#134. THE LONG TOMORROW By Leigh Brackett

Published : 1955
Pages : 237
Overall Mark : 8/10

‘No city, no town, no community of more than one thousand people or two hundred buildings to the square mile, shall be built or permitted to exist anywhere in the United States of America.’ – Thirtieth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

Two generations after the nuclear holocaust, rumours persist about a secret desert hideaway where scientists work to understand the forbidden past – even if it means threatening the future...

LEIGH BRACKETT (1915-1978)
Leigh Brackett was an accomplished and prolific writer of fantasy and SF, as well as a Hollywood screen writer. She worked on scripts for films such as The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye and Rio Bravo, and received a posthumous Hugo Award for the script for The Empire Strikes Back.

VERDICT
This book does nothing futuristic in its vision of a future where technology has been left in the past to avoid past mistakes. The characters have troubles outside of the obvious, and their journey to discover a secret town that possesses technology and the hope for a future similar to that left behind manages to be appealing while also acting as a warning to those that might wish to destroy the world around them by misusing their gifts. A solid tale that leaves us with a distinct feeling of ambiguity.