The Long Tomorrow

By Leigh Brackett

Is this really a PA story?

The world ended by... Well it didn't go into details but 100 years ago all the cities were bombed (around the world, I got the feeling) and those left alive didn't know how to survive. But the Amish and Mennonites did. So now there are five million people in the US and they are varying sects of Mennonites, mostly.

This was really a coming of age story if you ask me. The two main characters, cousins Len and Esau find a radio (a banned object; in fact all technology is banned.) Only steam engines exist. Town size limited. Education is provided to the children but it to is limited. To say talking about the past is taboo is an understatement. Everyone avoids what remains of the cities.

Their parents are very angry and upset when the radio is discovered. They hit the kids with a belt to punish them. It's the last straw and they run away to find Bartorstown. A place where legend has it technology exists and you are free to learn what you want.

The book is divided into three books or parts. After running away the kids work in a river town and eventually are brought into the fold of Batrtorstown.

Bartorstown is not what they thought. I won't spoil it here, but after a while Len realizes that you're free to learn in Bartorstown but only slightly more than the rest of the world. They can never leave. The residents are really just a different kind of fanatic. in the end Len and a girl escape only to be caught and brought back.

I had a hard time trying to find the message in the story. I mean it was set in a PA world but it wasn't really part of the story. Was the author trying to tell us to be happy with where you are because the grass isn't always greener on the other side? Learn to live under the rules of society? Fear can make normal people go crazy and succumb to mob mentality? Nuclear weapons/power are evil? You can take away knowledge but people are curious and will eventually rediscover what has been taken away?

After reading The Scarlet Plague I found the contrast in the treatment of the elders interesting. In TSP the grandfather is free to tell his grandchildren what life used to be like but they don't really care. In TLT, talk of the past is kept in the past. When Len and Esau try asking their grandma what it was like when she was little she has no problem telling them. Later their parents chastise all of them for talking about such things. In the book the powers that be, in their efforts to prevent the world from ending again set up rules to try and keep the world from advancing. The folks of Bartorstown realize that this is impossible. Yet the majority of the population doesn't really question the rules. The just go along with them.

As a story TLT was average. It wasn't the greatest PA book I've read. It held my interest but wasn't a gripping page turner. Try to remember that this book was written 1955, it helped me put it into perspective.