in a series to set the next book up, but at the same time the events at the end of the first two books are so apocalyptic that they really need a rapid follow-up.

On the plus side, I did enjoy reading it and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series, even though it’s starting to feel as though none of the original characters are even left. In many ways, that doesn’t matter, because I’m more interested in the ideas that the book has to share than I am in the characters or even in what actually happens. I’ve been consistently impressed throughout this series by the way in which it uses popular science and psychology while simultaneously telling a cracking story.

Then there’s the way it taps into mythology, albeit in quite a subtle way. As people explore various corners of The Long Earth, they also find new types of creatures, including the elves and the trolls that we met in the first book. But they have little in common with the established mythology, and really the terms are just used as a way to give things a label. It’s a nice little nod to fantasy from within a science fiction novel though, and it was cool to meet kobolds. I feel like they’re an underrated fantasy creature, and even though the creatures here weren’t true kobolds, they were interesting enough on their own.

All in all then, I enjoyed this one and want more!

Click here to buy The Long War.

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Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter – The Long Earth | Review

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Ruth Ware – The Lying Game | Review

Title: The Lying Game

Author: Ruth Ware

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 458

Rating 4/5

The Lying Game is probably my favourite of Ruth Ware’s books, but perhaps that’s just because I’ve read a few of them now and so I’ve started to develop a taste for her. It could also be that this is her most recent, which I believe is the case, although I could also be wrong.

Then there’s the fact that this doesn’t really feel like a thriller, even though that’s technically what this is. That’s because while there is a backstory with a death in it, so much of it takes place in the present day that really the book is all about the relationships between the main characters and the way that their shared experience has changed each and every one of them.

I also liked the idea of the lying game, which was played between the girls when they were students and in which you scored points for lying to people and getting them to believe things that weren’t true. You scored bonus points if it was someone particularly odious or an unusually implausible lie, and while I myself wouldn’t have played it (because I don’t like lying and I suck at it), it was the kind of thing I could imagine teen girls playing.

One of the problems that I often have with books like these is that I’m able to guess who committed the crime and why they did it, but it’s not as simple as that here because it’s not even clear whether a crime has been committed, at least to begin with. I also liked how Ware was able to capture the whole small town vibe, to the point at which the locals and their gossip played a pretty important role in the story line.

All in all, I’m happy that I read this one, and I’m particularly glad that I enjoyed it because it was picked out by my cat, and so I’m relieved to find that he does in fact have good taste. This is the third of the four books that he picked that I’ve read, and I’ve given each of them four stars. That bodes well for The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, which was his fourth choice.

So if you’re new to Ruth Ware, consider giving this one a go, and if you’re not new to her and you’re looking to read more then definitely pick it up. I didn’t really find any faults with it and I can be pretty picky, so that should say a lot. I just hope you like it as much as I did. Go read it!