A Canticle for Leibowitz (Bantam Spectra Book) - Softcover

Miller Jr., Walter M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553379267 ISBN 13: 9780553379266

Publisher: Spectra, 1997

Synopsis

In celebration of the publication of the sequel Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman comes this special edition of the classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, a novel that transcends genre to stand as one of the most significant literary works of our time.

In the Utah desert, Brother Francis of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz has made a miraculous discovery: the relics of the martyr Isaac Leibowitz himself, including the blessed blueprint and the sacred shopping list. They may provide a bright ray of hope in a terrifying age of darkness, a time of ignorance and genetic monsters that are the unholy aftermath of the Flame Deluge. But as the spellbinding mystery at the core of this extraordinary novel unfolds, it is the search itsel—for meaning, for truth, for love—that offers hope to a humanity teetering on the edge of an abyss.

A timeless and still timely masterpiece, A Canticle for Leibowitz is a classic that ranks with Brave New World and 1984.

About this title

Review:

Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz, that reads: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma." To the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness and ignorance. As 1984 cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959's A Canticle for Leibowitz warns of the threat and implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleak Canticle tackles the sociological and religious implications of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections--Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light), and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Thy Will Be Done)--Canticle is steeped in Catholicism and Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how and why a person is canonized. --Paul Hughes

From the Publisher:

"Extraordinary...chillingly effective."
--Time

"Angry, eloquent...a terrific story."
--The New York Times

"An extraordinary novel...Prodigiously imaginative, richly comic, terrifyingly grim, profound both intellectually and morally, and, above all...simply such a memorable story as to stay with the reader for years."
--Chicago Tribune

"An exciting and imaginative story...Unconditionally recommended."
--Library Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Spectra
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0553379267
• ISBN 13: 9780553379266
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368