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This reminds me of the novel "A Canticle for Leibowitz". The novel is broken up into 3 periods, each 600 years apart, following a nuclear war that nearly wiped
by Simucal 13y ago
This reminds me of the novel "A Canticle for Leibowitz". The novel is broken up into 3 periods, each 600 years apart, following a nuclear war that nearly wiped out humanity.
The first section, "Fiat Homo", revolves around an abbey in the desert, during a very harsh time in history, several generations after the war. There is almost no technology as man has been thrust back into the dark ages. People are just struggling to survive. The few books and relics of the past are copied by the monks with little to no understanding of what they contain with the hope that one day they may be useful in rebuilding society.
The second section, "Fiat Lux", revolves around the same abbey but now the world is in a period of a second renaissance. Great thinkers akin to Galileo and Copernicus emerge and start rebuilding what we knew of science. One man travels to the abbey who is considered to be one of the great thinkers of the age. When he finds remnants of a physics book on optics in the abbey he is dismayed because he had wasted years of his life re-discovering the principals within the book himself.
The last section of the book, "Fiat Voluntas Tua", takes place when man now has nuclear weapons again and technology has advanced to beyond the point of the first near apocalypse event.
- pestaa 13y agoWhat happens in Fiat Voluntas Tua? Did (or will) humanity learn from its mistake and not destroy society for the second time?
- chebucto 13y agoNo, there is a second nuclear war. Some people escape on rockets, but human life on earth is ruined. The author was an American bomber pilot in the second world war, and took part in the bombing of ancient church buildings in Italy. After the war, out of guilt, he became a Catholic wrote the book. He seemed to share the same kind of pessimism that George Orwell had, having lived through one destructive war only to see another war come on the horizon. It's a very good book, and despite its themes it is readable and in parts humourous (especially the first section).
- twoodfin 13y agoThe third section though, as you suggest, is hideously depressing. Certainly a book worth (re)reading in any case.
- Surio 13y agoThanks for the book recommendation. Will read it, by and by. >> Some people escape on rockets, And one presumes, albeit facetiously, that one of the rockets contained a baby named "Jor-El"? :-)
- whatgoodisaroad 13y agoThanks for bringing this up. IMO, one of the best takeaways from this book, and what makes it somewhat unique among sci-fi, was how it contextualizes the act of scientific research building on itself and evolving. As a graduate student working on my own publications this context is fascinating to me.
- keenerd 13y agoYou might also enjoy The Originist a short story by OS Card. It is a fanfic set in Asimov's Foundation universe. Without spoiling the plot, it takes place at The Library and involves the consequences of what happens when you have 10000 years of scientific history but limit yourself to the most recent 1000 years of publications. It also features a very close approximation of wikipedia, for being written in 1989.
- whatgoodisaroad 13y agoThanks! I'll have a look.