paulgoatallen wrote:I didn't include this one at first because it's an unarguable classic but A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. just blew me away when I first read it decades ago – and back in 2006 when HarperCollins reissued it, I had the honor of writing a review for B&N and it was even better the second time around. I know this really isn't a "hidden gem" but I think it's a hugely under-rated and under-appreciated novel that really should be read by everyone at some point in their existence. Can I get a witness?
Paul
The Barnes & Noble Review
In the introduction to this visually stunning reissue of Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s 1959 postapocalyptic classic, Mary Doria Russell classifies the Hugo Award�winning A Canticle for Leibowitz as Literature with a capital L: a novel that will change all those who read it. She couldn't be more correct -- this bitingly cynical and disturbingly prophetic look at the future of humankind will chill readers to the bone.
Centuries after a nuclear war devastated the Earth, Brother Francis Gerard of Leibowitz Abbey is on a Lenten fast in the Utah desert when he uncovers an ancient fallout survival shelter containing puzzling clues into pre-Flame Deluge culture. Some of the findings may even have belonged to martyred "booklegger" Isaac Edward Leibowitz himself, a priest who dedicated his life to saving knowledge for future generations. But will Brother Gerard's discovery help humankind avoid another self-inflicted catastrophe?
Almost a half century after it was first published, A Canticle for Leibowitz hasn't lost any of its megaton punch: If anything, Miller's words relating to humankind's propensity for self-destruction have taken on a kind of eerie aura of prophecy: "Is the species congenitally insane, Brother?� Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall?� Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing?" A fascinating and paradoxical novel by an equally paradoxical man, A Canticle for Leibowitz is undeniably one of the best science fiction novels of all time. Russell sums it up perfectly: "You'll be different when you finish it." Paul Goat Allen
Amen, brother. 
I included this book in my list on Toni's "Classic" thread.
Carol
A great author that really needs to be 'discovered' is Vince Churchill! His book " The Blackest Heart" is a Scifi/horror blend with a touch of western. He recently wrote a sequel to it called "Pandora". He also has a zombies-in-space story, "The Dead Shall Inherit The Earth", which received praise from XBOX Magazine. I have signed copies of them all.
