Lobsang

This article is about the character in The Long Earth. For the son of Time in the Discworld, see Lobsang Ludd. For the Abbot of the Listening Monks, see Abbot Lobsang.

Lobsang is a character in The Long Earth. He is a Tibetan motorcycle repairman... who has been reincarnated as a supercomputer. The reasoning was that several sixth generation computers have tried without success to be named a human, but, if it is said that the computer is actually a human being (albeit in an unusual form) there can be no trouble. Any people who try to argue with the practicality of reincarnation will get some very short shrift from the religious community. He now part-owns transEarth, a company which studies the various Long Earths, since the founder, Douglas Black, offered him a partnership. He does have a sense of humour, as he frequently disguises himself as a soft drinks dispenser.

Annotations

A Tibetan motorcycle repairman who is involved with spirituality - is there an echo of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance here?

Given Sir Terry's era, he may also have fallen temporarily under the influence of (or at least read) The Third Eye, published in the late 1950s I think, and supposedly written by the Tibetan monk Lobsang Rampa, who turned out to be a man living in Thames Ditton, but it was surprisingly popular and the first of many books by the same author.

Lobsang also has shades of the evolved Hex at his most smug and omniscient.