She aimed for no less than the first serious science fiction novel of character. But because Brackett's ambition was huge, she chose for her setting a post-nuclear Ruined Earth. This is the theme of the Bildungsroman: loss of innocence, change, and the journey from safety into the unknown in pursuit of knowledge. Brackett sets up her major theme in the first sentence: knowledge is sin, and fourteen-year-old Len Colter is about to take the step that will lead to his loss of Eden. The opening of The Long Tomorrow reads like a King James Bible for the American myth: sure, rhythmic, and implacable. Twenty pages later, I couldn't understand why it wasn't universally acknowledged as a Great American SF Novel. Five pages in, I wondered why I'd never heard of it. I read The Long Tomorrow for the first time in 2005.
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