The Long Utopia

And there I did what I had done with the seemingly everlasting, deteriorating and increasingly implausible Dune series - to say nothing of the apallingly bad Thomas Covenant series - and bought the last one, once I had chanced upon it unexpectedly in my local high-end bookstore.

That is to say, I bought something while thinking that I shouldn't; that I was setting myself up for disappointment, and that I should have let my memory of Terry Pratchett fondly remain stuck with the previous book, and with his last Diskworld novel.

But I didn't. And I'm quite glad I didn't, in fact, because this one too took me up in its grasp, and galloped off across worlds with now-familiar characters, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the back story, wherein the origin of The Next and free-steppers is pretty thoroughly explored, as this was both a novel departure for the series, and useful background.

OK, there were some niggling bits, like "So if people could shift between planets, why wasn't that explored better??", and HOW exactly the powers-that-be determined that - suddenly, and out of nowhere - one person could shut off access to a whole universe?

But given that enjoyment of SF is hugely aided by the willing suspension of disbelief, I suspended some of mine, and let it take me where it went.

And I'm sorry it's over. At least, I THINK it's over...?