Long Mars
The Long Mars (original title: The Long Mars ) is a science fiction - novel of the British writer Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter . The English-language first edition was published by Harper in June 2014 in the HarperCollins publishing group. The German translation by Gerald Jung was published by Manhattan-Verlag in 2015 .
After mankind has explored and colonized the countless parallel earths of the Long Earth more intensively after a volcanic eruption on the "Date" Earth, some scientists and companies are reaching for the neighboring planet in the Long Earth, which they are exploring from the "Gap".
action
Building on the events from "The Long War", the story of the Long Earth continues to be told, with many of the familiar characters reappearing. Starting from the year 2045, the exodus of mankind from its earth of origin, the "date", is described with some retrospectives. The rescue operations are not only carried out for people. Any material, insofar as it can still be used, must be brought to the adjacent worlds to ensure the construction and supply of 300 million changed Americans there.
Joshua Valienté, one of the first explorers of the Long Earth, is of course just as involved as Sally Linsay in helping inexperienced or phobic people with changes.
The ex-priest Nelson Aziwike also does his part by dispelling the religious concerns of some who have problems with the theological interpretation of the Lange Erde phenomenon.
In order to maintain power, the Catholic Church has declared the parallel worlds to be of equal value and thus created the possibility of living there in a godly manner. However, this provokes a protest movement, with one of their supporters even carrying out an assassination attempt on the Pope.
Meanwhile, on some earth where she has just overpowered a troll hunter, Sally receives a letter from her father with the "request (?)" To come to earth in front of the gap on a certain day.
Under the command of Captain Maggie Kauffmann, the military airship Benjamin Franklin2 has the task of searching for the Benjamin Franklin and also of distributing various aids and election documents on various earths. For this she receives support from <?>
Storylines
Paul Spencer
In several retrospectives, the development of a boy from Happy Landings is described, whom Joshua accompanies directly and indirectly through a childhood and youth determined by "being different".
The long earth
Maggie Kauffmann explores the earth beyond the 20 million mark. She is also supposed to look for a lost spaceship. As a special passenger, she also has Douglas Black on board, who is looking for something.
Long Mars
Sally, her father and Frank Wood discover that the chain of the parallel Marse is arranged differently than the earths. On a few of them they discover traces of life. Sally's father is looking for something that statistically has to be somewhere.
The next
Starting with Happy Landings, a place where natural changers have settled for generations and where they live in harmony with the trolls, a new type of person is developing. Highly intelligent, they are able to easily see through and control the "normal" people they call dull pears.
Philosophical
The essence of life is discussed in several approaches.
reincarnation
Lobsang and Joshua in particular discuss various aspects.
Eternal life
Douglas Black is in search of the fountain of youth and, until he finds it, is ready to do anything to prolong his life.
Life forms and war
Many different forms of life are found, apparently all of them have something like war.
Survival of the fittest
Based on the discussion with the Next, the discrepancy between the will to develop further and the will to preserve one's own species is examined.
Technical
Space elevator
... Willis Linsay is doing research on a space elevator project and is looking for a suitable material for the rope.
Bio power plants
...
main characters
Joshua Valienté: Joshua Valienté is a natural changer who grew up in an orphanage in Madison and has wandered the parallel earths since his youth. Lobsang chose him as the only companion for the first exploration of the western "Long Earth" with the airship "Mark Twain".
Sally Linsay: Sally is the daughter of Willis Linsay, the inventor of the "changer", who was previously considered missing. Like Joshua Valienté, she can switch to the parallel earths without technical aids. After Joshua settled down, she explored the vastness of the "Long Earth" largely by herself.
Willis Linsay: He had published the blueprint for the changer. After that, he was gone for years. very intelligent but with some shortcomings in social behavior. He realized that with the multitude of versions of Mars there must be one that must have produced a civilization with a higher level of technology. In search of their technology, he wanders through long Mars.
Lobsang: Lobsang is a self-conscious artificial intelligence that was said to have been a Tibetan motorcycle mechanic in a previous life. Although he is distributed over various mobile units and computer networks, he was able to be judged to be a human being.
Maggie Kauffman: Captain of the US military airship Benjamin Franklin2 .
Nelson Azikiwe : Black South African who first works as a paleontologist , then goes to England as a priest. After the volcanic eruption he returns there temporarily to get his old community to change.
Sister Agnes : Former Madison (Ohio, Date Earth) Orphanage Caretaker, created by Lobsang as artificial intelligence as its female counterpart after her physical death.
Position in the series
The Long Mars is the third part of a series that began with Die Lange Erde (Ger. 2013) and after Der Lange Krieg (Ger. 2015) (and Long Mars) with the books Das Lange Utopia (Ger . 2016) as well as ( Der Lange Kosmos ) was continued.
Web links
literature
- Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter: Long Mars. Manhattan, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-442-48746-2
Individual evidence