A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-read after 17 years. Did it get better because I'm older? I enjoyed all the things I originally thought were brilliant at the time, and yet, it just HITS harder now.

What the hell am I talking about?

This is Canticle for Leibowitz, a true classic of SF. In short, it's a retelling, or rather, a history always-f**king-repeats story, of humanity's ongoing stupidity, sacrifice, redemption, brilliance, and desperate striving for wisdom where there seems to be absolutely none.

It simply begins with monks illuminating already ancient scientific texts they no longer understand, canonizing the very IDEA of science-as-religion. It is THE granddaddy of the Fallout game series. But then the novel hops across time, showing progress and the conflicts of preservation, of cupidity and greed versus the expansion of knowledge.

And from there, a modern future world feeling echoes of this strange science-religion as it goes through the throes of the same mistakes WE made before the nuclear war bombed us to the stone age.

But it doesn't stop there. It hops, and hops again, and the best part of this novel isn't just the imagination or the obvious conflicts, (giving a VERY nice effect, a-la Asimov's Foundation), but the massive subtext of WISDOM. Not religion, not science, but the core idea of WISDOM.

Something we obviously lack, in spades.

Oh, history isn't a rhymer. Screw that. It's singing the same damn tune, every chord, every line, every single time.


I just wish we had more novels like this in the world. Ones that really lay it out like this. It's not enough to just say we're being stupid. We have to know it. And do better.

Great novel. Huge scope SF.


My synesthesia smells dust, ink, and the perspiration of ages.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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