A Canticle For Leibowitz: still radiating genius? (video).

If there’s one thing humanity loves almost as much as blowing itself up, it’s forgetting we ever did it and gleefully preparing for the encore. Walter M. Miller’s 1959 post-apocalyptic classic A Canticle For Leibowitz certainly got that memo, presenting us with a chilling (yet darkly humorous) cyclical vision of humanity’s worst habits played out on an epic scale. After all, what’s better than a nuclear winter? A sequel, obviously.

For those uninitiated, Canticle isn’t your average irradiated-rubble-and-mutant-zombie fest. Miller instead gives us monks in desert monasteries painstakingly preserving scraps of scientific knowledge, blissfully unaware they’re probably safeguarding the next apocalypse’s instruction manual. Think of it as the ultimate recycling project—history repeats itself, though admittedly with fewer eco-friendly points and more glowing mushrooms.

At its sardonic core, Miller’s masterpiece suggests that humanity isn’t particularly good at learning from past blunders; rather, we’re spectacular at forgetting them just in time to repeat the show, complete with mushroom clouds for dramatic effect. It’s as if we collectively share historical amnesia, cheerfully recreating the same explosive finale every few millennia. Groundhog Day, eat your heart out.

But let’s not be overly pessimistic. Miller does give us a way out—or at least, a reflection on our stubbornness. The monks’ quiet toil offers some hope that knowledge, reason, and good sense might survive long enough to prevent our species’ next self-inflicted barbecue. Today, amidst sabre-rattling politicians and slightly too casual chatter about red buttons and big missiles, Canticle feels less like speculative fiction and more like an ironic user manual.

Here at SFcrowsnest magazine, we adore literature that holds up a satirical mirror to humanity’s darker impulses, and Miller’s novel is as reflective as polished uranium. It’s both a cautionary tale and a painfully sharp observation: we humans might be clever enough to split atoms, yet consistently thick enough to do it repeatedly. And frankly, that might just be our defining characteristic.

So, will history continue cycling round like a radioactive washing machine, or will we finally wise up and change course? If Miller’s classic is anything to go by, you might want to start stockpiling tinned beans and iodine tablets—just in case.