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The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett
Aug. 30th, 2008 10:45 amThe Long Tomorrow (1955) is widely considered Brackett's best novel, and it's easy to see why. For one thing, it is a very Campbellian novel, so probably more palatable to hard SF fans than her planetary romances and space operas. It's also written in a down home, all-American venacular that's very different from the hard-boiled exoticism of her other science fiction and her crime fiction. On top of that, it's about Mennonites and mentions a character named Byers, which are sure signs of high quality. Oh yeah, and it's a damned good book.
It's a post-holocaust novel. Sometime in the past, humanity destroyed civilization in a nuclear war. In America, we learn, the Constitution has been changed to limit communities to two thousand people or two hundred buildings in an effort to stop this self-destructing civilization from ever developing again. The entire country has become agrarian, and cities and advanced technology have been abandoned. Our protagonist, Len Colter, is an adolescent farm boy living in a community of New Mennonites. His cousin, Esau, is a hellion who discovers a device that they gradually learn is a radio. They figure out how to use it by reading stolen books, and they surreptitiously listen for a signal. Then they hear a message from Bartorstown, the legendary town where scientists are said to still pursue the illegal dream of technology.
The novel is divided into three sections, like acts in a play. It's a coming of age story about Len, and an exploration of the American landscape, full of finely-observed details. (One book it reminded me of was Neal Barrett Jr's Through Darkest America, although that is a much darker and more nightmarish story.) It's an examination of religious fundamentalism, which always seems timely in this country. It's also an examination of the dangers of knowledge and individualism. In fact, it is a classic tale of the journey from ignorance to knowledge, with all the mixed blessings and responsibilities it brings. The ending is, perhaps typically for Brackett, strange, unexpected, and rushed. I've read that she never plotted her stories out ahead of writing them; she just started somewhere and made it up as she went along. Perhaps because of that, her denouements often feel haphazard.
When I say the novel is Campbellian, I'm really talking about the set-up and tone. The ending is more conflicted than you might expect in a paean to science, technology, and human ingenuity. Perhaps that explains why the book is not considered a true classic within the field, although come to think of it, the conflicted ending has a certain resemblance to another classic of post-holocaust SF, A Canticle for Leibowitz. Whatever the case, this is a very fine novel. I personally like her pulpier adventure stories more, but this one probably has a better claim to greatness. It's possible that even people who don't normally care for science fiction would like this one, because of the naturalistic surface.
It's a post-holocaust novel. Sometime in the past, humanity destroyed civilization in a nuclear war. In America, we learn, the Constitution has been changed to limit communities to two thousand people or two hundred buildings in an effort to stop this self-destructing civilization from ever developing again. The entire country has become agrarian, and cities and advanced technology have been abandoned. Our protagonist, Len Colter, is an adolescent farm boy living in a community of New Mennonites. His cousin, Esau, is a hellion who discovers a device that they gradually learn is a radio. They figure out how to use it by reading stolen books, and they surreptitiously listen for a signal. Then they hear a message from Bartorstown, the legendary town where scientists are said to still pursue the illegal dream of technology.
The novel is divided into three sections, like acts in a play. It's a coming of age story about Len, and an exploration of the American landscape, full of finely-observed details. (One book it reminded me of was Neal Barrett Jr's Through Darkest America, although that is a much darker and more nightmarish story.) It's an examination of religious fundamentalism, which always seems timely in this country. It's also an examination of the dangers of knowledge and individualism. In fact, it is a classic tale of the journey from ignorance to knowledge, with all the mixed blessings and responsibilities it brings. The ending is, perhaps typically for Brackett, strange, unexpected, and rushed. I've read that she never plotted her stories out ahead of writing them; she just started somewhere and made it up as she went along. Perhaps because of that, her denouements often feel haphazard.
When I say the novel is Campbellian, I'm really talking about the set-up and tone. The ending is more conflicted than you might expect in a paean to science, technology, and human ingenuity. Perhaps that explains why the book is not considered a true classic within the field, although come to think of it, the conflicted ending has a certain resemblance to another classic of post-holocaust SF, A Canticle for Leibowitz. Whatever the case, this is a very fine novel. I personally like her pulpier adventure stories more, but this one probably has a better claim to greatness. It's possible that even people who don't normally care for science fiction would like this one, because of the naturalistic surface.
