Jean E. Karl. Strange Tomorrow (1985)

     Jean E. Karl. Strange Tomorrow (1985) An SF story for young readers, apparently intended for middle school. It’s in two parts, one about Janie, who survives with her father and brother when the Clord destroy all life above ground on Earth, and one about her great-granddaughter, also called Janie, who is the Sustainer (physician) in a group of people that leave Alpha Valley to establish human habitation in Zeta Valley. The Clord are not further discussed; the focus is on Janie, who is a typical 13-year-old when she very unwillingly leaves home with her father instead of going with her mother to visit her grandmother. Her father is to do some basic maintenance work on an underground bunker, set up to preserve the government in case of a nuclear war. It saves their lives, of course, because a blizzard confines them to its shelter for several days while the Clord do their dirty deed.
    After the disaster, Janie develops unexpected leadership, while her father goes into a deep depression. Janie organises activity for herself and her brother Mark, activity that keeps them sane, and sets up a listening schedule on the bunker's communication system. They pick up a message from some people near Santa Fe, and this section ends with the family setting out to meet and bring these survivors back to the bunker.
     Part two takes place several generations later. The few human survivors have been able to utilise the biological supplies in the bunker to reseed their small part of the Earth with plant and animal life. The colony must divide and spread according to a plan worked out by the Old Ones (ie Janie One and her group). Janie Two at first doesn’t want to, but eventually, when her idea of yearly gatherings to exchange news, ideas, and goods is adopted by the other settlements, she is reconciled to her new home.
     The book works because of the detail and the believable characters. Karl ignores questions of ecology, such as where the oxygen comes from. I presume it’s coming from the oceans, whose life was protected as life underground was. Nor does she seem to realise that once viable soil with growing plants is re-established, both microbial soil life and plant life would spread rather rapidly on their own. She also does not develop the plot point of retaining memory of the Clord atrocity and preparing for possible conflict with them. I think the book will appeal to its intended audience, but I’m not a good judge of that. I’ll send it to Texas, and see what David and Caroline say about it. The book contains the seeds of a much longer, more complex work, one that might appeal to adults also. **½ (2003)