Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

Rating:
Summary: Wild Horse Woman could have used some severe editing.
Review: I grew up with wide-eyed wonder reading Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz and Isaac Asimov's Foundation novel. Both were powerful and well written stories that did not rely on techno-trivia, cryptic Lord of the Rings characters, or the Penthouse magazine Letters section to entertain the reader. Alas, Miller and the writer that finished the story fell into all these traps. Its akin to reading early Heinlein and then jumping to the end of his career and reading his last stuff. A profound disappointment that lacks any of the weight of the original work. I keep a much revered copy of the Canticle for Leibowitz in my collection; I threw St. Leibowitz and Wild Horse Woman in the trash.

Rating:
Summary: A terrible disappointment
Review: I hate to just sort of chime in to say I agree with the previous reviews, but, well, I agree with the previous reviews. I've read and reread CANTICLE since I was in my teens, I was thrilled to see this book at Borders, I snatched it up and, almost from the first page, realized what a terrible let-down it was going to be. Overlong, confusing, and, worst, just not very interesting. Oddly, this is the third long-delayed sequel to terrific books which I've read in the last year, all of which have proven to be disastrous: the others were Jack Finney's FROM TIME TO TIME and Carl Reiner's CONTINUE LAUGHING. I think these books are a lesson to all writers-- learn to leave well enough alone.

Rating:
Summary: Pointless and disappointing sequel to a really great book.
Review: I managed to wade through this sequel to "A Canticle for Leibowitz" in the hope that the story was leading up to something that would come close to the mood and mystery of the original. However, all I got was an endlessly boring battlefield drama, with an abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion. If Mr. Miller was planning a sequel to his most excellent book, he should have written it forty years ago, when his talent was still fresh. Unfortunately, this sequel serves to diminish rather than complement his earlier work.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: I never read the "Canticle for Liebowitz" and so cannot compare the sequel. I finished it, which, for me, says a great deal. I think it is an interesting abstraction of facets of our world, all jumbled up in the hi-speed blender of the future. As science fiction, it is better than many and worse than some. I do not see it as the great cult novel of this generation of Scifi, but then I never really saw any value in any of the cult fictions.

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant follow up to Canticle.
Review: I read Canticle 30 years ago and found it one of the most provocative science fiction novels published at that time. I recommended it to like-minded enthusiasts in the UK, and generally got a positive response from them. Recently, I understood that Miller had written a sort of sequel to Canticle and eagerly awaited the publication of Wild Horse Woman in the UK. I was not at all disappointed. Whilst this cannot be considered as a true sequel to Canticle, the re-use of location, characters, and concept is truly inspiring. The convoluted yet focussed plot of this novel, together with the "off-the-wall" directions with which the author channels the reader produces a another masterpiece of late twentieth century science fiction writing.

Rating:
Summary: Almost a good book
Review: I reread Canticle for L recently and found this book as well on the shelf so read it... definitely not the same style as the first and written in a very different context. It's interesting and led me to read about the author and why this book was published at all... and why his work is so limited. The context of the first was a very real fear of nuclear annihilation during the 50's phase of the Cold War... the context of the second is said by some to be the life of the author. It's a timely read in the context of 2002, with RC church scandals along with people considering the winnability of nuclear war in South Asia. It's also occasionally difficult to read due to some signs of it being a little hacked up over years of writing ... a somewhat confused use of dialects and out-of-context variants of person's names... and the not completely invisible hand of the 'editor'.

Rating:
Summary: Almost a good book
Review: I reread Canticle for L recently and found this book as well on the shelf so read it... definitely not the same style as the first and written in a very different context. It's interesting and led me to read about the author and why this book was published at all... and why his work is so limited. The context of the first was a very real fear of nuclear annihilation during the 50's phase of the Cold War... the context of the second is said by some to be the life of the author. It's a timely read in the context of 2002, with RC church scandals along with people considering the winnability of nuclear war in South Asia. It's also occasionally difficult to read due to some signs of it being a little hacked up over years of writing ... a somewhat confused use of dialects and out-of-context variants of person's names... and the not completely invisible hand of the 'editor'.

Rating:
Summary: Sadly disappointing
Review: I was very saddened to see this book and it took a lot of hard work to get through it...more of a chore than a pleasure. I found it lacking in the careful detailed prose that I had come to expect from Miller and the powerful drive of ACFL was missing. Miller left it unpublished: a mistake for it to be ressurected, I feel.

Rating:
Summary: A very large disappointment
Review: I will admit that I did not finish the book (a rare thing for me) although I gave it 150 pages of my attention. Canticle for Leibowitz was wonderful so I was pleased to find this "sequel." However, even standing alone, not being compared to the first, this book is meandering and confusing. I was intrigued by the approach to post-apocalyptic sexuality (not something in Canticle) but that wasn't enough to keep me reading. One needs good characters and a good story, and this book doesn't have either.

Read A Canticle for Leibowitz, but skip this one.

Rating:
Summary: Love in a crazy future
Review: If you loved the post-apocolyptic world of 'Canticle for Leibowitz', you have to read this. It is too bad Miller did not produce more. I loved 'Canticle' and had to read this sequel. This story takes place about 70 years after the middle section in 'Canticle' (Fiat Lux), and delves deeply into the politics and religion of the fictional future, much more so than its predecessor. Actually, the result reminded me more of 'Dune' than 'Canticle'--the nomadic tribal people rising up against the controlling empire and the religious people moving between the two, stirring up trouble. Where 'Canticle' had the broad view, basically taking us from nuclear devastation to nuclear devastation as history repeats itself, this book focuses very closely on a few compelling characters serving a papacy in exile for a few years during during an era when technology hovered somewhere around that of our 19th century. And Brother Blacktooth is one of the finest characters in literature that I have read in a long time--trying to find love (both God's and woman's) in a crazy and confused time.

I have removed one star for length. I cannot help thinking that if Miller had lived to publish this, it would have been more concise. Still, this book demonstrates what a storyteller Miller was.