More of wot I have read…

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

  

This was an interesting take on the time travel, life re-do theme that explores how you decisions can change your life or not. I like that the science behind the rebirth is not explored or even explained, and that the main character is not conscious of why she decides to change her actions, and the ending is very neat and tidy. It does allow the author to delve deeper into the main character and you get a real sense of who she is by the end as you see her cope with her choices.

‘What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With wit and compassion, Kate Atkinson finds warmth even in life’s bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here she is at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves.’

The Long Utopia by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

  

The fourth book in the series that reveals more about the origins of the stepping ability and also makes a good attempt at describing the Long Earth, the soft places and how it could get tangled up in other planetary strands. It lets the characters develop a little more and allows the world to move on so that we can see how it is evolving. It is an easy read without too challenging themes but it held my interest all the way through.

‘It is the middle of the twenty-first century. The cataclysms of Step Day and the Yellowstone eruption have sent humanity out into the Long Earth. Society, on a battered Datum Earth and beyond, continues to evolve. And new challenges emerge.

In a far-distant world, a cantankerous and elderly Lobsang lives with Agnes in the community of New Springfield and endeavours to lead a normal life. They even adopt a child. But there are rumours of hauntings, strange sightings in the sky. On this world, something isn’t right.

Millions of steps away, Joshua receives an urgent summons from New Springfield. Lobsang believes that what is blighting his Earth now threatens all of the worlds of the Long Earth.

To counter this will require the combined efforts of humankind, machine and the super-intelligent Next. And some must make the ultimate sacrifice…’