{"id":1302,"date":"2018-11-14T15:00:03","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T22:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=1302"},"modified":"2018-11-02T20:21:04","modified_gmt":"2018-11-03T02:21:04","slug":"book-the-long-utopia-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/14\/book-the-long-utopia-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: The Long Utopia (2015)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/images.gr-assets.com\/books\/1468679348l\/24828031.jpg\" alt=\"The Long Utopia\" width=\"318\" height=\"318\" \/>The Long Utopia<br \/>\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2015<br \/>\nAuthor: Terry Pratchett &amp; Stephen Baxter<br \/>\nLength: 725 minutes \/ 12.08 hours<\/p>\n<p>After the events that take place in\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/31\/book-the-long-mars-2014\/\">The Long Mars<\/a><\/em>, I was expecting the next book in the series,\u00a0<em>The Long Utopia,<\/em>\u00a0to be about the CEO of the Black Corporation and the settlement he established to help him live longer. Instead, I got a story that had little to no connection to the previous plots. That being said, at least there was a story with a projected conclusion instead of merely a series of random events that eventually led to the sudden destruction of some location (as had been the case up until now).<\/p>\n<p>While I did appreciate some of the back-story for Joshua Valient\u00e9, there wasn\u2019t anything in Joshua\u2019s behavior or motivations in any of the previous books that indicated that he was even interested in learning about his past. I also was pleased that some of the \u201climitations\u201d of this universe were brought back, or at least provided as a reminder to the reader. It honestly doesn\u2019t make sense to me that these parallel worlds would have the kind of technology available to them without the use of iron. The fact that the material workarounds were never explained is probably the most frustrating part to me.<\/p>\n<p>As I mentioned already, the stronger story in this book helped keep me invested in the characters, not only as they tried to figure out what was happening, but as they tried to determine how to stop it. Unfortunately, none of the consequences in this universe seem to hold any weight. Lobsang can \u201cdie,\u201d but there are still plenty other versions of him around. The Next can be mostly exterminated, but then the next book just glosses over the attempted genocide. In the end, though, I can\u2019t honestly tell you what the titular \u201cUtopia\u201d of this book was, and that\u2019s disappointing.<\/p>\n<p>A slightly above-average chapter in the\u00a0<em>Long Earth<\/em>\u00a0series, I give\u00a0<em>The Long Utopia<\/em>\u00a03.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Long Utopia Year: 2015 Author: Terry Pratchett &amp; Stephen Baxter Length: 725 minutes \/ 12.08 hours After the events that take place in\u00a0The Long Mars, I was expecting the next book in the series,\u00a0The Long Utopia,\u00a0to be about the CEO of the Black Corporation and the settlement he established to help him live longer. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,54],"tags":[33,55,8,1437,1040,1436,1542,1552],"class_list":["post-1302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-0-stars","category-book","tag-33","tag-book","tag-review","tag-stephen-baxter","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-long-earth","tag-the-long-mars","tag-the-long-utopia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1302"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1306,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions\/1306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}