A Canticle for Leibowitz Book Review

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A Canticle for Leibowitz often ranks among the greatest science fiction of all time. It’s considered a classic, and for good reason. So of course, I placed it on my TBR, and I finally got around to reading it. Let’s get into the review.

Written by Walter M. Miller Jr. and published in 1959, A Canticle for Leibowitz initially started out as three short stories. All three were published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It became a fix-up, depicting all three stories in novel form, and also won the Hugo Award in 1961.

The best way to describe what happens in this story is to explain its background. The book generated tons of scholarly research, but the book also sets up a unique premise that I was really excited for. After a global nuclear war called the Flame Deluge, a process called “Simplefication” took place throughout the world. This sent the world back into a dark age, where learning was punishable by death. Isaac Leibowitz traveled to a Cistercian monastery to combat this, developing books in secret to preserve general knowledge. He eventually founded a new Order, the Albertian Order of Leibowitz, before his martyrdom and eventual sainthood. The book begins six hundred years after his death.

I really enjoyed this work, especially based on all of the themes it touched on. I’m a sucker for discussing religion through science fiction, and this book’s depiction of a post-apocalyptic church intrigued me. However, some aspects of the story kind of threw me off. For one, each of the stories drops plot threads as soon as they end, and they end somewhat abruptly. I understand they started out as short stories, but it made them feel less complete. I did, however, recognize the overarching story connected to the book’s background, and I enjoyed the development of the world at large. Major events take place in the foreground, and we instead focus on the lives of the characters, which provided a welcome change from more typical action-oriented sci-fi.

To me, the first third of the book best characterized the people and how they understand the world around them. The first story also does a great job of creating the world and providing the necessary context for why the world became apocalyptic. It provided a chance for the philosophical musings and internal struggles of the characters to shine through. For example, one of the characters discovering the fallout shelter with Leibowitz’s memorabilia remains one of my favorite parts of the book, as it presents a challenge for the monastery and a practical issue for its inhabitants. I also liked how the ending included a unique character reveal, which I won’t spoil, though it does involve the Virgin Mary.

This makes me more interested in reading religious science fiction. I might pick up the sequel and see where that goes. In the meantime, I look forward to working on another blog post. Happy reading!

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