Trivia / The Tomorrow Series

• Next Sunday A.D.: Subverted. Despite its title, derived from that of first book Tomorrow, When The War Began, there is no evidence the Tomorrow Series is set in anything other than the present day – c.1993, going by the date of publication of that first book. Given that the length of the series greatly exceeded the time that elapses overall within the stories, the later instalments in fact seem to enter Webcomic Time to stop them slipping 20 Minutes into the Past. The only specific date given is in The Other Side of Dawn, Ellie refers to 'in 1995' as being at some point in the past.
• No Export for You: Only the first three books were released as part of the series' first American print run, with the other four being held back due to poor sales. The full series got a full American release in 2008, but poor sales again prevented the release of The Ellie Chronicles stateside.
• Ripped from the Headlines: Although the enemy country is never named (see below), the books were published during a time when Australia was going through a period of uneasy relationships with Indonesia during the 1990s, which would ultimately culminate in the 1999 East Timor Crisis.
• Shrug of God: The name of the country that invaded Australia is never mentioned in the series: they are referred to as simply the enemy or them throughout. Author John Marsden has said that he didn't know which nation the invaders were from, and in any case, did not want to pick one for fear of provoking a racist response from people who "knew they couldn't trust" that country. Sadly, this ambiguity has not prevented such racist responses, nor has it spared Marsden from criticism by people who have been victimised as a result of the books.
  • Off the beaten path, the most 'likely' identity of the enemy is probably Indonesia, to the extent that matters.
• Webcomic Time: The plot of the whole series takes place over a matter of only months. The seven books though were published at annual intervals from 1993-99. Adding in the three sequel Ellie Chronicles extends the publication timeline to some 13 years, whereas even with a short time-skip between the two series the total length of time in-universe represents barely a fraction of this span.
  • Long-Runner Tech Marches On: A subtle example. Over the 6-year publication period of the Tomorrow books there was a real-world revolution in electronic communication. Partway through the series a mention of a character using "E-mail" is casually dropped in, with this formatting of the name however immediately dating it to the mid-Nineties when the concept was new. In another mention nearer the end of the series (and decade) the term is quietly updated to "email".