Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains — Sylvia Engdahl

Noren knew that his world was not as it should be--it was wrong that only the Scholars, and their representatives the Technicians, could use metal tools and Machines. It was wrong that only they had access to the mysterious City, which even in boyhood he had longed to enter. Above all, it was wrong for the Scholars to have sole power over the distribution of knowledge. The High Law imposed these restrictions and many others, though the Prophecy declared that someday knowledge and Machines would be available to everyone. Noren was a heretic. He had now come to believe in the Prophecy's fulfillment, yet the more he learned of the grim truth about his people's deprivations, the less possible it seemed that their world could ever be changed. Was it right to keep on promising them a brighter future?

Although this novel was originally published in hardcover by Atheneum as Young Adult fiction, unlike the first one in the Children of the Star trilogy it is rarely of interest to readers below high school age. For more reader reviews, be sure to see those for the omnibus edition of the trilogy under the title Children of the Star.