The Long Tomorrow

This is one of the better reads I've had. In a 262 page novel, there are many times when you think or even sometimes know that you have the ending figured out. Not so with The Long Tomorrow. It was literally on the final page when the denouement kicks in. Books like this are a rare and welcome find.

In a world ravaged by nuclear holocaust, the survivors need to lear how to survive without any of the conveniences of before. Who is best equipped to survive these times? The people that have shunned the material advancements and have lived as their forefathers lived going back many hundreds of years. The Luddites, the Amish and their ilk. The world is one big religious sect. It is a law that there be no more cities. There is a proscription against any deviance. You conform and believe or you are stoned.

Hidden in secret there is a lone conclave of scientists, by the name of Bartorstown, working in secret, trying to shape the future and steer it in a different course. They too are a bit fanatical as they must remain a secret, and they will take any action they deem necessary to remain a secret.

This is a story of two boys that are curious. They sneak away to what they heard was an offshoot of their particular religion, one in which people have been known to writhe on the ground in religious fervor. What teenager can resist the idea of seeing women, even ones dressed in petticoats that drag the ground, writhing on the ground. So, they slip away at night to take in this spectacle. What they witness changes their world view for all time, when they see a man accused of being from Bartorstown being stoned to death. This sets them on the path to find out what Bartorstown is.