The Long Earth

The Long Earth is a collaboration between Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. Baxter is a British science fiction author known for hard science fiction. The two had been friends and discussing the concept for decades before writing the series together.

No. The Long Earth is entirely separate from the Discworld — it is a contemporary science fiction novel set on Earth (or rather, many Earths).

Step Day is the event at the beginning of the novel when the plans for a 'stepper box' are released anonymously online and millions of people discover they can physically move to parallel Earths. It is the moment that changes everything.

The Long Earth is lighter on technical science fiction than Baxter's solo work — it takes the premise of infinite parallel Earths and explores the human and social implications rather than the physics. It reads more like a philosophical adventure than a hard SF novel.

Five: The Long Earth (2012), The Long War (2013), The Long Mars (2014), The Long Utopia (2015), and The Long Cosmos (2016). All five were co-written by Pratchett and Baxter.

This is the first installment in a five-book series that continues with The Long War, The Long Mars, The Long Utopia, and The Long Cosmos.

Terry Pratchett originally developed the core idea for this series in the early 1980s as a short story titled The High Meggas, but he set it aside for decades before revisiting it with Stephen Baxter.