"The Long Earth" explores the literary discovery of what would happen in our world if it were easy for anyone to move to another universe of their choice, knowing that there are universes available to the billions of people who inhabit our earth. The story is set in the year 2026, and starts with the discovery of a machine made with a potato that permits to travel through universes.
In addition, the ease of tame the space will be combined with a manageable use of time: the reader ends up not knowing if everything is happening in the same place in different historical periods or simultaneously but in different spaces. Proof of the good work of the authors is the number of discreet "tributes" to famous science fiction texts, scattered throughout the abundant 500 pages at the beginning of the series: this is the case of episodes that explicitly recall the "Joking Worlds" invented by the author of Solaris, or situations similar to those of the films "Matrix", "Riders of the Lost Ark", or "The Man Who Whispered to the Horses". Even, as in Quixote, there are often little interspersed stories that depart from the main plot. Other times the patriotic feeling of the Mayflower pioneers or the conquerors of the American West is used.
As for a prudential assessment oriented to possible reading, in general the tone of humor removes iron from the "discoveries" of these colonizers of new worlds: for example, when some reinvent the phalansteries.
F.J. (Spain, 2017)