Customer Reviews

Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

One author sets murders in a medieval Roman Catholic monastery and it becomes an object of popular acclaim. Another author sets Papal politics in a post-nuclear holocaust society and it's dubbed "Sci-fi", and tossed in the remainders bin. Neither book deserved the fate it received. Miller's second look at post-nuclear North American society reveals a church divided within and still struggling with Caesar after three millennia. Popes tend to church politics with one hand and civil society with another. Somewhere in the middle are the lesser religious tending their adherents or hiding from the conflicts.

One such "lesser religious" is a monk, Blacktooth St George. A resident at the monastery long dedicated to the memory of Isaac Leibowitz, nuclear scientist and martyr, Blacktooth harbours doubts about his calling. His roots are from the Plains people and their pagan heritage conflicts with the Roman Catholic Church's ideal of monotheism and self-sacrifice. Attempting to shed the burdensome vows, Blacktooth is conscripted to the service of a lawyer cardinal. Elia Brownpony, too, is a former Plainsman, but has risen quickly in the Church hierarchy due to diplomatic talents. Diplomacy usually involves conspiracy, and Brownpony must be adept at both for he is struggling to reunite the broken church. Theology isn't the basis of the schism, however. The expanding empire of Texark has challenged the Pope's power. Brownpony, wheeling and dealing, uses Blacktooth as a major instrument.

Politics are a lesser challenge to Blacktooth than the condition of his own spirit. Beset by visions and his glands alike, this mid-thirties adult is known as Nimmy, an appellation applied to young boys. He encounters a genetic mutant, a heritage of the holocaust, whose only flaws are an uncanny insight and a rampant libido. She seduces Nimmy, who doesn't quite break his vows, and supposedly produces two children. Her image haunts him as he goes about his role of personal assistant. He's also haunted by the multi-figured image of a pope of African descent. All these conflicting visions keep Blacktooth on edge and in peril. His reconciliation of all these disparate forces are the theme of Miller's "midquel" of Canticle for Leibowitz [this story commences at the middle of Canticle, not the end].

Swirling roles of church and state and the Church and the individual formed the basis of "Canticle". Expanded and enhanced in this book, they are nicely integrated with convulsions that shook the Roman Catholic Church after the 1960s. Bisson has done Miller's original draft proud in completing a compelling story of the pressures on faith. Through a complex plot, the characters are kept realistic, if somewhat bizarre. Religious institutions, particularly under stress, are never simple, and the complexities are well handled and you never lose the threads, no matter how tightly they seem tangled. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

I don't really understand the overwhelming negative reaction to this work. I can see how someone who has loved and reread Canticle many times may have had their hopes of a true sequel left unfulfilled. Personally, I was amazed at the maturing of Miller's style and content, and his credible and immersive attempt at world building. I thought the tone, although more modern, was sufficiently similar to Canticle that I felt the connection necessary for "sequel nostalgia". I felt connected to the main characters, though, their thoughts and actions were sometimes mysterious, foreign, and often displeasing. But these were the things that affected me most about the story. The characters' world IS mysterious, foreign, and displeasing, as well as dangerous and primitive. From the gut-wrenching descriptions of death and illnesses, to the touching, if strange, relationship between the fallen monk Blacktooth and "genny" AEdrea, I found this novel to be an emotional and mind opening rollercoaster.

Having read the late Walter Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz" in the 70's and reread it several times in the ensuing decades, I was pleased, and a bit surprised, to see a copy of his newest work "Saint Leibowitz and the Wild horse Woman" in a second hand book shop. After reading it I am no longer surprised at where I found it . The book is opaque and disjointed with only a vaguely outlined plot that goes nowhere in particular. I got the impression that Miller was trying to recapture the sprit of his earlier work but he ended up being a poor imitation of himself. If you want to read "Saint Leibowitz and the Wild horse Woman" to compare it to the earlier work, there will be at least one used copy back on the market.

I am giving this book five stars to try to somewhat offset the plethora of "1 star" reviews. As I don't plan to "stuff the ballot box", it is more a token gesture. Walter M. Miller Jr. was one of the most gifted writers ever to write science fiction. A Canticle for Leibowitz, yes, but also his short fiction shows a command of the language that few of his contemporaries could match. I won't even begin to talk about current day writers, as the majority of their output compares favorably with the old "Dick and Jane" learn-to-read books.

I read A Canticle for Leibowitz in 1971, believe it or not, it was assigned reading in an English class. When I chanced upon Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman last year, I was thrilled to find it. What did I find? No, it's not up to A Canticle for Leibowitz in grace or content, but it is still an absorbing read. For those readers who can't take a little off-the-middle-of-the-road sexuality, and characterizations, relationships and plotting that makes them use the parts of their brains that TV and movies never awaken, I don't recommend it. For those who like to be enriched and challenged by what they read, try it. By all means, please read A Canticle for Leibowitz first, and then approach Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman not so much as a sequel but as a new story set in the same world, a possible future world that should chill you to the bone.

_Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman_ has a core story that is just as powerful as any in _A Canticle for Leibowitz_: that of the monk Blacktooth St. George's spiritual journey. Blacktooth first came to the monastary as a teenager, leaving his tribe of settled nomads in an attempt to join the wild nomads. After the wild nomads rejected him he went to the monastary of Saint Leibowitz (which was obliged to give hospitality to travelers) and stayed. When the book opens he's a young man with spiritual leanings, but with problems conforming to organizational life and a personality conflict with his abbot. He asks the abbot to release him from his vows; the abbot refuses. This refusal is echoed by several other superiors throughout the book, people who see that Blacktooth is actually cut out for the spiritual life even if he doesn't understand it yet himself.

What Blacktooth really needs is enough experience to knowingly choose between the spiritual life and the wordly one. And in this book he gets it. Serving Cardinal Brownpony gives him a good look at both church and worldly politics. He sees preparations for war, then the battlefield, and is even forced to kill. He travels what is by his culture's standards a large geographic area. He sees different customs, and even visits his distant cousins among the wild nomads. He falls in mutual lust with a beautiful mutant woman named Aedria, and may even become a father of twins by her. On the spiritual side, he receives wise Zenlike counsel from the holy hermit (and Pope) Amen Specklebird. Both Amen and Blacktooth's abbot suggest that be become a hermit. And, in fact, that is the life Blacktooth eventually settles into.

However: During the middle of the book Miller wanders into a different story, or perhaps several. I think he is partly trying to tell Cardinal Brownpony's story, of trying to achieve worldly success and ultimately failing. As a counterpart to Blacktooth's story, this might have worked if told sparely enough. But Brownpony is involved in electing popes, forging alliances among nomad tribes and arming them for a war he is trying to start, then running the war, and then . . . And Miller describes the customs of every group Blacktooth or Brownpony encounters, which adds to the richness of his world but is done in ways that really bog down the plot. Every time Blacktooth seems close to some revelation, Miller switches to a meeting about complicated military strategy. Then Miller feels obliged to discuss everything that the enemy is doing and _their_ military meetings and . . . well, the intensity of Blacktooth's story is much diminished. As other reviewers have noted, it also becomes confusing that all the major characters have at least two names, which are used indiscriminately.

It is also odd that some major questions are left unanswered. For example, the fate of Aedrea's and Blacktooth's twins. The Wandering Jew confirms that she delivered them and that they were taken to the local orphanage. Blacktooth goes to the orphanage, only to discover that someone has already adopted them. I expected to meet them again in the book, or at least hear news, but they just vanish.

Other times what could be significant moments are, essentially, passed over. When Blacktooth meets the nomad cousins who rejected him as a teenager, this time they invite him to stay. And he casually refuses. I expected some emotional depth here, but it's more like he's stayed at a second-rate bed-and-breakfast; it was OK, not great, now it's time to move on.

The pity is, use of the delete key during much of the middle, followed by some minor rewriting throughout the book, would probably solve most of these problems and create a book that does stand up to _Canticle_. Apparently Terry Bisson either couldn't do this or wasn't permitted. But: _Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman_ is still worth reading.

Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman is a parallel novel to A Canticle for Leibowitz, taking place during the second section of Canticle. The writing style is different - definitely more complex - than its predecessor. Many of the issues dealt with in Saint Leibowitz will probably not sit well with many readers who enjoyed Canticle - homosexuality stands out as one of those. I think these two aspects of Saint Leibowitz are the main reasons for discontent amongst the people who gave this book one star.

For starters, there's a lot happening in this book. The reader learns about the political, social, and economic atmosphere of the the lands traveled. There's a lot of history involved, and a lot of "current" events are discussed in detail.

There are at least five main cultures in the book, and different characters go by different names within different areas of the land. This isn't so bad, considering only a handful of characters have different nicknames, but some characters are called by each of their names on the same page.

The Wild Horse Woman plays a significant role in the book, however she doesn't show up a lot as a character. Instead, her presence is felt in many of the tribal religious/spiritual practices.

All in all, this book has a lot more depth to it than what you can usually find on the bookshelf. As a parallel novel, it's incredible. Just keep in mind, it isn't Canticle. If you want to read a book exactly like A Canticle for Leibowitz, read A Canticle for Leibowitz.

What a disappointment! I was so excited when I received Amazon's glowing review of this book that I immediately ordered it in hardback! Save your money and re-read A Canticle for Leibowitz. Reportedly, Terry Bissom finished this book after Miller died. If so, he must have done so without touching the parts already written, which could generously be described as a very rough first draft, complete with clumsy sentence and paragraph construction, errors in grammar, and repetition. The world in which the book is set is confusing, and the map in the front doesn't help much, nor does the fact that each territory seems to have several names. The many characters also each have about three names in several languages, and it is almost impossible to keep them apart (Mad Bear, Half-Breed, etc.). A Dramatis Personae in the front would have helped a lot! The characters don't seem to have much ,and I wearied of the plot, which involved political/religious intrigue mixed with murky references to some pagan religion which may or may not have parallels to Native American or Oriental practices. And lots of sexual references. I was surprised at the positive critical reviews, and I was disappointed at their inaccuracy, e.g., Kirkus said that A Canticle for Leibowitz was Miller's only other novel, but I have another sitting on my shelf. If they can't even get their facts right, how can I trust their opinions?

If you loved the post-apocolyptic world of 'Canticle for Leibowitz', you have to read this. It is too bad Miller did not produce more. I loved 'Canticle' and had to read this sequel. This story takes place about 70 years after the middle section in 'Canticle' (Fiat Lux), and delves deeply into the politics and religion of the fictional future, much more so than its predecessor. Actually, the result reminded me more of 'Dune' than 'Canticle'--the nomadic tribal people rising up against the controlling empire and the religious people moving between the two, stirring up trouble. Where 'Canticle' had the broad view, basically taking us from nuclear devastation to nuclear devastation as history repeats itself, this book focuses very closely on a few compelling characters serving a papacy in exile for a few years during during an era when technology hovered somewhere around that of our 19th century. And Brother Blacktooth is one of the finest characters in literature that I have read in a long time--trying to find love (both God's and woman's) in a crazy and confused time.

I have removed one star for length. I cannot help thinking that if Miller had lived to publish this, it would have been more concise. Still, this book demonstrates what a storyteller Miller was.

Dreary beyond belief. None of the ambition, novelty, or epic scope of A Canticle For Leibowitz. As a stand-alone novel, there is no particular reason to recommend the novel: no clever prose, no serious philosophical point-of-view, no compelling plot. What you do get is cardboard characters with multiple names, intricate detail of tribal customs that add little to the story, and a convoluted story it is at that. I felt, while reading this book to its long-delayed conclusion, like I was riding a lame nomad pony through a barren desert, praying for a quick end to my suffering.

First, forget Saint Leibowitz. His only major appearance is on the title page. It's a hundred years or two on from the events in the second section of "A Canticle for Leibowitz." The Nomad hordes of the plains, and the clergy of the captive church in New Rome, have grown restive under the yoke of Texark. Something's got to give.

In this book, we have a large fragment of what would have been a superb novel. It doesn't have the youthful energy or the tight plotting of Miller's earlier masterpiece. And had he survived to complete and polish it, I suspect it would still lack those qualities. SLATWHW is much more a work of realism. If it moves slowly and wanders loosely, well, real life - and especially real history - are like that, too.

As we now have it, the novel breaks a few implicit contracts. First, we expect the on-again, mostly off-again love story between Brother Blacktooth and the mutant AEdrea to reach some climactic reunion or breakup. Despite the transparently tacked-on final chapter, it does no such thing. Second, we expect the forces of unambiguous evil, the Hannegan empire and its lackey churchmen, to be defeated by the forces of ambiguous good. It doesn't work out that way. Third, the Church with its supposed monopoly on miracles, and AEdrea with her secular wild talent for healing, are on an obvious collision course. No showdown comes. Though the book does have its boring stretches, I think it's this cheating of expectations that accounts for many of the one and two star reviews here.

But for all the strands left untied in the personal hopes and fears of the main characters, Miller leaves no loose threads in the four-dimensional world he has imagined. If you want to get the greatest pleasure out of the book, for instance, don't make the mistake of lumping all the "Nomads" together. Each tribe has its own history, customs, leaders - and by the time you're halfway through, you'll realize there *will* be a quiz.

What kept me reading was the density of the imagined cultural and political detail, and the fully rounded portrayals of the two main characters - Blacktooth and the ambitious Cardinal Brownpony - each full of contradictions, each always recognizably himself. The supporting cast, from the (unfortunately ever mysterious) AEdrea, to the mystical headsman Axe, to the holy fool who becomes Pope Amen II ("We should always be ashamed to speak of God in the third person"), may not be as complex, but they are worth getting to know.

Lurking in the crevices of SLATWHW is a five-star work. If only the hermit of Leibowitz Abbey had loaned Miller a few more decades of his longevity! But as it is, I rate it at three and a half stars. The writing is spotty, and too much stays unresolved. Fans will be left peering into the face of this volume, only to pull away saying, respectfully but sadly, "It's still not him."