It has been nearly forty years since Walter M. Miller, Jr., shocked and dazzled readers with his provocative bestseller and enduring classic, A Canticle for Leibowitz. #160; #160;Now, in one of the most eagerly awaited publishing events of our time, here is Miller's masterpiece, an epic intellectual and emotional tour de force that will stand beside 1984, Brave New World, and A Canticle for Leibowitz. In a world struggling to transcend a terrifying legacy of darkness--a world torn between love and violence, good and evil--one man undertakes an odyssey of adventure and discovery that promises to alter not only his destiny but the destiny of humankind as well. . . . Millennia have passed since the Flame Deluge, yet society remains fragmented, pockets of civilization besieged by barbarians. #160; #160;The Church is in turmoil, the exiled papacy struggling to survive in its Rocky Mountain refuge. #160; #160;To the south, tyranny is on the march. #160; #160;Imperial Texark troops, bent on conquest, are headed north into the lands of the Nomads, spreading terror in their wake. Meanwhile, isolated in Leibowitz Abbey, Brother Blacktooth St. George suffers a crisis of faith. #160; #160;Torn between his vows and his Nomad upbringing, between the Holy Virgin and visions of the Wild Horse Woman of his people, he stands at the brink of disgrace and expulsion from his order. #160; #160;But he is offered an escape--of sorts: a new assignment as a translator for Cardinal Brownpony, which will take him to the contentious election of a new pope and then on a pilgrimage to the city of New Rome. #160; #160;Journeying across a continent divided by nature, politics, and war, Blacktooth is drawn into Brownpony's intrigues and conspiracies. #160; #160;He bears witness to rebellion, assassination, and human sacrifice. #160; #160;And he is introduced to the sins that monastery life has long held at bay. This introduction comes in the form of AEdrea, a beautiful but forbidden "genny" living among the deformed and mutant castouts in Texark's most hostile terrain. #160; #160;As Blacktooth encounters her again and again on his travels--in the flesh, in rumors of miraculous deeds, and in the delirium of fever--he begins to wonder if AEdrea is a she-devil, the Holy Mother, or the Wild Horse Woman herself. Picaresque and passionate, magnificent, dark, and compellingly real, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman is a brutal, brilliant, thrilling tale of mystery, mysticism, and divine madness, a classic that will long endure in every reader's memory. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Until his death last year at age 75, Miller was known as a one-book author--but the book was the classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, winner of the 1960 Hugo for Best Novel. Here is Miller's sequel to Canticle, completed after his death by Terry Bisson and likely the most anticipated SF book of the fall season. Now the errant monk Blacktooth is impressed into the service of Cardinal Brownpony, who is seeking to unite rebel factions against the tyranny of the Hannegan empire. Over a millennium has passed since the fiery end of the "Magna Civitas" of the 20th century. Gennies, genetically damaged people, live in isolated conclaves, and little-understood remains of the nuclear holocaust still cause illness and are revered as holy places. Scholars study ancient documents and sometimes succeed in re-creating a weapon, a telegraph line, an electrical generator. Pagan religions flourish in uneasy coexistence with the Catholic church, while the church wrestles with temporal authorities for political power. The narrative is dense with military and political machinery, dry history absent the interest of real-world associations. Too much of the action is uninformed by any character's feelings; instead, we have a deluge of names and information in which theme and passion are often lost. Blacktooth's inner struggle, the tension between church and state, the attempted dialectic between mystical and ecclesiastical religiosity and even the inherent commentary on our own possible fate are all eclipsed by the mass of useless invented information. There are indeed interesting, complex characters present, and Blacktooth's sporadic love affair with a brash, beautiful gennie is intriguing. Only they are maddeningly diluted by pages and pages of undigested and indigestible facts. Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

The long-awaited sequel to the classic A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959) was completed by Terry Bisson (Pirates of the Universe, LJ 3/15/96) from instructions left by Miller before his death in 1996. After World War III, America is divided into territories (Plains, Texark, Oregon, and others) struggling to reindustrialize. In this fragmented society, the papacy plays an important role in uniting the factions. In Texark, Nimmy Blacktooth regrets the vows he took to be a monk. While trying to get out of monastery life, he becomes embroiled in the search for a new pope. Unfortunately, despite its humor and social commentary, this book is a bit of a disappointment; the plot drags and seems pointless, and there is very little of the visionary sf that made the original so compelling. For larger sf collections and where the original book is popular. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/97.]Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Miller died last year, the peer of Margaret Mitchell, J. D. Salinger, and Harper Lee. He had published just one novel, but it was a classic. A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959) envisions a post-nuclear holocaust America that has lapsed into a new Dark Ages in which the Catholic Church exerts the greatest influence. Canticle is the acme of postapocalyptic novels, a still-flourishing subgenre (e.g., Stephen King's Dark Tower series and the Star Wars saga, which both recall Canticle in setting and aura). Miller had long struggled to follow up on his masterpiece; about 85 percent of this book is the result. Not really a sequel, it unfolds 50 years after Canticle's second part. It takes up the threat of war by Texark against its neighbor fiefdoms, such as Denver, by following the disaffected Leibowitzian monk Brother Blacktooth as he travels with a diplomatic lay cardinal who is laboring to balance the prospective warring forces. He travels, and he travels, and he travels in a book much longer but far less realized than Canticle. The able Terry Bisson (Bears Discover Fire [1993]) has completed but can't compensate for Miller's desultory plot. Canticle's magic glimmers only in the characters of Blacktooth and the odd Pope Amen Specklebird (shades of Roy Acuff!), who is rather a Zen Franciscan. A major disappointment, but one thorough sf fans must at least sample, anyway. (Reviewed Sept. 1, 1997)0553107046Ray Olson From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.