I first read NTLT when I was about 12 years old and it affected my world view, particularly my mistrust of national IDs and surveillance. I just reread it this week because it kept popping into my head when I was trying to figure out what end game the .01% could be after: they seem hell-bent on making as much money as possible without regard to a livable biosphere, so what's their plan for themselves and their descendants?
In NTLT, their descendants are called "the Heirs" and they live in remote places, like a high-tech castle built into the Himalayas, one of the few places left with clean air. They don't even feed themselves, and are called titles like "My Lord." The poor live on the filthy lowest levels of the stacked megalopolises that fill the the world's continents, getting by through invisible means in a world of 40 billion.
White is weak on economics and sociological detail, though there are mentions of algae as a major food source and better public transit in his future than in our present. All that is to say it's not a perfect bit of world-building (he's got nothing on Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, for instance), but for 12-year-old me, it was startling and the main outlines of the world hold up and have something to offer to readers today.
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Well, I take it back... at least one person discussed NTLT and didn't like it much. I agree with this writer's critique of White's odd libertarian-lite, hands-off-capitalism worldview in that particular passage, but disagree on whether the characters are compelling. The cover, of course, is a thing of its time, as is the sexism. Big surprise.
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