FREE: A Canticle for Liebowitz, by Walter Miller, Jr.

The listing, A Canticle for Liebowitz, by Walter Miller, Jr. has ended.

Paperback, Very Good Condition
5.0 out of 5 stars:A True American Masterpiece
Amazon Review By Alexander Gayaon 1/17/2014
This book kept being drawn to my attention until I finally purchased it, drawn in to a certain extent by the stunningly beautiful cover art of the Eos/HarperCollins edition. I would be interested in seeing more work by John Picacio (the cover artist). The introduction was mixed, and I was not sure what to expect, but was sold almost instantly once into the actual novel. The three-part structure is used to great effect, and each parcel of the overall story has its own merits. Unless I am mistaken, A Canticle for Liebowitz was Miller Jr.’s first and only novel, it seems that after writing A Canticle for Leibowitz, Miller Jr. released no further work. What a shame! If all first novels could be this powerful!

Miller Jr.’s religiously motivated philosophy is made fairly clear throughout the work, and will not be to everyone’s taste, but it was to mine. I became very attached to many of the characters and especially to the Abbey, a bastion of pre-disaster knowledge that is being safeguarded for future generations against the twin monstrosities of barbarian military might and soulless scientific scholarship. The author destroys arguments for euthanasia in a supremely satisfying sequence in the third part; I metaphorically stood up and clapped.

The back cover claims that the work is “seriously funny, stunning, and tragic, eternally fresh, imaginative, and altogether remarkable”. Now, back-cover copy is often wont to gush, sometimes in disturbing excess of praise for hellaciously untalented work, but in this case, the back cover has nailed it. This book is one of the finest pieces of twentieth-century American literature, let alone speculative science fiction. Do yourself a favor and give it a read.