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Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter – The Long Mars | Review

Title: The Long Mars

Author: Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 448

Rating 3.5/5

By now, we’re up to book three of five in this series, and while I do think that the first book was incredible, it’s struggled to live up to the same high standard as the series has continued. We’re helped by the fact that the basic idea behind the story is pretty good and so it’s fun to watch the authors investigate.

In the first of these books, we follow what happens when stepping, a sort of new technology, is unleashed on the unsuspecting population of the world that we live in. With stepper boxes, people can hop from our world to a sort of adjacent parallel world, and that opens up whole new horizons when it comes to exploration.

The last two books have focused mainly on what’s been happening on our world, but in this one we see what happens when some explorers from a version of the earth near the Gap decide to head for Mars. Once there, they discover that you can hop between worlds on Mars too, and that opens up an entirely new type of exploration.

These books tend to take it pretty easy when it comes to the plot, and so sometimes it can feel as though the plot is dragging as you’re waiting for things to happen. In the first one, I quite liked that because I was having a lot of fun looking at all of the underlying science and the other ideas that it had in it. The problem is that the more time goes on, the more I kind of want the plot to accelerate.

Still, there’s plenty of good stuff here, and I’ll be continuing on with the last two books in the series and maybe even finishing the series by the end of the month. I just think that the series set itself up for a fall because the first book was so good, and the vibe that I’m getting so far is that pretty much everyone should give The Long Earth a go and then only the people who really enjoy that should keep going.

All in all then, I am of course glad that I read this, but at the same time I can appreciate that it’s not for everyone. Still, if you’ve read the first two books and you were thinking about continuing, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t. And it didn’t even end on a crazy cliffhanger like the first two did, so it has that going for it too. And that’s it.

Click here to buy The Long Mars.

Blake Crouch – Dark Matter | Review

Title: Dark Matter

Author: Blake Crouch

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 406

Rating: 4/5

This is one of those books where I’ve heard loads of good things about it and so where I therefore worried that it might not live up to the hype. There was no need to be scared with this one though, because Crouch is a more than competent writer and the story line and the concept is great here, too.

The problem is that I don’t really want to go too much into that because I don’t want to share any spoilers. Suffice to say that you’re in for a fun little science fiction thriller novel that covers parallel universes and the butterfly effect, the idea that a seemingly insignificant event can have profound repercussions. It’s a concept that’s been done before and I wasn’t sure how well Crouch was going to handle it, but he left me pretty satisfied and so I can’t complain too much.

I was particularly impressed with the way in which it managed to handle being both science fiction and a thriller, because I can see how it would appeal to readers of both genres. I wouldn’t say that I’m a particularly big fan of either genre, and in fact I’m generally disappointed by thrillers, but this one kept me reading and also had an open ending, which is usually an easy way to get me to like something. I just like that feeling of being able to decide what happened for myself, although I appreciate that not everyone is the same.

All in all, I thought this was well-written and well-executed with a great concept that allowed for plenty of surprises along the way. It’s one of those rare books where it feels as though there’s not much point trying to guess what’s going to happen because literally anything could happen. When you find a story like that, you don’t really have any choice – you just have to keep on reading because you want to find out what’s going to happen.

So if you’ve heard about Dark Matter and have thought about it but haven’t been ready to jump on in, I’m here to tell you that it’s all good stuff and you’ll probably enjoy it. Better still, it only took me a couple of days to read it, which meant that it didn’t drag. Go and read it.