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I just finished The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. As I see others have noted, this book feels more Baxter than Pratchett. It has always seemed to me that Baxter, whatever he is writing, loves to show off: "look how big this idea is!" - and that appears to be the object of The Long Earth. I'm a big Pratchett fan, but I'm afraid this book didn't reveal much of his voice, and where it did show I'm not sure it fit all that well.
There were several beginnings of good stories in here, and many good characters, but they never really came to anything much. The two main climaxes seemed predictable and cut short.
In all: If you come to this as just another Sci-Fi then it's not a bad read: competently written and an interesting premise. I suspect my problem was that I came to it with very high expectations, and so I came away disappointed. I'll probably read the next one, at least, in the hope that maybe Baxter will have gotten some of his extravagances out of his system and might finally let a story be told. (Well, I can hope.)
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