A Canticle for Leibowitz
Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classicA Canticle for Leibowitzopens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz, that reads: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma." To the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness and ignorance. As1984cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959'sA Canticle for Leibowitzwarns of the threat and implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleakCanticletackles the sociological and religious implications of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections--Fiat Homo(Let There Be Man),Fiat Lux(Let There Be Light), andFiat Voluntas Tua(Thy Will Be Done)--Canticleis steeped in Catholicism and Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how and why a person is canonized.--Paul Hughes--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.