SF Masterwork of the Week: A Canticle for Leibowitz

Our current SF Masterwork of the Week makes a welcome return to the list in hardback, with a stunning new cover by the wonderful Dominic Harman. Winner of the 1961 Hugo Award for best novel, we are delighted to be publishing the extraordinary A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Described by The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction as ‘one of the relatively few attempts in US sf to deal with formal religion, and one of the very few to do so successfully’ it is an acknowledged masterpiece of modern SF.

In the depths of the Utah desert, long after the Flame Deluge has scoured the earth clean, the rediscoveries of science are secretly nourished by cloistered monks dedicated to the study and preservation of knowledge.

By studying the Holy Relics of the past, the Order of St Leibowitz hopes to raise humanity from its fallen state to one of grace.

But is such knowledge the key to salvation? Or the certain sign that we are doomed to repeat our most grievous mistakes…?

We commend you to SF Gateway‘s social media curator Andrew Spong, who has run an SF Masterworks review site since 2005. He praises the book a ‘a superb addition to the SF Masterworks list . . .haunting, lyric, obsessive’; his review (written before Gateway launched, we hasten to add!) can be found here.

A Canticle for Leibowitz  is available as an SF Masterworks hardback (sorry, no eBook rights) EDIT: eBook now available! and SF Gateway eBook and you can read more about Walter M. Miller, Jr in his entry at The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.