A Canticle for Leibowitz
by Walter M. Miller Jr., Volter Maikl Miller-molodshii · first published 1959
63% recommend33% neutral5% critical
Why HN recommends it
Post-nuclear story of Catholic monks in the American southwest who copy and preserve fragments of lost technology. Haunting and thoughtful, suited to readers who like post-apocalyptic science fiction with big ideas.
Common criticism: Some find little happens and the characters thin
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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 exquis
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Your comment makes me think you may enjoy the science fiction book 'A Canticle for Leibowitz' by Walter M. Miller (perhaps you already have :-}) It's set at a monastery in the desert post nuclear apocalypse, where scribes copy wiring diagrams and store artifacts like partially destroyed circuit…
on “Ellen Ullman wrote the most precise account of “computer culture” I have seen” ↗TL;DR: Bradbury, A Canticle for Leibowitz, and Vonnegut, sort of. Bradbury, unreservedly. I remember really liking Dune through God Emperor, but I read it so long ago that I recommend it only tentatively. I do recall that the one non-Dune book…
on “Choose your reading carefully” ↗A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter Miller (recommended SF classic) The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis (an old favorite, recommended) The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco (some interesting parts, but overall a disappointment)…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗…a sci fi and short story novel reader) The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison Stories of Your Life by Ted Chiang Like Brothers by Mark and Jay Duplass A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller Jr Endymion by Dan Simmons Hyperion by Dan Simmons A few classics that I'd never read before. Really great year of books for me.
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller is my favorite sci-fi short story I’ve read in a long time. It follows an order of Catholic monks in the American southwest many years after a nuclear holocaust. I won’t say more than…
on “Ask HN: Favorite Short Fiction?” ↗For your specific question, I really like the take from Walter M. Miller Jr.'s "A Canticle for Leibowitz" (one of my favorite novels): > The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they became with it, and with themselves as well. They made a garden of pleasure, and became…
on “It's Not All In Your Head” ↗…Anyway, The Jungle is a classic by any measure, Dau is a classic, Downbelow Station and most of the rest of Cherryh's catalog, Horatio Hornblower, The Book of the New Sun, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, A Canticle for Leibowitz, Hyperion, Riddley Walker, Blindsight... I could keep going all night. Listing these off, I realize that I forgot Dostoevsky in my list. Paulo Coelho should probably be there too.
on “Ask HN: I don't read fiction, how much am I missing out on?” ↗A Canticle for Leibowitz
on “Ask HN: What is your comfort book?” ↗- A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. - Anathem by Neal Stephenson
on “Ask HN: What is your favorite fiction book?” ↗…(Heinlein) - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain) - the Coldfire trilogy (C. S. Friedman) - various Cory Doctorow short stories - Kamikaze L'Amour (Richard Kadrey) - Lightpaths (Howard V. Hendrix) - A Canticle For Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller, Jr.) - Moonwar, Venus (Ben Bova) - the Stainless Steel Rat series (Harry Harrison) - Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson) - Ringworld (Larry Niven) - Cthon (Piers Anthony)…
on “Ask YC: favorite books” ↗…Touching the Void Got Fight The Conquest of Happiness --- FICTION --- Switch Bitch Lost Horizon The Cuckoo's Egg The Simlarillion The Time Traveler's Wife The Alchemist The Count of Monte Cristo A Canticle for Leibowitz Neverwhere My Uncle Oswald Stories of Your Life and Others Invisible Cities Life of Pi Atlas Shrugged --- WALL STREET / FINANCE --- When Genius Failed Liar's Poker Buffett (Lowenstein) Bull!…
on “Ask HN: Good books?” ↗…enough to have shared the award with Dune in 1965. Lord of Light is also a great read and won a Hugo in 1968. Clifford Simak's Way Station, Phillip K. Dick's Man in the High Castle, and Walter Miller's Canticle for Leibowitz are other great Hugo novels from the early 1960's that tend to be overshadowed by more famous authors from that period such as Heinlein (not that I wouldn't recommend The Moon is a Harsh Mistress if you…
on “Ask HN: What do you read?” ↗…'The Art and Craft of Drawing' by Vernon Blake 'The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci' by Dmitri Merezhkovsky ('romance' in the old sense of 'biographical novel') 'Prehistoric Avebury' by Aubrey Burl 'A Canticle for Leibowitz' by Walter M. Miller
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in 2013” ↗'A Canticle For Leibowitz' by Walter Miller. Because it helped bring me to the Catholic faith.
on “Ask HN: What were your "life-changing" books?” ↗Post apocalyptic technology worship: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller :) The world needs more of this stuff.
on “The AI boss that deploys Hong Kong's subway engineers” ↗