Darkness and Dawn

It is important to understand that this book is less a speculation on the future than an expression of the cultural standards of the day in which it was written. Simply put, it was written by a White Man for White Men. These are the ideas the author espouses and expresses: Women are the weaker sex and any sign of "manly" virtues like bravery or competence are cause for astonishment and admiration. The protagonist's instantaneous response upon seeing the primitive peoples of the distant future is to kill them - shoot them, blow them up with explosives. Without the ennobling influence of the White Race, the dusky remnants of humanity must inevitably degrade to a subhuman state, and should a White Man reappear, the immediate reaction of the hideous apelike remnants must be to worship him as a god. The duty of the White Man is to re-establish True (White) Humanity once more and wipe the subhuman races from the face of the earth. To any reasonably intelligent person this is annoying and embarrassing to read, and stretches the "willing suspension of disbelief" to its limit. Other reviewers have politely stated that one should not look too deeply at the story's flaws. The book is appallingly racist and sexist. It must be clearly stated. Appallingly racist and sexist. I think those flaws are the significant feature of the book, and should be looked upon very closely indeed, to understand exactly the commonly accepted and admired ideas of that day, and see how that culture and society gave us the huge social and moral dilemmas we are faced with today.

The Darkness and Dawn trilogy is composed of three separate novellas, all available here as one document, or as separate manuscripts:

• The Last New Yorkers

• Beyond the Great Oblivion

• The Afterglow

Written by George Allan England (1877–1937), an American writer and explorer, the story introduces us to Allan Stern and Beatrice Kendrick who have miraculously survived an Earth-destroying cataclysm by going into suspended animation in the same office and waking up a millennium later at the exact same time for no definite reason ever explained.

They then wander through the rest of the story having incredible adventures to rival the pulps of the classic age, express their love for each other (for pages and pages and pages), have more incredible adventures they survive by the skin of their teeth, express their love for each other for many more pages, express their disdain for religion and capitalism, face death square in the chops, express more of their love for each other, express how the new world they are going to rebuild will be a socialist paradise, fight to the death with a monster or two, express their love for each other, and ... well, you get the picture.

Along the way we learn that concrete and steel are eternal, that 1,000-year-old food in the tin still tastes good, that Allan can rebuild a pre-WWI plane from deer hides, that fur coats stored carefully for a millennium can still be worn, that people can go into suspended animation and wake up with the clothes rotting off their bodies without any harm to themselves (or even feeling hungry), that a ten-century-old bullet can still fire without any problem, that air pressure does not change to any serious degree if you go to the bottom of a canyon that is well over 50 miles deep, and did I mention that concrete will outlast the heat death of the universe?

And along the way, you'll probably read that Allan and Beatrice are rather fond of each other.

And saints preserve us, but writing this review, I just realized that the author and the main character share the same name which means this story is a type of Mary Sue tale!

Regardless, if you like pulp adventures with lots of action and high body counts, then you have just found paradise.

Just don't analyze the tale too closely.

Craig Alan Loewen
http://literary-equine.livejournal.com/

Pretty good but did contain elements of the predjudice of its day.