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Summary: Weird. Very very very weird.
Review: This certainly was an interesting book. Touchingly strange and I don't care to read it again.
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Summary: Thoughtful and applicable.
Review: This my second favorite book, the first being Hofstadter's _Godel, Escher, Bach_. It's incredible. What I particularly like about it is that it never stops being profound-- ending the chapters with the ubiquitous buzzards, the assisted-suicide debate in the end, and other devices. Read it.
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Summary: ***The most excellent of SciFi! One of my fave authors!
Review: Okay. I don't remember the author if someone asks me who wrote it. Yet--I love him! A great writer. An excellent craftsman! The story: It's great! Especially if you like those doomsday--stupid humans ruin civilization--types of books. I read this story when I was in school studying anthropology. The class was pretty boring until we looked at various books that reflected man's inability to build without creating events that eventually lead to some cataclysm. The story is mostly mystery. What does the strange writings from the ancient past mean? Who were the holy ones? Is mankind worth preserving? Can mankind save himself? The story is thought provoking. The story is a page turner that kept me enthralled. In a very humble way, it ranks up there with the Foundation books!
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Summary: Not Sci-Fi, but an essay about man with a Christian bent
Review: This book is excellent writing, but it is not what most people will consider as science-fiction. It did resemble science-fiction in one narrative cliche: scientists are naive pawns of darker forces they can't understand and won't recognize. This attitude is almost as prevalent in the body of science-fiction as is the other great sci-fi cliche, the obligatory adolescent sexual component found in half of the sci-fi stories written since 1960. It was very refreshing not to have *that* raise it's clumsy head in this book. ##### The sometimes heavy-handed christian moralizing near the end had me literally throwing the book against the wall, but if you are a practicing Catholic, you shouldn't find much to object to here. ##### *On the other hand*, "A Canticle For Leibowitz" is easily some of the best writing I have ever come across. The story is involved and has real depth and yet the book almost never gets bogged-down and slow. The characters are well-developed and believable. The depiction of the interior struggle of the human mind to come to grips with issues of life and death, good and evil is handled so expertly that at times it seemed that I was seeing my own thought processes transcribed on the pages. The question of faith, one of the most difficult questions for anyone regardless of their religion (faith in God, money, work, spouse, pleasure, or--mine by the way--just a mule-headed faith in the relentless stupidity of our species: whatever) was treated in such a simple, direct, compelling way that I found myself thinking about the book a lot when I wasn't reading it. ##### I think it is very telling that Miller, the author, was a tail-gunner in World War II. The quick, cruel and absurd turns the story takes reminded me very much of another WWII author, Joseph Heller and his book "Catch-22", and I was not at all surprised when I finished the book this morning to read in the author note at the end that Miller had endured much combat in that war. ##### The conclusion of the book is an inspired argument between the (as Miller evidently sees it) naive weakness of scientific and humanistic secular expediency, and the rigors of ascetic Christian Virtue. While I find Miller's apparent conclusions frustrating and offensive, his skill as a storyteller is beyond repute. I won't be reading the Catholic propaganda *Fiat Voluntas Tua" (third part) again if I can help it, but I will be reading "Fiat Homo" and "Fiat Lux" again sometime. Miller's ability to depict the Dark Ages alone guarantees his book an everlasting place in the canon of great english lit. ##### One thing is sure though: this ain't Larry Niven, and it also ain't pulp fantasy-romance. But if you like good writing with it's feet in the pools of history, head in the clouds of the spirit and a nice warm meal of roadkill pudding in it's belly, pick up a copy today and Fiat Ignis!
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Summary: Star Trek is sci-fi. Canticle is a classic
Review: It is unfortunate that Canticle is labeled "sci-fi." The only hint of science fiction is at the very end when selected representatives of the Order of St. Leibowitz depart by rocket to a distant destination to save the Memorabilia as this planet goes up in smoke. In all other respects it is classic fiction, portraying the effects of an albeit fictional nuclear war, and depicting humanity and dehumanization in much the same fashion as All Quiet on the Western Front, Gone with the Wind, The Naked and the Dead, and War and Remembrance. Canticle surpasses all of those in spades. Miller draws vivid pictures, and just as ancient texts were illuminated in our own dark ages by cloistered monks, so too can one visualize a dedicated cleric spending years producing a blueprint by pen and ink as a simple labor of love without having a clue about what it depicted. Miller's dark age was followed by a renaissance, then the scientific method, then the industrial revolution, and eventually by weapons of mass destruction. This book is a magnificent demonstration of the hypothesis that those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. In our own time we came within a hairsbreadth of nuclear winter in the Cuban missile crisis, and it would take but one small step by a couple of lunatics to recreate the very situation that Miller presents so vividly. Canticle is one of my prize possessions - it is not lent to anyone except upon the pledge of their firstborn.
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Summary: Best portrayal of the medeaval mind I have ever seen.
Review: This novel contains the best and most comprehensible portrayal of the workings of the medeaval mind I have ever seen. Brother Francis and his abbot demonstrate the typical and highest levels of that mind; something totally forgotten since the age of skepticism. For this reason alone this is a great book. Miller apparently only had one book in him; but what a book it was! This is one of only a half dozen books in my life that I have ever re-read.
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Summary: Science fiction for those who HATE science fiction.
Review: Miller reminds me of Bizet, the composer of the great opera "Carmen". Both Bizet and Miller are essentially one-work men, but what a work each has created! Just as "Carmen" is recommended as an opera for those who otherwise hate opera (poor souls), so do I recommend "A Canticle for Leibowitz" for those who otherwise hate science fiction (like me). It is a stunning book. I've read it several times, and our book club went crazy for it.
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Summary: This book is a classic
Review: Many years ago, I picked up a dog-eared copy of this book in a local second-hand store. Since then, I've read it every couple of years, and it remains one of the true classics of this genre. For anyone who hasn't read this book: Stop what you are doing and RUN to the nearest bookstore.
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Summary: What can I say? The best SF book you'll ever read.
Review: Commonly acclaimed as one of greatest SF novels ever written, 'A Canticle for Leibowitz' does not disappoint. It weaves an utterly compelling vision of the rebuilding of society after nuclear holocaust consumes the Earth, and the struggle of a religious sect formed around the memorabilia of an obscure 20th century engineer named Leibowitz to keep the past alive while trying to keep society from repeating the same mistakes. The book is divided into three parts, each separated by the centuries that swirl around The Brothers of St. Leibowitz as they watch the world go on from the seclusion of an Abby in the western US. The book is steeped in religious iconography, meticulous in its accuracy but not at all overwhelming. And unlike most of the other 'classic' SF novels, the prose shines with intelligence and the plot is as relevant as it was when first published almost 40 years ago. One possible flaw may be that the monks are so secluded that not much of the surrounding society is really dealt with on anything but a vague level. The Leibowitz Abby is the real location of all three parts. But details of the events outside the walls do make their presence known, and you get immersed so totally into the Order that by the last page, you'll feel like one of the boys. This book will truly have you cloistering yourself away, turning the pages like a real zealot. Forget the Celestine Prophecies. Follow the sacred shopping list!
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Summary: Who or What was Rachel?
Review: When A Canticle for Leibowitz was published, there were Cistercian monks teaching at my university, refugees from the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. They were cultured men, and they relished Miller's book. After all, Leibowitz was a Cistercian. The novel is rich with profound philosophical insights, and the chronology echos Western Civ--the author certainly knew his history. Those familiar with Catholicism can perhaps appreciate Miller's subleties better. Many reviewers have struggled with the question of Rachel'sidentity. I had no problem with this. She seemed clearly a second Immaculate Conception. Rachel's character had an impact on mypersonal beliefs. I had never taken to the Virgin Mary particularly--it seemed she had it made. If one were truly without sin, doesn't one have a built-in advantage? But when Miller inserted Rachel in that brief interlude in the third book, it struck me that God can do whatever He wishes. It is not for us to question his decisions. If He wants to create a dozen human beings and endow them with His special favor, is that not His priviledge? So Rachel awakens, perhaps to give solace to the dying, perhaps to demonstrate the presence of the Almighty, perhaps to bring hope to that destroyed world...whatever the reason, I have thought of her often. M.B. McArdle
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