Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains

by Sylvia Engdahl

Overview

Once Noren gains admission to the mysterious City where technology is hidden, he is convinced that metal and Machines can be made available to everyone and that this will end the rule of the Scholars. But he soon learns that it’s not as simple as he has thought. The plan is all too likely to fail, and is it right to let people go on believing in a Prophecy that may not come true after all?

The three novels in this trilogy were originally published in hardcover by Atheneum as Young Adult fiction, although unlike the first, This Star Shall Abide, this one is rarely of interest to readers below high school age. In 2000 an updated omnibus edition of the entire trilogy was republished as adult science fiction under the title Children of the Star.

From the reviews:

“Engdahl has carefully worked out the social structure and ecology of a scientific society that has been transferred to a planet without metals. What’s more, she wrestles with deeply adult problems of an apparently meaningless universe and of a people’s right to know facts that may destroy everything they hold dear.” —Psychology Today

“Introspective readers will identify with Noren and his doubts and sense of despair while the general science fiction buff will appreciate the further experiences of Noren within the credibly developed society on a planet unlike Earth.” —Booklist

“Offers depth and provocative ideas for the mature reader who wants more than just action.” —Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

“The well-developed characters will interest many young adolescents whose thoughts and questionings are similar to Noren’s.” —School Library Journal

“In a tribute to the intelligence of teenagers the author asks some thought-provoking questions. . . . The ideas of power, heresy, self-knowledge, and acceptance are thoroughly examined in a book that is a testimony to the human spirit.” —News-Gazette, Martinez CA

Product Details

BN ID:	2940000843116
Publisher:	Ad Stellae Books
Publication date:	04/05/2010
Series:	Children of the Star , #2
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	329 KB
Age Range:	13 Years

About the Author

Sylvia Engdahl is the author of eleven science fiction novels. She is best known for her six traditionally-published Young Adult novels that are also enjoyed by adults, all but one of which now have indie editions. That one, Enchantress from the Stars (available from its current publishers) was a Newbery Honor book, winner of the 2000 Phoenix Award of the Children's Literature Association, and a finalist for the 2002 Book Sense Book of the Year in the Rediscovery category. Her Children of the Star trilogy, originally written for teens, was reissued by a different publisher as adult SF.

More recently she has written five independently-published novels for adults, the Founders of Maclairn duology and the Captain of Estel trilogy. Although all her novels take place in the distant future, in most cases on hypothetical worlds, and thus are categorized as science fiction, they are are directed more to mainstream readers than to avid science fiction fans.

Engdahl has also issued an updated edition of her 1974 nonfiction book The Planet-Girded Suns: Our Forebears' Firm Belief in Inhabited Exoplanets, which is focused on original research in primary sources of the 17th through early 20th centuries that presents the views prevalent among educted people of that time. In addition she has published several collections of essays.

Between 1957 and 1967 Engdahl was a computer programmer and Computer Systems Specialist for the SAGE Air Defense System. Most recently she has worked as a freelance editor of nonfiction anthologies for high schools. Now retired, she lives in Eugene, Oregon and welcomes visitors to her website at www.sylviaengdahl.com. It includes a large section on space colonization, of which she is a strong advocate, as well as essays on other topics and detailed information about her books.