The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter (Read in 2014)
Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an interest in this book, then I’m happy for you.
This is the story of a near-future Earth where alternate universes are just a “step” away.
Citations
“Joshua, always remember, you have not travelled back in time, or forward. You have travelled far across the contingency tree of the possible, on a planet where dramatic but quasi-random extinction events periodically obliterate much of the family of life, leaving room for evolutionary innovation. On each Earth, however, the outcomes will differ, by a little or a lot…”
Pos. 3183-3186
“I am giving mankind the key to endless worlds. An end to scarcity and, may we hope, war. And perhaps a new meaning to life. I leave the exploration of all these worlds to your generation, my dear, though personally I think you will fuck it up royally.”
Pos. 3324-3325
“They resent the Long Earth and those who travel it, and all that this great opening-up has brought. And those who are losing money, in the new order of things. There are always plenty of those…’”
Pos. 3409-3411
“The French, for example, declared that all the French footprints were available for colonization by anybody who wanted to be French, and was prepared to accept a carefully put together document which outlined what being French meant. It was a brave idea, slightly let down by the fact that despite a nationwide debate it appeared that no two Frenchmen could agree exactly on what being French did mean. Although another school of thought held that arguing about what made you French was part of what made you French.”
Pos. 3436-3440
“Modesty is only arrogance by stealth.”
Pos. 3779
“As an engineer I find it all hard to believe. But as a Buddhist, I accept there are more ways to think about the universe than one can imagine.’ ‘I sincerely hope we are not going to start talking religion,’ said Sally sharply. ‘Open your mind, Sally. It’s only another framework for understanding the universe, just another tool.’ ‘So what does that make Joshua?’ she snapped back. ‘The chosen one?’”
Pos. 4624-4628