Canticle for Leibowitz, A

by Walter Miller (1959)

3/10

This didn’t work for me, although unlike many books I don’t like that much, I can see why other people do.

I need emotional impact in my stories, typically through characters I can care for. The anthology nature of these 3 novellas means that there are no characters to care for as a through line. And having to engage in 3 different sets of world-building is tedious as well. (It’s the same post-apocalyptic world, but separated by centuries, essentially analogous to the Dark Ages, the Wild West, and a future Space Age.)

On top of that, by the end it becomes clear that the author is advocating for a questionable-at-best moral position. He sets it up as a question between Science and the State, but really what he’s describing is a conflict between Religion and the State. The very fact that in his portrayal the side of Science is represented by a strict religious order is as telling as it is absurd. Miller appears to be proposing that we’d all be very well off if only science was fully controlled by a (faithful, non-hypocritical) Theocracy.

Which is, uh, an absolutely insane proposition.

This culminates in a truly disgusting episode in which our 3rd “hero” the abbot of the Liebowitz Order tries (and, thankfully, fails) to stop a terminally radiation-poisoned mother from committing euthanasia/suicide on her daughter and herself… because their suffering is part of god’s plan and suicide is a sin. Yeah no. But at least he proves his righteousness at the end by trying to suffer as much as he commanded the child to, or something.

This may be where me never having even gotten close to being Christian may impact my enjoyment or even comprehension of this story. But if this is the best Christianity has to offer, it’s a pretty shit argument. It just leaves me vaguely horrified at the book’s resolution, that the only descendants of humanity will likely be from the same fanatical cult as this guy.

In conclusion, good world-building, solid premise, but poor narrative/characters and a truly disturbing level of Christian apologia. The only narrative part I liked was the hermit who I guess is a stand-in for Lazarus, but he was only on the periphery of the book and I kept waiting for something more to happen with him.