Welcome to Litsy!

This was a good classic post-apocalyptic novel, but not one of my favorites from the 1950s. I thought the writing was great but I just couldn't understand the motivations of the main characters at times. I would still recommend this despite some of my frustrations with it.

Nominated for the 1956 Hugo Awards. Not a new read for me, but I want to do a review.

Coming-of-age story during a tech-adversion apocalyptic scenario with a main character who is enchanted with technology.

Does not proceed entirely in the direction you'd expect. Great ending.

#SFFawardnoms

As the story takes place less than 100 years after the nuclear apocalypse, I have the feeling that the long tomorrow of the title is what happens after the story ends, and that Len Coulter's coming-of-age is the template for a development that will be writ large across the future history. So, a cautiously optimistic view of things, recognising the fragility upon which that hope is founded. A nice balance between character and plot. 4/5🌟

Birthing takes nine months, and dying takes you all the rest of your life.

Two opposing world views justifying their position and vilifying each other by appeals to the same god, the same scripture, the same excuses. Only, it's the *other* side who are dangerous fanatics... Even a nuclear apocalypse can't change some things.

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.

"There were fires in the sky, red fires. They were cities burning."

This put me in mind of "Red Skies Over Paradise" by British new wave band, Fischer-Z (pronounced the British way, as a pun on 'fish's head'). It's an album full of '80s nuclear angst, and polemics against multinational capitalism, fascist oppression, suicide and urban alienation. Despite which, it's somehow quite uplifting! #booksandmusic #postapocalypse

As long as there are crazed or crafty leaders to play on old fears, a mob will turn cruel.

I love reading a book that was printed before I was born! In "old money", this one cost 3 shillings and six pence, or 17-1/2 new pence after decimalisation in 1971.
Anyway, as it turns out, this isn't set very far into the future, as I'd initially thought, but it is a post-apocalyptic story, another genre I enjoy. I can almost hear Charlton Heston's anguished cry, "You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

With shelf space at a premium, I've made an effort to start pulling out those of my TBRs that just possibly-maybe I might-perhaps let go of once I've read them. Only done part of my sci-fi and fantasy shelves so far and these are what I've pulled. Simply because it ended up on top, I'm going to start with Leigh Brackett. I do love a far-future history, though, so she might be saved in the end! This is such a bloody hard task! 😫