Book Review: A Canticle for Leibowitz

This novel is better than most at combining sci-fi apocalypse with a realistic faith community. I'm still not sure it's good enough. The three-act structure of the book as it skips across centuries gives it a lot to say, and leaves a lot unsaid. The focus on an Abbey that preserves knowledge after nuclear catastrophe is a good one, but only in the third act did I start to feel that the faith of the monks was a genuine point of interest on the part of the author. There's not many false elements, either, so I can't complain. I found the details of the preservation and re-emergence of science to be the most interesting part of the book, but the narrative only hints at it, and I disagree with both the pace and the order in which knowledge is regained. One mysterious character is very strangely depicted and feels like a missed opportunity. For all its shortcomings, if standard sci-fi even had half of the respect for other modes of knowing that this book does, the world would be a better place.