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A Canticle for Leibowitz

Eos

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One of the All time classics

One of the best SF books i have ever read, well it won N Hugo
the title does not come close to the story, i read a few years
back.
kind of resonates with the current state of affairs
our mythology, how much is mythology?

On everyone's "Top 10 Best SF" list -- and for good reason

There are certain classic science fiction novels that everyone with any claim to being an sf fan absolutely must have read -- and this is one of them. Now fifty years old, it's still one of the most original and most literary post-holocaust novels every written. The setting is the Utah desert a couple of centuries after everything ended -- and we're never told how, but given the era in which Miller was writing, it's easy to imagine. For all that civilization has mostly failed, the Catholic Church has just kept on going, and Brother Francis Gerard is spending Lent as a hermit in search of a true vocation. He stumbles upon a fallout shelter (no one is sure any longer just what sort of beast a "fallout" is but it's probably unpleasant) and a sealed metal toolbox which turns out to include a grocery list and a couple of electronics blueprints signed by the Blessed Leibowitz -- the patron of Brother Francis's own monastery. His life become wrapped up in copying one of the blueprints on vellum as a gift for the Holy Father, but only tragedy follows. That's only the first part of the monastery's story, however, as the world tries to climb back up out of the abyss. Will it all come to an end again? Because this is a cautionary tale, written with gentle humor and fully realized characters. I read this book in high school when it was first published (one of my English teachers was a secret sf fan) and it had such an effect on me that when I decided to publish a fanzine a two decades later, my first choice as a title was THE POET'S GLASS EYE. If you haven't read this book, do so. Immediately. If you have, but it's been awhile, read it again.

Fantasy and Science Fiction

I read this in Fantasy and Science Fiction. St. Leibowitz (canonized 3174)is the future of the history of libraries.

* Assurbanipal (668-627 BC) at Nineveh;
* Eratosthenus (276-195 BC) at Alexandria;
* Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27 BC) of Rome;
* St. Jerome (342-420) patron saint of librarians;
* Charlemagne (742-814) at Aachen who established schools that included scriptoria;
* Thomas Jefferson (1747-1826) father of the Library of Congress;
* Anthony Panizzi (1797-1879) principal librarian, British Musem;
* Cardinal Francisco Ehrle (1845-1934) at the Vatican Library;
* José Toribio Medina (1852-1930) Spanish American bibliographer;
* Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskîa (1869-1939) founder of the Soviet library system;
* Ladies Library Associations of the State of Michigan (1876).
* Jennie Maas Flexner (1882-1944) readers' advisor;
* Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) "As We May Think";
* Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) director of Biblioteca Nacional of Argentina;
* Major Owens (1936-) librarian in Congress
* St. Leibowitz (canonized 3174).

Masterpiece!

Probably the best book I've ever read. A haunting, post-apcalyptic world - all documented history systematically erased throughout the world - monks preserve books for future generations. Amazing. A must read.

A post-apocalyptic story told from a sci-fi/religious perspective...

A Canticle For Leibowitz is a story about life in and about a monastery following a society-busting nuclear war. Isaac Leibowitz was an engineer during this war, and following the break-up of society he established an Order to collect and store whatever written memorabilia could be found. Eventually, he was caught and executed as "one of them" - knowledgeable people who must have been involved somehow in developing weapons - by the remaining people who called themselves, with pride, simpletons.

But the Albertian Order of Leibowitz lived on. Six hundred years later, actual evidence of his existence was rediscovered, and Leibowitz was canonized as a Saint. Over hundreds of more years, the reinvention of the scientific process was combined with the ancient written records preserved by the Order. The result, eventually, was the development of space travel, and...

Let's just say that author Walter Miller, Jr., didn't have high hopes of humanity learning its lessons.

A Canticle For Leibowitz, as a story, has engaging characters, a span of over two thousand years, debates on the role of science and religion, sparring on ethics, and more.

This is a classic end-of-the-world book. For a book written in 1959, it still reads very well, because we bomb ourselves back into the Dark Ages, and thus start over.

Historically, I'd say inspiration for this book comes from that dangerous period that we call the Cold War. This book fits in with the other pessimistic books of that time period, such as On the Beach and Earth Abides.