1916: the Western Front. Personal Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring lawn. He can hear birdsong, and the blowing wind in the leaves in the trees. Where has the mud, blood and blasted panorama of No Man’s Land gone?

2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Cop Monica Jansson is normally discovering the burned-out house of the reclusive – some said mad, others harmful – scientist when she discovers a curious device: a container including some wiring, a three-way change and a…potato. It’s the prototype of the invention that may change just how Mankind sights his world for ever.

And that is an understatement if ever there was one…

The Long Globe is the first novel in an exciting fresh collaboration between the creator of Discworld Terry Pratchett as well as the acclaimed SF writer Stephen Baxter