Title: A Canticle for Leibowitz
First published: December 7, 1984
Description: Highly unusual After the Holocaust novel.  In the far future, 20th century texts are preserved in a monastery, as "sacred  books".  The monks preserve for centuries what little science there is, and have saved the science texts and blueprints from destruction many times, also making beautifully illuminated copies. As the story opens to a world run on a basically fuedal lines, science is again becoming fashionable, as a hobby of rich men, at perhaps 18th or early 19th century level of comprehesion. A local lord, interested in science, comes to the monastery. What happens after that is an exquisitely told tale, stunning and extremely moving, totally different from any other After the Holocaust story
Subjects: Hugo Award Winner, award:hugo_award=1961, award:hugo_award=novel, American Science fiction, apocalypse, nuclear war, civilization, science fiction, church versus state, Long Now Manual for Civilization, Monks, Fiction, Monasticism and religious orders, Mutation (Biology), Nuclear warfare, Christianity, Monastic and religious life, Reading Level-Grade 7, Reading Level-Grade 9, Reading Level-Grade 8, Reading Level-Grade 11, Reading Level-Grade 10, Reading Level-Grade 12, Social aspects, Radioactive fallout survival, Science, American fiction, Fiction, science fiction, general, Science fiction, history and criticism, New York Times reviewed, American literature, Fiction, general, Knowledge management, Freedom of information, Wandering Jew
People: Walter M. Miller (1923-1996)