The Long Tomorrow

by Leigh Brackett

One of the original novels of post-nuclear holocaust America, The Long Tomorrow is considered by many to be one of the finest science fiction novels ever written on the subject. The story has inspired generations of new writers and is still as mesmerizing today as when it was originally written. ** Len and Esau are young cousins living decades after a nuclear war has destroyed civilization as we know. The rulers of the post-war community have forbidden the existence of large towns and consider technology evil. ** However Len and Esau long for more than their simple agrarian existence. Rumors of mythical Bartorstown, perhaps the last city in existence, encourage the boys to embark on a journey of discovery and adventure that will call into question not only firmly held beliefs, but the boys' own personal convictions.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Dystopia, Apocalyptic, Classics, Science Fiction Fantasy

262 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Leigh Brackett was born on December 7, 1915 in Los Angeles, and raised near Santa Monica. Having spent her youth as an athletic tom-boy - playing volleyball and reading stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs and H Rider Haggard - she began writing fantastic adventures of her own. Several of these early efforts were read by Henry Kuttner, who critiqued her stories and introduced her to the SF personalities then living in California, including Robert Heinlein, Julius Schwartz, Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton - and another aspiring writer, Ray Bradbury.

In 1944, based on the hard-boiled dialogue in her first novel, No Good From a Corpse, producer/director Howard Hawks hired Brackett to collaborate with William Faulkner on the screenplay of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.

Brackett maintained an on-again/off-again relationship with Hollywood for the remainder of her life. Between writing screenplays for such films as Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Hatari!, and The Long Goodbye, she produced novels such as the classic The Long Tomorrow (1955) and the Spur Award-winning Western, Follow the Free Wind (1963).

Brackett married Edmond Hamilton on New Year's Eve in 1946, and the couple maintained homes in the high-desert of California and the rural farmland of Kinsman, Ohio.

Just weeks before her death on March 17, 1978, she turned in the first draft screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back and the film was posthumously dedicated to her.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am of two minds about this book by Leigh Brackett, author of the original screenplay of The Empire Strikes Back. On the one hand, it is by my (perhaps) favorite classic science fiction author (the two other contenders being Leiber and Bester), and it is also the closest she ever came to an official masterpiece, for it has been reprinted in one of The Library of America's two volumes of 50's Science Fiction. On the other hand, although I liked the book, I prefer almost every other work of Leigh Brackett's I have read to this one.

For me, Brackett will always be the queen of interplanetary romances, those Edgar Rice Burroughs style fantasy yarns which appeal to the child in all of us. Set in the once improbable worlds—now proven impossible—of Venus, Mars, Saturn, and their moons, they feature strong proud warrior men and strong proud warrior women questing for secrets and treasure, surrounded by a wealth of entertaining aliens (furred, scaled, winged, carapaced, or gilled).

The Long Tomorrow is a very different book. Written in 1955, it is a no-nonsense novel, geared to adults. It describes an America some years after nuclear war has devastated its cities, a land dominated by Fundamentalist Luddite groups who shun modern technology, punish its practitioners, and forbid all towns greater in population than one thousand. (If this sounds to you like a cliché, you should remember that Brackett was the first writer to make use of it.) Len and Esau are adventurous teenagers living in the New Mennonite community of Piper's Run who have heard the whispered condemnations of the west coast technological mecca of Bartorstown. It soon becomes their shining city, their destination, and before long they are headed to the Ohio River--and beyond it—to the west.

This is a quest narrative—second nature to Brackett—but this time she pursues her quest realistically (no winged, no furry creatures here). The first two-thirds of the book crackle with a home-spun, Tom Sawyer excitement, particularly when the boys begin their travels down river to the Mississippi. But when we reach the quest city of Bartorstown, the excitement dissipates.

This is not necessarily a condemnation, for this dissipation of excitement emphasizes a crucial theme of the book: not only may the achievement of your quest be disappointing, but the rejection of the dream behind that quest may be disappointing too, and neither the achievement, nor the rejection, will be as dramatic or as final as you may think.

Now that is a very grown-up theme for a very grown-up novel. But I am a child at heart, and I would much rather re-read a tale of Eric John Stark in Skaith, or—even better—The Sword of Rhiannon.

[F.R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this (virtually) back to back with the excellent ‘Station Eleven’, it struck me that in an end of the world scenario, religion really isn’t your friend. The religious types encountered across both books are likely to either stone you or forcibly marry you. Okay, those are the very extremes, but even the milder examples would be insane zealots in any other type of fiction. Now I’m an atheist to my bones, but even I think this a little strange. Surely there’s hope in religion. The word ‘faith’ after all is an extremely positive one. Isn’t there anybody – after the power fails and the lights go out – who is just content spending their time singing a few cheery hymns? Of course science fiction does have a habit of defaulting to ‘Science = Good; Religion = Bad’ (even in this book, where science actually causes the cataclysm). But just to be on the safe side, if you do happen to find yourself still alive after the apocalypse, I’d be wary of any religious type, if I was you – particularly if they have a well-thumbed copy of The Old Testament.

Whilst I enjoyed a great deal of this, the very first post-apocalyptic novel – the vast spaces of the destroyed American landscape are beautifully captured, alongside dangerous levels of paranoia and distrust – there was one thing which held me back from truly loving it: the characters. At the centre we have two snot-nosed, full of themselves boys on the cusp of adulthood, whose rebellion seems almost willfully petulant. ‘The Long Tomorrow’ was published in 1955, they can only be (the newly dubbed) ‘teenagers’. These aren’t sympathetic examples of youth. Frankly they’d be difficult people to spend time with in a good world, let alone a nuked-out wasteland. As much then as I greatly admired this book, I did wish the narrative would wander a little further afield and find some more pleasant protagonists.

In summary: if Brackett is really suggesting that at the end of the world all we’ll be left with is unyielding religion and teenage boys, I think I’d rather run towards the bombs.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Long Tomorrow is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel that was published in 1955. It was nominated for a Hugo for best of the year but lost to Heinlein's Double Star. It's a coming-of-age tale of two boys who live in a New Mennonite community in Ohio a couple of generations after an atomic war. It's been ruled that pre-war conventions and technologies have to be abandoned, mostly enforced by a religious oligarchy. The two cousins become swept up in wonder about pre-war technology and lifestyle and follow their dreams by searching for a fabled secret community where such things are rumored to still exist. It's a dark and progressively depressing journey and they learn that what they thought they wanted is never quite what they thought it would be. It's a very different kind of story than those for which she best known, such as her lyrical and poetic stories set on Mars that led to her being affectionately known as "The Queen of Outer Space," or her hard-bitten crime stories that led to her collaboration with William Faulkner. Brackett was born and raised in Los Angeles but moved to the tiny, Amish-adjacent community of Kinsman, Ohio, after her marriage to Edmond Hamilton, a transition which surely influenced and informed this novel. It doesn't read much like a traditional science fiction story at all, and one of the genre tropes it does incorporate involving a computer left me a little puzzled, but it's a very compelling and involving character study.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it a challenge to approach this book on its own terms.

This was partly due to my expectations. I've read several of Leigh Brackett's planetary romance tales, and I know her screenwriting for Bogart films and John Wayne westerns. So, I kept thinking that this book would feature a tough, cocksure, well-seasoned, hero who uses a mixture of violence and bravado to solve all problems. But, this post-apocalyptic coming of age-tale about a conflicted and (at least initially) relatively passive youth isn't that− not at all.

I also found myself viewing the book in the context of two other post-nuclear novels of the era, John Wyndham's “The Chrysalids” and Walter Miller's “A Canticle for Leibowitz," both of which present visions of a rural, highly religious, post-apocalyptic North America where a profound reaction against science and technology has taken place. I don’t mean to say that the “The Long Tomorrow” was derivative of either book (in fact, I think it predated both of them), but it trod similar enough territory that I couldn't really think about it without also making constant comparisons it to those. And, while Brackett’s book was a pleasant enough page-turner, I feel it comes up a bit short in that comparison, both in terms of the gravitas of the issues confronted, and in the emotional and imaginative impact that it had on me as a reader.

Still, there was much that I liked about “The Long Tomorrow”, especially in Part 1, with Lem and Esau sneaking around on their private adventures, getting in trouble with parents and schoolteachers, etc. It had a “19th century American adolescent pastoral” feel that reminded me, vaguely, of Tom Sawyer− but which just happened to be set in the future. It also contained some nice irony, such as having the grandmother longing for the ‘good old days’ back when people lived in cities, bought clothes in in stores, etc. Part 1 also nicely set up a tension between the (superficial?) charm of rural village life and the neo-Mennonite religious certainty, while also showing its darker flip side.

I also found Part 2 interesting, as tension grew between Lem and Esau. (Its sort of like the story we might get if Tom and Huck got separated from Jim, stayed downriver, got jobs, and fell in love with the same girl.) At first, I felt like the internal conflicts within the town of Refuge were a slight distraction from the overall plot-arc of the novel (i.e. the quest for Bartorstown), but this episode ended up worked well as a kind of ‘way-station’ in the story. Refuge was a place where Lem and Esau could have settled down, gotten jobs, started families, had social tensions and fears not driven them out− and onward to Bartorstown. Also, this section added complexity to the setting. Here we see that the post-nuclear worldview isn't just just opposed to science and learning (beyond that possessed around the time of the industrial revolution), but also to the re-growth of population centers and the expansion of commerce. We also see that this isn't entirely due to religious reaction--- it's also supported by vested economic and political interests-- town vs. farmers, town vs. other town across the river, the judge wanting to keep his position of authority, etc.

By contrast, Part 3 was a let-down. It’s not just that Bartorstown isn’t the glorious city of science and learning that they were expecting. (That actually didn't bug me at all.) Rather, it’s the fact that they were just led/taken there. This was their great quest− and I wanted them to spend more time searching and struggling, and finding a way in on their own. I also feel like minor characters proliferate too quickly once they arrive, and those didn’t really seem all that distinct from each other. (There’s the one guy who’s the alcoholic, and the discontent girl whom Lem marries, but other than that…) And, while Lem's and his wife's decision to leave was unexpected development, it didn’t really go in a particularly interesting direction. I feel like it had the potential to make a hugely dramatic and shocking finish− particularly if Lem had chosen differently at the closing ‘Preaching’ scene, but it just ended with a whimper, rather than a bang.

Overall, I'd call this a decent story despite the disappointing last section, but as post-apocalyptic stories go, it's not quite on the same level as the two stories I mentioned before ("Chrysalids" and "Canticle"). Nor is it, IMHO, as enjoyable as Brackett's pulpier space opera tales, like those featuring Eric John Stark.

[Apatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A terrible scourge came onto this world. Those of us who survived it have labored and fought and sweat for two generations to recover from it. Now we’re prosperous and at peace, and nobody wants that scourge to come back. When we find men who seem to carry the seeds of it, we take steps against them, according to our different ways. And some ways are violent.”

That quote explains the basic concept of The Long Tomorrow pretty well. This book, published in 1955, is something of a minor classic, it was a Hugo Award nominee in 1956 (did not win). The excellent Jo Walton describes it as an
“American pastoral apocalypse” novel. It is quite an interesting setting. The cities have been bombarded to kingdom come by nuclear bombs, but in the aftermath, the US landscape still seems to be in pretty good shape. Outside the cities farms are thriving, food is plentiful (so no Hunger Games) and humanity seems to be in pretty good shape. The year of the narrative’s setting is not indicated, the events take place about “a generation later” which would be 50 to 80 years I suppose. By this time technology is outlawed and viewed as the evil root cause of the apocalypse.

The book begins with this quote from “the Thirtieth Amendment”:

“No city, no town, no community of more than one thousand people or two hundred buildings to the square mile, shall be built or permitted to exist anywhere in the United States of America.”

So people generally live in little towns or villages, controlled by religious sects like the New Mennonite, the New Ishmaelites, and the Amish (not new for some reason). These are the sects that normally have little to do with technology and live out outside cities, so they flourish in this new world. Unfortunately, all the ruling religious sects seem to have a Luddite-like intolerance for technology and scientific knowledge. Early in the book, a man is stoned to death for being from the mythical Bartorstown, where technology is believed to be in use. The narrative is told entirely from the point of view of Len Colter, who is 14 years old at the beginning of the book and probably around 17 or 18 by the end. Len has a thirst for knowledge and runs away from his hometown, together with his cousin Esau, in search of science and a better way of life.

The post-apocalypse world of The Long Tomorrow is refreshingly different from the depressing landscape of other books in this genre, like The Road, The Hunger Games etc. I am not sure what Leigh Brackett’s stance on cities, the modern life and technology is. An older character’s description of cities is eloquently unfavorable:
“The cities were sucking all the life of the country into themselves and destroying it. Men were no longer individuals, but units in a vast machine, all cut to one pattern, with the same tastes and ideas, the same mass-produced education that did not educate but only pasted a veneer of catchwords over ignorance.”

Life in the pastoral communities, on the other hand, is depicted as peaceful, except for the occasional stoning, arson, and hanging of individuals who try to introduce any form of progress. However, later on in the novel one of the wiser characters admit that progress is inevitable, knowledge cannot be destroyed and cities will eventually return. The best that can be hoped for is that humanity will have learned not to go down the same path toward destruction.

Besides being a cautionary tale, The Long Tomorrow is also a bildungsroman, charting the protagonist’s growth from a boy who is dissatisfied with the simple pastoral life, to a man who is very much changed by the things he has seen in his travels. The science in the books is rather dated, especially where computers are concerned. Stylistically the early parts of the book remind me of both Mark Twain and Ray Bradbury, especially in the early chapter where Len and his cousin Esau are sneaking about. However, there is a shift to a darker tone in the second half of the book. The ending seems a little abrupt and inconclusive, I am not sure what Len and us, the readers, are supposed to learn from all that has transpired. In any case The Long Tomorrow is an immensely readable, thought-provoking book without a dull moment. I certainly prefer it to the currently popular YA “teens save the world” dystopian fiction.

Quotes:
“Megalopolis, drowned in its own sewage, choked with its own waste gases, smothered and crushed by its own population.”

“Could you give up all the mystery and wonder of the world? Could you never see it, and never want to see it? Could you stop the waiting, hoping eagerness to hear a voice from nowhere, out of a little square box?”

“A thing once known always comes back.”

[Paulo (not receiving notifications)]

"The Long Tomorrow" could be the title of my adventure in reading this book and writing this review, considering all the troubles and time taken to complete the task. Let me begin:

A "post-apocalyptic age" refers to a period following a global destruction event that has severely damaged or almost destroyed human civilisation and killed most human beings on the planet. The "apocalypse" itself can vary widely. Common causes include:
Nuclear War, Pandemics, Climate Change, Supervolcanoes, Asteroid Impact, Mega-Earthquakes, Alien Invasion, Hyper-intelligent Machine Uprising, Supernatural or Unexplained Events, (often involving mythical creatures), Divine Judgment, or other mysterious phenomena. Let's also consider the most terrifying, nightmarish possibility: every video on YouTube suddenly becomes Donald Trump's whimsical rants of disinformation, played on an endless loop, like Bohemian Rhapsody in "Good Omens." Alleluia, brothers and sisters, Big Brother is watching you, and He will command you to split the "Righteous" from the "Impious". You can't tell one from the other? No problem; remember Arnaud Amalric? "Kill them all and let God sort them out"...

Leigh Brackett, nicknamed "the Queen of Space Opera," was known for her work in pulp Sci-Fi. As a screenwriter, she wrote the first draft of "The Empire Strikes Back" and died a few weeks after submitting it to George Lucas.
"The Long Tomorrow," undoubtedly her best book, is both a post-apocalyptic novel and a coming-of-age story.

Life after an apocalypse! What would it be like?
Technology will likely be non-existent—consider the implications of a power grid failure lasting only a few hours—cities, almost certainly, have vanished from the face of the Earth. The ragtag group of survivors will probably revert to primitivism and turn to brand-new fire-and-brimstone religions that would satisfactorily explain the suffering and punishment of "our" sins. New illuminated preachers would surface to dominate, enslave, and point you in the right path, and either you walk straight, or else. Sounds credible?

The first half of the book is mesmerising and brutally real, almost alive. It is well-written, believable, and compelling, and I got lost in it, but then, the middle section and the end are a bit disappointing. I blame the lack of coherence of the main character. It doesn't matter how disappointed one may feel with lost dreams; you remain "yourself," regardless of how shattered your dreams are.

This book is not one of the best classics of post-apocalyptic fiction, but it's not very far. It failed, in my opinion, on the scientific-technological side and in the failure of a psychological twist in the end. If you are writing a book about the consequences of a nuclear apocalypse, you can't discard the "fallout," as the "Ivy Mike" test in 1952 (that completely vaporized Elugelab Island) proved, unless you fix the problem with appropriate dates that could justify the absence of radioactive rains. The author just ignored the fact.

The best part of the book is, as I wrote above, the dazzling first half and the hyper-dominant eschatology developed by the survivors to replace ancient ethics and morals (or their absence, you choose...) in the form of utter fanaticism as a solution for the "sins" of the ancestors. The concept that, after the Holocaust destroyed life as it was known in the 50s, with all ethical systems and organisational rules of life being replaced by religious fanaticism based on the theological concepts of Menno Simons and the "Radical Reformation" in the 16th century in the Netherlands, is described by Brackett brilliantly with her "New Mennonites" in Huckleberry Finn's fashion and lifestyle with a bible in one hand and the other in a fist raised to "heavens" screaming “Repent! The End is Near,”.

Leigh Brackett doesn't provide easy answers to the questions that come to the mind of the reader (at least this reader...). In many post-apocalyptic books, the usual reason given for the total destruction of the old world is often an oppressive one that is so evil that it must be completely annihilated and rebuilt from scratch. However, Brackett offers a different perspective. She manages to convey a complexity rooted in a simplicity that is often lacking in other versions of this theme, meaning that "why the world was destroyed" is not important; the point is, why should it be rebuilt if... There is that expectation, the author created, of something new coming from the destruction of the old, whether it be new cultures rebuilding in the ruins of old ones or a judgment that allows entrance into any sort of paradise.

Brackett never attempts to force-feed you any sort of ideology. She handles many interesting ideas, even if just lightly, like xenophobia, religious intolerance, blind acceptance of the status quo, fear of the unknown, and understanding history so as not to repeat it, in a manner that leaves it up to the reader to figure out where morality and ideology fit in a dim-witted revival and reinterpretation of religion as the driving force of society, like in the Middle Ages.

In the last part of the book, the charm is lost. Instead of focusing on a point or vision, she seems to rush to the end with a twist that is not convincing to me, that is. The book ends with a sickening, sanctimonious smile, as if there was no solution to tie everything together in a convincing way.

To me, the end of the book sounded something like: Hey, you! Apocalypse is over, now we have serious problems...

[Ira (SF Words of Wonder) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Check out my full, spoiler free, video review HERE. After the US has been decimated by a nuclear war, Mennonites thrive and come to power. They wrote a 13th amendment to the Constitution banishing cities. Our main character Len is raised in a Mennonite community but gets some glimpses of the past in the way of technology and word of mouth stories. This plants a seed in Len’s head that puts him on a path that diverges from the Mennonite way. Extremely well written and Bracket explores some great themes in this one. Highly recommended to anyone who likes post-apocalyptic stories, or anyone who just like to read good books.

[James Renner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while, you visit a used bookstore and happen across a forgotten classic. In May, I drove through the little town of Kinsman, Ohio, on my way to Pymatuning to sit in a cabin and finish a novel that won't be published for some time. A used bookstore has slowly eaten away most of the other businesses in town and now occupies several storefronts around a convenience store/soda stand. Near the register I noticed a shelf devoted to an author I'd never heard of. Turns out Leigh Brackett is a local legend, a woman from California! who moved there with her husband and wrote scifi novels in a house down the street.

Brackett, I learned, also wrote several screenplays. Big stuff. Rio Bravo. The Big Sleep. And, the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back. I picked The Long Tomorrow up because I thought this was such a beautiful cover.

I'm glad I did. The book is just wonderful, classic scifi. It begins in Pymatuning, 100 years after a nuclear war has destroyed every city on earth. In Brackett's world, it's the Amish and Mennonites who survive the apocalypse. One day, a precocious boy, Len, and his cousin, Esau, come across a radio, a forbidden piece of technology that may have come from the last remaining city. The object kicks off the adventure as Len and Esau set out into the territories in search of the truth.

Like all good sci fi, the story is compelling even as the bigger themes develop in the writing. Visit a used bookstore and get a copy for yourself!

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was very interesting. The first post nuclear holocaust book ever written and the only one I've read that had Mennonites! It was pretty spectacular in many ways, here was a woman, writing in the 50s about science vs religion and how religion was making America backwards! There were some rather dull sections in the middle and it was disappointing that nearly all the characters were male! But all was forgiven with this section, "I know now what lies across the land, the slow and heavy weight. They call it faith but it is not faith it is fear. The people have clapped a shelter over their heads, a necessity of ignorance, a passion of retreat, and they have called it God, and worshipped it. And it is as false as any Moloch. And it will betray it's worshippers, leaving them defenceless in the face of tomorrow... Time goes on without any of us. Only a belief, a state of mind endures, and even that changes constantly, but underneath there are two main kinds- the one that says, Here you must stop knowing, and the other which says, Learn" without a doubt one of the best endings I've come across! So I forgave her for the dull bits, and loved the terrifying bits and the message at the end and must read more by her!

[Olivia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is well written and has an interesting start, however I struggled to find the third part interesting and feel like the idea was better than the execution.
Overall, I’m quite meh about The Long Tomorrow (and I never really connected with the characters) but Leigh Brackett is an excellent writer, and I’m glad I read this.

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

By all accounts I've read, Brackett's 1955 novel is the first, post-nuclear holocaust novel written in the U.S. It takes place around a century after what survivors call "The Destruction." Cities across the globe were bomb targets and they now exist as unvisited ruins, demonized as the symbol of the hubris that brought about the attacks. Brackett's brilliant and genuinely creepy innovation --although I guess it's not really an innovation if it is the first book of what is now a well-worked genre -- is to create a society, not unlike mid-19th century America, but where Mennonites control the government, the religion, and the ideology.

Mennonites?

Apparently after "The Destruction," they along with the Amish and whatever Shakers and like groups were still around, proved best suited to a life without technology. Their quaint ways are suddenly in great demand, and through means Brackett never fully explains, their simple, fundamentalist faith rules most of the spiritually defeated and technophobic United States, and it has, no surprise, hardened into an ideology that is not above stoning to death those they find threatening or burning to the ground towns that threaten to grow too large or introduce to many innovations. Doesn't seem l like a fair accommodation just for all the great jams and pies they bake, or that cool, pegged furniture.

The New Mennonites are also firm believers in "Spare the rod, spoil the child," a practice that keeps most youth contained but goes against the grain of our young heros, Len Coulter and his cousin Esau. They discover a short band radio that proves the existence of the fabled city of Bartorstown, which they imagine to be a thriving, mid-twentieth century American metropolis. The "long journey" of their title is their flight from home and many years' quest for this technological utopia.

This is SF filtered through Mark Twain and Frank Norris, filled with small town types, entrepreneurs, dangerous townsfolk, and mysterious strangers. And it all works. If many of scenes play out like those of early TV westerns, there's a good reason for that.

For years I thought Leigh Brackett was a man who wrote western screenplays for Howard Hawks, and that there was some other Leigh Brackett who wrote 1940's SF of the planet-hopping, space opera variety, back when Venus as a jungle and Mars a habitable desert. At some point I learned they were not only the same person but a woman. Despite this SF background, her first novel was a hardboiled detective story that caught the eye of Howard Hawks. He brought her to Hollywood to help William Faulkner with the famously troubled and outrageously convoluted script for The Big Sleep. She had both a successful Hollywood career and continued to publish SF. George Lucas hired her to write the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back. She died of cancer shortly after turning in the script and their continues to be discussion over whether any of her material was used by Lawrence Kasdan in the final screenplay.

Much os Leigh Brackett remains in print, but the packaging of the anthologies have too much Buck Rogers about them to tempt me. But I did read that she is the Poetess of the Pulps." I might have to lay aside my prejudices and have a go at something like Enchantress of Venus.

[Jack (Sci-Fi Finds) · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a world devastated by nuclear war, the Mennonite population of North America has flourished. This is since they already reject the concept of cities, technology and automation, opting to hand-craft goods and live off the land. We are following a young boy named Len and his cousin Esau in the small township of Piper's Run, who begin to develop a curiosity about how things used to be, fixating on rumours of a secret city still out there called Bartorstown. After finding a radio, the pair set their mind on leaving their homestead to seek out this mysterious location.

The novel mostly consists of an epic journey across the American wilderness, where the boys encounter different religious factions, other societal models and ways of thinking that challenge their beliefs. I thought that this was a really enjoyable reading experience, which is very well written and features distinct characters. I reckon that this would be a good one to recommend to people who tend to reject science fiction, or usually opt to read more literary works. This is mainly because Brackett bridges the gap nicely between high-quality prose and speculative ideas.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts out engaging but depressing. I don't know if I can handle the cynicism right now, as we approach the likelihood that Trump will get reelected (plus the pandemic, plus my two family crises). I hope that there's some of the optimism & beauty that make Station Eleven such a wonderful book.

Also, it's annoying that I see no signs of interesting female characters, making the "woman author" kinda pointless. Also it's a reread, as I remember being impressed by it but nothing else. No diversity, either... which could be explained as an artifact of the manner of the Destruction, but isn't.

But there's def. some beautiful writing, and thoughtful explorations and insights.

"[T]houghts are like mountaintops, a different shape on every side...."

(ok done)

Also, there's lots to discuss. For example, does religion encourage narrow-minded evil, or do narrow-minded men who are disposed to evil latch on to religion as an excuse? What should be done about curious & ambitious youth who aren't content with the secure status quo? What should be done about young women's instinctive desire for the cocky bad boy from out-of-town?

What about the two cousins? Why is the one who is more reckless, who has more of a tendency to "play it by ear" the one who acts more cowardly, and gets caught up in domesticity, and the one who is a worrier, who looks inward, the one who has the true courage and drive for the mission?

For a take on the 'youth on a quest for a better future' compare Molly Zero, in which the youth is female. Or, heck, compare to Brave New World, which imo is probably more widely-read because it's more prurient/shocking. In some ways this might be one of the best of all.

And so to sum, four stars for literary quality, barely three stars for my own sense of time well-spent, glad it's off my list.

[Fantasy boy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unexpected 4.25 stars read.
The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett is a science fiction set in post-apocalypse America after the holocaust ended the known America. I didn’t know anything about Leigh Brackett’s books before reading The Long Tomorrow. I am glad I picked this book up just for the sake of my intuition of books.( I usually have strong feeling about fantasy books before reading them. Not sure my intuition also works on books in other genres.) I think the author know how to sophisticatedly move plots forward and gradually build up tensions between characters and the conflicts in later plots without efforts. I noticed that Brackett’s writing clearly depicts the after-catastrophe world and the environment of people rebuilt because of the consequence. The dialogues have hidden messages about the info of the apocalypse world but not info dump to readers instead reveal them when it suit the plot developments. The plots, dialogues and characters are all exactly get to the point to what the story should be delivered to readers. Furthermore, not forgetting of questioning some introspective questions to us.

The story is about Len and Esau both found out the radio and used it trying to connect to the forbidden town, Bartorstown. After both the boys’s secret was found out, they had their repentances and were being purged by both their fathers. They decided to go to Bartorstown nevertheless. However, they were staying in Refuge town for a long time, know more rules of the Thirtieth Amendment, which disallowing more than a thousand residents and restricting the extension of the towns. Len has witnessed some people wanted to change the circumstances, but in vain. Len and Esau were rescued by the wagon traveler, Hostetter whose radio almost revealed his identity of the township of Bartorstown. After that, they were going to Bartorstown where they have been dreaming when they were a child. However, after they arrived at Bartorstown, they soon realized that it’s the place with different restrictions as in other towns. And people there were afraid of outsiders because they wanted to keep their secrets forever from outside world. The secret is under the mountain, inside the mountain there has a tunnel which leads to the atomic power generator, both Len and Esau believed that it is the devil itself. Bartorstown residents have been keeping the secret of the generator for decades; At the meantime, they were using the computer, Clemnetine to calculate the data of the generator in order to know any modifications to it or take actions when need. Len and His wife Joan soon realized that they were like being confined in a prison and escaped the town. Ultimately they were being caught; in the end, the story ends at their return journey to Bartorstown.

The story delivers heavy messages to readers. The themes are the fears of changing and humanity would prevent any possible changes from destroying the establishments after the post-apocalypse. Whatever organizations or governments are trying to prohibit spreading knowledge or eliminating it, that inevitably would leak out and disperse the knowledge to wider areas. Bans are not sufficient to stop using technology developments, and it’s always how to utilize the knowledge and weapons are crucial than compel not using them. In the end Len realized that his dream was just childish that not comprehensive of Bartorstown isn’t a paradise, it is a place like other towns which he has been to and has it own dark secrets. I think when Len kissed Esau’s girlfriend there already implied how the plot would develop in the end. Like the kiss, just a pleasant mirage, it’s good enough to have dreams to live in the harsh world, but when you want to change the already altered world, you need more than that. This book is not depicted as an extremely bleak world, but it points the cruel facts that we may confront when the time comes.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have two preferred types of Post-Apocalyptic novels. The first is written post-2000, featuring tough, capable, morally loose but overall good men and women fighting their way to a new future. The second is this: post-WWII fear novels of the 50s/60s. There are obviously post-apoc novels written in the 70s-90s, but the best ones arose, in my mind, within ten years after WWII. Mainly because the Cold War hadn't pervaded as long. By the end of the Cold War, people seemed to believe nuclear war was inevitable. When you think something is going to happen regardless of what you do, you start to accept it. Post-apoc literature/movies became more of a "guide" than a warning, or they started writing Post-Apoc novels taking place 100s of years after the Apocalypse. In comparison, Post-Apoc from the 50s were more of a warning against it happening (and it's also hilarious to see the gender, race and technology assumptions writers from the 50s put onto the future). For my complete list of genres of Post-Apoc, see the bottom. I really just need to start a blog, since my reviews have become far more rambling as of late.

Anyway, this was one of the better 50s-era post-apocalyptic novels. The premise and setting were very well fleshed out; this wasn't an apocalypse with raiders and etc, just normal people who had turned to religion to try to build back up their lives. What I liked about this, was how much it really was a product of its time. Today, religious people in post-apocalyptic stories are either fanatics or using religion to control people; rightly so, given our society's views towards extremism in religion. The difference between 1955 and 2015 is fascinating to me. Heck, you could write a thesis on how religion is depicted in 1950s novel versus today.

I thought Len and Esau were fairly well-done characters. They were similar as teenagers (Esau a little more arrogant and risky than Len), but as they grow into men, you see how their experiences and perspectives change them. Unfortunately none of the other characters are very fleshed out. Amity isn't given a voice and Joan is just kinda of there. Then again, it was the 50s.

It was also a quest novel, which I'm predisposed to enjoy, though it took quite a long time to get anywhere in the quest, though that was refreshing. Most quest novels have an accelerated timeline due to to some calamity, but this one took years to progress.

And, overall, it was a great book to read. Brackett's prose strikes a fine balance between description and action, and I was never once bored - in fact, for awhile I couldn't put it down. The ending also raised an interesting point about the grass being greener on the other side, but in the sense that I'm back to the 1950s "warning" novel again; it seemed to me that Brackett was saying: "we better not blow ourselves up, because no matter what you do or how you live your life in the apocalypse, your life will be shit." It also raised interesting questions about fear, technological progress, mob mentality, and morality.

One thing I didn't really get - how did the government IMPOSE these maximum 1000+ residents rule on cities? And what if a family were living there and a baby was born, making the town 1001? Did they get kicked out? Were there population police or something?

Tina's Post Apocalyptic "Genres"
50s/60s nuclear bomb fallout novels/rebuilding society (The Long Tomorrow)
50s/60s nuclear bomb fallout warning novels/everyone dies (On the Beach/A Wrinkle in the Skin)
50s/60s Post Apoc as a result of our hubris/environmental destruction (The Kraken Wakes)
Alien Attack Post-Apoc (The Day of the Triffids)
Post-Apoc as social commentary (America 3000 - ok, a movie)
Post-Apoc as a result of our technology (Terminator)
Post-Apoc that is semi-post-Apoc (On Such a Full Sea)
Post-Apoc comedy (rarely found pre-2000) (Usually short stories, like in "Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse")
Post-Apoc as simply the setting (Amnesia Moon)
Post-Apoc "Lite" (Post-Apoc but without all the really dark stuff (Station Eleven))
Post-Apoc due to Virus (The Stand)
Post Apoc where Virus creates monsters (The Passage)
Zombies
Post-Apoc that is actually just Dystopia (The Hunger Games)
Post-Post-Apoc set like 1000 years after the apocalypse (A Canticle for Leibowitz)
Coming-of-Age Post-Apoc (Z for Zachariah)
Dark, gritty Post-Apoc (The Road)
Fun as Fuck Post-Apoc (Mad Max: Fury Road - ok, a movie, but come on)

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an early (1955) post-nuclear holocaust novel. Here on GR several reviews erroneously claim it as the first in the genre, at least among US authors, but it isn’t true, Shadow on the Hearth by Judith Merril (1950) or Star Man's Son, 2250 A.D by Andre Norton (1952), as well as several early 1950s movies preceded it. I read it as a part of monthly reading for October 2022 at Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels group because it was nominated for Hugo in 1956, but lost to Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein.

The story starts with two boys, Lin and Esau Colters (cousins, aged around 14) daring each other to ‘sin’ – to go to a local fair to look at preaching (where people ‘fall down on the ground and scream and roll’ possibly even women! Which I guess decides it for the boys) despite their parents forbade it. They sneak out and see a sermon, but get more than what they hoped for – they see a man accused of something not very definite and stoned to death.

This is a world several generations after the nuclear bombs fell on US cities, destroying them. The only surviving communities (not individuals!) are Christian rural societies like Amish, Mennonites and the like, who hadn't used all these Satanic tools like cars or washing machines. Carters’ parents are New Mennonites and Lin’s grandmother still remembers the world before the war, when she was just a girl (so it is 50-70 years after the war). One of the important new rules, which distinguish this post-apoc novel from a lot of others is that cities are considered sinful, there even is the thirtieth amendment that No city, no town, no community of more than one thousand people or two hundred buildings to the square mile shall be built or permitted to exist anywhere in the United States of America.”

The cousins, like many at their age, are rebelling against their elders, and hope to get one day a mysterious Bartorstown, where it is rumored, old tech and way of life is kept.

The story reminds The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, but is more than just that. Like City by Clifford D. Simak it asks the very necessity of all these urban centers, where people are closed from the outside world. It is interesting to note that both group’s monthly reads are about post nuclear holocaust rural US communities and young protagonists (examples of bildungsroman), who don’t think that the new rustic world is better (the other book is The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson).

[David Agranoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leigh Brackett may not be a household name to most Sci-fi fans in this day and age but she was a ground breaking writer during the pulp era. At time when Ace was publishing most of their science fiction in doubles Leigh Brackett published dozens of space operas and fantasies ( that took place on Mars and Venus) far enough back that it seemed possible. One thing that made her a trailblazer is she didn’t hide her gender like a several women writing at the time.

She is most often remembered for the screenplay she wrote just before her death for the Empire Strikes Back. She also wrote several classic westerns and noir films like Rio Bravo and The Big Sleep. The word is that her screenplay for Empire was very different from the final product that was greatly over hauled by Lawrence Kasdan. So What? George Lucas thought enough of her space opera to give her the first crack. It is cool that Brackett was one of the first people to sit down with Lucas and has out the story. I think in high school I bought a couple of her books because she wrote Empire I have vague memories of reading them. During the Solar Lottery episode of Dickheads (the PKD podcast I co-host) we talked about that book being a double with Leigh Brackett novel. That book sounded interesting. I looked it up at the library and they didn’t have it. They did however have The Long Tomorrow and It was considered a masterpiece of 50’s post apocalypse fiction. Anyone who has read my blog for anytime knows I love a good end of the world story.

It was a cool surprise for me by the time the book showed up on my library holds and I got around to it, I had forgotten what it was about. Interesting timing as I was about to read Carrie Vaughn’s sequel to Bannerless that is set in a similar world. It is interesting to compare those novels and how they reflect the fears of the times. Brackett’s novel is inspired by the very real nuclear fears of the 50’s while Vaughn’s Bannerless books see the reset of the world being a outcome of environmental waste and climate change.

The Long Tomorrow is one hundred years after a Nuclear war in the Midwest. This is a very different novel from the bulk of Brackett’s but it is a hero’s quest just like many of her books. This quest is more Tom Sawyer than Frodo because the midwest of this future has gone back to the primitive, not by choice they are survivors. That said the beliefs and laws of this society have adapted and despite surviving books the idea of embracing technology and going back is a big no no.

So enter our Hero Len Coulter who is very focused on the journey to find the city where technology and the old world are embraced. Along the way there is a love triangle with his brother, and many adventures. He dreams of this place and the central question of the third act is this dream all he believed it would be. The society that survived is fighting to prevent any of the seeds that destroyed the past world from being planted again.

You may be thinking – I have read or seen this story one thousand times, and this story is cliché. Well this novel was released in the 50’s so this is one of the trailblazers along with Alas Babylon and On the Beach. It is the reason for the Cliche and is very different.

The Long Tomorrow shows its age at times, but I am glad I read it. It is a classic of the genre and it is important that we don’t lose these classics. I wouldn’t say it is a barn burner, but it has enough important themes and its role in the genre is undeniable. Yeah you should read it.

[Linda Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book took some sleuthing. I just finished reading Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir. Chinen Biesen shared backstory on The Big Sleep, a Howard Hawks production with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, based on a novel by Raymond Chandler. The movie has four writing credits. Hawks read a crime story written by Leigh Brackett, and hired the author through an agent. When Brackett called Hawks to discuss the screenplay, Hawks was dismayed to find out she was a woman. I looked Brackett up, and found that she'd written science fiction, including The Long Tomorrow, one of the early post-apocalyptic reads. I couldn't find it. I did find the crime story (No Good from a Corpse) that inspired Hawks to hire her, as a downloadable text file only. I'm still a little bit shocked these two books are so rare. Happily I found a first printing paperback of The Long Tomorrow in good condition. Written in 1955, set 100 years beyond the Destruction, people live in small farming communities without electricity, indoor plumbing, telephones, all the trappings of pre-Destruction life. The New Mennonites were the group who survived nuclear war with the least trouble adjusting to the new world order. The little communities are rural, closed and simple. There is farm work during the week and church on the sabbath, and a harvest festival annually. Traders from places with surplus other than food travel to the gathering. During the festival the boy cousin heroes, Len and Esau Coulter conspire to witness a preaching they have been forbidden to attend. What happens at the river propels their subsequent journey. Brackett's storytelling embodies the best of science fiction writing in the 50s and reads as intelligently today. Neither utopian nor dystopian, The Long Tomorrow delivers the what happens after in the journey of Len Coulter, a farm boy whose life is laid out before him in ordered rules with swift punishment for veering from the path. The genius twist from the typical Hero's Journey at the apex of the story: what if the elixir is not what you thought? We're up to our eyeballs in dystopian literature and movies right now that don't have the intelligence or heart of this novel. Thankfully, post-apocalyptic stories are conjecture, either in fiction or documentary. We don't know how humans will cope and it's the business of the writer to imagine. The Long Tomorrow gives us a brilliant look at the thought process of one young man who wonders what if. The reader is lucky that Brackett pondered that question.

[prcardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Storyline: 4/5
Characters: 2/5
Writing Style: 4/5
World: 4/5

When I pick up a science fiction book from the 1950s, I do so with some resignation. There’s going to be laser guns. People are going to zap each other with them. The author is going to think that is so very cool. And if not laser guns, then it’s going to be a jaunt of a ride on a spaceship where the provision of gravity, air, temperature regulation, and sustenance are of no concern. So much of 1950s science fiction was carefree fun and adventure. It came without a thought for technological limitations or societal consequences. A no-holds-barred escapade of good guys beating the bad guys in recycled scenarios. And I don’t mean to mock those that love the golden age of science fiction. There’s a place for nostalgia and for consequence-free wish fulfillment. But it does very little for me, and most of the time such works just make for painful reading hours. This book, however, was nothing like that. I picked it up knowing that it was a 1956 Hugo finalist but little else. And it was so very unlike what I had expected. This comes instead from that tradition that brought the future of science to the heartland of the country. The most celebrated of these would come later, works such as Clifford Simak’s Way Station , and though few could match his lyricism, they did all share a more mellowed, somber outlook to the world. The Long Tomorrow, like other similar works such as C.M. Kornbluth’s Not This August, are really dystopias. They’re deeply entrenched in the Cold War mentality, and they’re envisioning frightening futures.

I liked this because it was serious. It was contemplative. Brackett writes of a future that is both utterly believable and incomprehensibly foreign. There’s no zapping or rocketing here; this is a slow-paced coming-to-awareness tale of exploring the confines and liberation of knowledge in a world where society is still trying to come to terms with recent history and what it means for the future. I thought a lot of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle as I read this (a classic that recall fondly from earlier in my life). Brackett is obviously aiming more for literature than for pulp. There’s a lot of places where she succeeds. Just as regularly though, she moves on to the next scene or encounter before the last one has reached its full resonance. The book was a little too short and a little too fast to pull off what she intended. I liked those aims, though, and I thought she did an admirable job portraying society as she wished. It was with the individual characters that I was most disappointed. They could have brought a lot more to the story and have made this worth discussing decades later. As it is, it won't fully satisfy either the science fiction crowd or the literature lovers.

[Metaphorosis · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars - Metaphorosis Reviews

Generations after global war, the United States has banned cities, and people live in small, self-sustaining communities with limited trade. Len Colter and his cousin Esau feel constrained by the strict rules of their New Mennonite community, and eventually break away, looking for the legendary Bartorstown, said to retain knowledge of science and technology.

I haven't read a lot of Leigh Brackett - an adventure novel or two. I think of her as a solid, but uninspiring pulp author. The Long Tomorrow changed some aspects of my view.

The writing is stronger than I anticipated/remembered, and Brackett does a nice job of concisely conveying an interesting post-apocalyptic world, and of creating credible, engaging characters to follow. She does a great job of showing us Len's moral and emotional struggles, with turning him into a caricature. While Len is the core character, Esau gets fair treatment as a secondary character, and the two are interesting throughout. There's a fairly strong Tom Sawyer feel throughout, though of course the plots are entirely different.

The book was written well over half a century ago, but stands up remarkably well, in most ways. While the concept is by now a very familiar one,the focus here is on Len and his maturation. Where Brackett fails substantially (though slightly mitigated by the book's age) is in the treatment of women. While there are important female characters, they're entirely designed as plot mechanisms, rather than real people. Both of the boys' love interests are manipulative and needy. It makes a little sense in the male-dominated world of the book, but it's still unpleasant to read. Pretty much the only positive female characters occur early in the book, in the form of standard mother and grandmother types. Given the quality of the rest of the writing, it gives the feel of a writer trapped in the pulp conventions of the time, or unwilling to fight against them.

Despite its flaws, this is an interesting book deserving of a read.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I needed this to progress and end in a certain way, and it let me down. Forgive me because I am about to be dramatic. It obliterated my hopes and dreams. I want to believe that dreams come true, and for me this book did not send that message...It told me that humans are eternally driven toward what they don't have and what they can't see, something "better." It questions what "better" really is, does a better place really exist or is this it? It smacks you in the face with the reality that this is it, and it is no better or worse than we decide it should be. It speaks against judgment against fellow humans. The poor man on the corner is not so different than the man in his mansion, so why judge. At our core don't most of us have a lot of the same fears and desires?

Len, like a lot of people is on this never ending search for peace, and he realizes that peace only comes through certainty which he says can only come through death. He ends up returning to one of the places which made him unhappy, because what does it matter where you are when the grass isn't really greener on the other side? It makes you think do you want to always exist in this "long-tomorrow" that never becomes what you imagine it to be or do you make what you can of what you know you have? It is about being aware, but not being afraid.

Completely changing thought processes:

I want to say this book was really depressing because it hurt my heart, but it really wasn't. It was just shockingly realistic...except I don't think the world would be inhabited only by those blinded by their religious fanaticism. The other ideas, emotions, and questions are all real enough though.

[Mieczyslaw Kasprzyk · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the end, this is very much a book of its time. The premise is that we are in a society that has grown out of the nuclear holocaust. Cities and technology have largely been banned and the US consists largely of bible-bashing theocracies which control the people. Somewhere, however, the remnants of a free-thinking, technological society are believed to exist and our heroes, two young boys, are determined to find it.
Initially I was dismayed by the lack of imagination the author displayed - things had recovered too fast, with barely any (if any) biological or ecological damage. In fact there was no real evidence that the bombs HAD been dropped.
The whole scenario made me think of the American dream of a rural nirvana, everyone peacefully co-existing among the haystacks, barns and cattle. The only serpent in this garden of Eden is the religious restrictive community - but that's as American as... a hamburger!
I think Leigh Brackett was less concerned about the rebuilding of a post-apocalyptic society (a la "Canticle for Liebowitz") and more interested in the whole idea of freedom of thought and the ultimate inability to undo technology. As I watch them walk down the street with their eyes and brains enslaved by their iPhones....

[Babbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Philosophical work based in a post-nuclear war future. Portions remind me of Earth Abides, in how significant the make up of specific sects of survivors can be on the future values and cultural fabric of the community. It also has a dash of Canticle for Leibowitz, in how relics from the previous life can influence beliefs and taboos.

Very little of the book actually covered the war, or immediately after, but the setting made an interesting backdrop for societal differences and how values can shape polices depending on what is required for survival for that specific community and who founded it.

[Anthony Buck · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book - the two main characters were well fleshed-out and several of the supporting characters were very memorable. The setting felt credible and consistently realised, and the transitions between sections of the book felt natural and satisfying.

It doesn't quite make five stars because parts of it felt a bit light, particularly the last quarter. I was left wanting a little bit more. I feel like I would have liked this more if I had read it when I was 18.

But still a very good book.

[fromcouchtomoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-written '50s SF, with a post-apocalyptic, pastoral setting that brims with Cold War regrets about knowledge and technology. A controversial ending that keeps you guessing until the final page, but Len's decision is the only one that makes sense given Brackett's powerful theme: [redacted because find out for yourself].

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

This treads similar ground to the novel A Canticle for Leibowitz (which was published a few years later) but The Long Tomorrow is the vastly superior of the two. In fact the message of Canticle - which I found to be a disgustingly self-loathing view that humans are inherently evil and technology will always be a problem - is one that Long Tomorrow makes look rather unsophisticated. This is a more considered look at the theme of Science vs Religion. I’m making this sound like rather dry stuff but it’s a very readable tale: simply told and beautifully written.

The story takes us through a post-apocalypse human world that has gone back to the land, in which people live simple lives dominated by a religious imperative. The story travels from a settlement living an Amish-like subsistence all the way to a secretive community living in the world-weary, seemingly thankless, struggle of a technological enclave. The protagonist matures from boyhood to adulthood, ever questioning in which world he belongs.

This is my first encounter with Leigh Brackett (if you don’t count whatever contribution of hers survives in the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back) and I was greatly impressed. Thought-provoking, yet easy to read.

[Jersy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An impressive novel about the imperfection of humanity. The title is incredibly fitting, already hinting at some of the themes of the book.
It is written in a very compelling was, making it easy to feel for its protagonist Len. He is in opposition to the world, so it seems, and even to his closest ally, his cousin Esau.
Big recommendation for fans of coming of age stories and postapocalyptic or rural settings.

[Gökhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nükleer yıkım sonrası, bağnazlığın hükmettiği, küçük kasabalardan oluşan bir Amişler ABD'si, bir "gerilemiş dünya" içinde çok akıcı bir bilim-inanç çatışması, bir büyüme hikayesi yazmış Brackett.

[Ignacio · Rating 3 out of 5]

De Leigh Brackett se habían traducido sus novelas más próximas al pulp, sin embargo ésta, considerada su mejor obra de ciencia ficción, continúa inédita en España. Tras leerla entiendo un poco por qué: su forma de construir el relato a mitad de camino entre la historia de iniciación y el western moral, escaso de acción y repleto de descripciones de un mundo postholocausto nuclear extraído del oeste de las grandes praderas y ríos, la convierten en arsénico para el grueso del público de ciencia ficción. A ratos parece una de la colección Frontera de Valdemar, con un desarrollo lento, ceremonioso y tan tremendamente reaccionario como cabría esperar de un argumento copado por el pánico a la bomba de los 50. Aun así Brackett convierte el pesimista viaje de su protagonista, Len, desde la ilusión de los sueños y aspiraciones de la infancia al jarro de agua fría de la madurez, en un elocuente alegato a favor del pragmatismo. Se puede sobrevivir a la frustración de ver quebrarse los ideales sin terminar en la amargura o alienado.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only real science-fiction-y aspect of the novel is the fact that it takes place in the future, after a World War III nuclear holocaust has destroyed all the cities in the world. After this catastrophic event, the government has outlawed cities (too much of a target) and pretty much everyone has taken to being a New Mennonite and living just like the Amish do today. Part of the new religion preaches the comfort of being ignorant, thus keeping people from wanting to invent another nuclear bomb.
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