"The Long Earth" by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

This is the only book I have ever read which includes an AI who's actually a random guy from Tibet reincarnated into a supercomputer.

It starts out as basically a thought experiment in "What if modern society suddenly gained the ability to travel through a multiverse of people-less Earths?" In other words, what would happen to society if scarcity of resources was suddenly no longer a concern?

So we're tied up in various vignettes for most of the first part of the book. The actual main plot consists of  a zeppelin, piloted by the reincarnated Tibetan supercomputer and crewed by one 28-year-old who's been hanging out in the various alternate Earths for most of his life and consequently reads more like an 18-year-old, traveling far along the strip of alternate Earths to see what's out there and look for any anomalies.

This does not really read like a Terry Pratchett book. There are definite bits of Pratchett in there (the reincarnated Tibetan supercomputer, for one), but it's not as funny as all his other books I've read, and it has a lot more swearing. I've never seen the Cardinal Swearword in a Terry Pratchett book (the closest he comes is all the "ing" jokes in The Truth), and it crops up several times here. Personally, I suspect those (and other bits that didn't seem Pratchetty) to be the work of the co-author.

There's a story in A Blink of the Screen, "The High Meggas", that was apparently the original version of The Long Earth. However, the two have several key differences, which occasionally tripped me up while I was reading this.

One minor character in this book is named Percy Blakeney. I... assume that he is not secretly the Scarlet Pimpernel. On the other hand, maybe he's just really good at hiding it.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: M for bad language (including multiple instances of the Cardinal Swearword), some sexual references, and some homosexual references. Which... {T15+ish soliloquy on that subject those bug me less as the age level of the surrounding work rises; most of my objection is when they crop up in things for people who aren't of an age to know about that yet. Homosexuality is a sin, yes, but no more so than heterosexuality outside of marriage, which we all seem to be oddly fine with. This concludes my soliloquy.}

3 stars.

(Endnote: There are five other books in this series, those being The Long War, The Long Mars, The Long Utopia, The Long Cosmos, and The Long Cat.)