Line #21 Literature/BrotherInTheLand


1	[[quoteright:283:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2019_12_30_at_175511_9.png]]
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3	A 1984 novel by Creator/RobertSwindells.
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5	One summer's afternoon in Skipley, Yorkshire, teenage Danny Lodge, after a humid day of minding the family shop, takes his bike onto the nearby moors and, caught in a shower, shelters in a pillbox left over from the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWar2 last world war]]. He dozes off, wakes to be dazzled by a distant flash, and sees, on the horizon, an enormous mushroom-shaped cloud. A masked soldier confiscates his bike, orders him back to the town, and kicks him in the stomach.
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7	Back in Skipley, life drags painfully on, with worldwide devastation, minimal food, and the only sign of law enforced by a troop of soldiers who reputedly shoot on sight anyone who approaches the supermarket. On befriending local girl Kim, Danny hears rumours of an automated commune on the land of smallholder Sam Bramwell...
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9	!!This novel provides examples of:
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11	* AfterTheEnd: Small, disparate communities struggle to survive.
12	* AnyoneCanDie: Played unflinchingly straight.
13	* BabiesEverAfter: The [[spoiler: more efficiently equipped commune on Holy Island]] sees the birth of several babies unharmed by mutation, the latest of which is expected by [[spoiler: Dan and Kim]].
14	* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter:
15	** {{Subverted\|Trope}} with [[spoiler: the death of Kim’s sister’s baby]].
16	** [[spoiler: Ultimately PlayedStraight with the birth of several healthy babies on a more efficiently equipped commune on Holy Island]].
17	* BreakTheCutie: Curiously [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] with Dan’s seven-year-old brother Ben, who seems to take in his stride the ruination, shortages and danger.
18	* CoolOldGuy: Sam Bramwell, with limited resources, leads a benevolent, efficient commune.
19	* CrapsackWorld: With much of humanity dead, survivors contend with shortage of safe food and water, murderous neighbours, ravaged terrain, and a regression of law and order to medieval tyranny.
20	* CrazyHomelessPeople: “Spacers” wander in a traumatised delirium.
21	* DisasterScavengers:
22	** Murderous "Goths" roam the land.
23	** “Purples” [[spoiler: eat people]].
24	* HumansAreBastards: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]]. Sam Bramwell theorises that desensitisation to carnage through newsreels has eroded human capacity for empathy.
25	* {{Jerkass}}: Rhodes, brusquely snide former PE teacher, and second in command to Bramwell, whose idealistic benevolence he disdains.
26	* ANaziByAnyOtherName: At nearby Kershaw Farm, an elite of sheltered survivors shoot hoarders, execute the sick, and enforce agricultural toil on penalty of starvation.
27	* OopNorth:
28	** Skipley, West Yorkshire.
29	** Danny, Kim and Ben flee Oop even further North to Holy Island, [[UsefulNotes/NorthEastEngland Northumberland]].
30	* PrecisionFStrike: Whereas Swindells books tend to avoid outright swearing, here we have “piss off” and “bastard”.
31	* ReducedToRatburgers: Flight across a nuked England necessitates eating local wildlife.
32	* ThePlague: Radiation sickness, which emerges as a “creeping dose.”
33	* ParentalAbandonment: Mrs Lodge was killed in the blast. Mr Lodge is later [[spoiler: killed in a raid on the shop]].
34	* PostApocalypticGasMask: The Kershaw soldiers’ radiation masks lend a terrifying mystique.
35	* SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: Early on, Kim aims a killing blow at a murderous raider, and aspires to abandon sentiment. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] with her breakdown over the radioactive deformities which threaten [[spoiler: and cause]] the death of her sister’s baby.
36	* SillyRabbitCynicismIsForLosers: The benevolent cooperation aspired to by Sam Bramwell ultimately proves more prosperous than the brutality of raiders.

Context Literature / BrotherInTheLand