The Long Tomorrow (novel)

infobox Book |
name = The Long Tomorrow
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = dust-jacket illustration from the first edition
author = Leigh Brackett
illustrator =
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country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Science fiction novel
publisher = Doubleday
release_date = 1955
media_type = Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
pages = 222 pp
isbn = NA
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Long Tomorrow" is a science fiction novel by Leigh Brackett, originally published by Doubleday & Company, Inc in 1955. Set in the aftermath of a nuclear war, scientific knowledge is feared and restricted.

Plot Summary

In the aftermath of a nuclear war the Constitution now disallows the existence of more than a thousand residents or two hundred buildings per square mile anywhere in the United States. Len Colter and his cousin Esau are adolescent members of the New Mennonite community of Piper's Run. Against their fathers' wishes, the boys attend a preaching where a trader called Soames is accused and stoned to death for his apparent involvement with a forbidden bastion of technology known as Bartorstown. Though sickened by the stoning and harshly punished by their fathers, Len and Esau are fascinated by the idea of a community that secretly still holds and harnesses the forbidden technologies. Len's grandmother, a little girl at the time of the destruction, sparks his interest in the technological past with her stories of big, brightly lit cities and little boxes with moving pictures. Despite even harsher punishment after being caught with a simple radio previously stolen from Soames' wagon, Esau and Len become determined to find their way to the fabled Bartorstown and leave Piper's Run for the Ohio River trading town of Refuge. Refuge is straining at its constitutionally limited size and some of the local traders are frustrated to see the new town of Shadwell growing across the river begin to take the additional business that Refuge cannot.

References

*cite book | last=Tuck | first=Donald H. | authorlink=Donald H. Tuck | title=The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy | location=Chicago | publisher=Advent | pages=61 | date=1974|id=ISBN 0-911682-20-1