Torch is set in a post-nuclear war world, with industrial civilization having been destroyed a long time ago.

"Ago" is the world as we know it today, before the nuclear war. "The world's gone sour," according to the people who are living approximately seventy-five years beyond today. Because of the nuclear war the advancing technology, the learning, and the sharing of knowledge typical of the Ago stopped.

The more that Dio and his group travel into the unknown, the more that the reader becomes aware that "Ago" is our present-day world. The child of today hears from his or her grandparents the stories of the old days which are quite different from the ones Dio and his friends hear from their elders.

Children are used to hearing about the growth of technology and the so-called hard times of yesterday, when there were no VCRs, no electronic games, and...