Lux Aeterna

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

There's something almost Leibowitzian about this (maybe it's just the title+the author+foreboding quasi-dystopian situation). I approve. Please continue!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You mean  a society intentionally destroying itself?

Yes. (Incidentally, I maintain that Walter M. Miller should be required reading for anybody interested in politics, religion, and sociology.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You mean  a society intentionally destroying itself?

Yes. (Incidentally, I maintain that Walter M. Miller should be required reading for anybody interested in politics, religion, and sociology.)

This miller?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller,_Jr.

The very same. (Also, interested that they have a picture of him now; he was very reclusive.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You mean  a society intentionally destroying itself?

Yes. (Incidentally, I maintain that Walter M. Miller should be required reading for anybody interested in politics, religion, and sociology.)

This miller?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller,_Jr.

The very same. (Also, interested that they have a picture of him now; he was very reclusive.)

In an abnormal way?  Because that's usually a sign of eccentric, and I like eccentric in an author

Well, he lived out on the desert in Texas for most of his life so he was reclusive by default to an extent, but he also almost never gave interviews and he's only known for one novel that he wrote, after which he spent decades working on another, undergoing a constant slow-motion trainwreck of a crisis of faith, and eventually killed himself to 'test God's mercy' right after finishing the first draft of the second novel, so yes, I'd certainly describe him as eccentric.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You mean  a society intentionally destroying itself?

Yes. (Incidentally, I maintain that Walter M. Miller should be required reading for anybody interested in politics, religion, and sociology.)

This miller?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller,_Jr.

The very same. (Also, interested that they have a picture of him now; he was very reclusive.)

In an abnormal way?  Because that's usually a sign of eccentric, and I like eccentric in an author

Well, he lived out on the desert in Texas, and he's only known for one novel that he wrote, after which he spent decades working on another, undergoing a constant slow-motion trainwreck of a crisis of faith, and eventually killed himself to 'test God's mercy' right after finishing the first draft of the second novel, so yes, I'd certainly describe him as eccentric.

I like what I hear, except the whole suicide thing; anyway, what's he talk about?

A Canticle for Leibowitz is about an abbey of Catholic monks in the New Mexico desert over the course of the first millennium and a half after a nuclear holocaust that reduced the world to Migration Period technological and political levels. It's a book about historical memory and its failures, both personal and social self-destructive instincts, change and continuity, Original Sin, and atonement. It'll break your heart.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

EDIT: unbelievable!  The fartknockers don't have it!

Really? That's weird. It's incredibly influential. In any case it's available on Amazon for pretty cheap.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

EDIT: unbelievable!  The fartknockers don't have it!

Really? That's weird. It's incredibly influential. In any case it's available on Amazon for pretty cheap.

I'll take a trip down to Barnes and Noble tomorrow - I'll read it for free there, maybe, and I've gotta be there for school anyways.  Thanks, by the way!

You're very welcome.