A Canticle for Leibowitz

Walter M. Miller, Jr

1960 (Fixup)

Deep in the depths of the deserts of what had once been the United States of America lay the monastery of saint Leibowitz. Once an engineer in the world that had existed before the war of a thousand suns, Leibowitz was a heroic figure to those who had fought to keep the sparks of knowledge alive in the new born world order where being a scientist was a sure fire way to earn martyrdom.

The story opens with the discovery of a hidden cache of the blessed Leibowitz's plans as fellow members of the community begin experimenting with electrical lighting.

But will these experiments lead to a world that would make the same mistakes as the one that had perished in fire so long ago?

The book takes in a period of several hundred years as civilisation advances from what was little better than robber baronies through to continent spanning countries with the full panoply of technic civilisation behind them. But the Curse of the old wars still cropped up in the citizens as they showed the sins of radiation damage.

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This is part of the Masterworks Hardback series.

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