Walter M. Miller Jr.

Author profile

born

in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, The United States

January 23, 1923

died

January 09, 1996

genre

Science Fiction & Fantasy

About this author

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From the Wikipedia article, "Walter M. Miller, Jr.":

Miller was born in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Educated at the University of Tennessee and the University of Texas, he worked as an engineer. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps as a radioman and tail gunner, flying more than fifty bombing missions over Italy. He took part in the bombing of the Benedictine Abbey at Monte Cassino, which proved a traumatic experience for him. Joe Haldeman reported that Miller "had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for 30 years before it had a name".

After the war, Miller converted to Catholicism. He married Anna Louise Becker in 1945, and they had four children. For several months in 1953 he lived with science-fiction writer Judith Merril, ex-wif...more From the Wikipedia article, "Walter M. Miller, Jr.":

Miller was born in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Educated at the University of Tennessee and the University of Texas, he worked as an engineer. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps as a radioman and tail gunner, flying more than fifty bombing missions over Italy. He took part in the bombing of the Benedictine Abbey at Monte Cassino, which proved a traumatic experience for him. Joe Haldeman reported that Miller "had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for 30 years before it had a name".

After the war, Miller converted to Catholicism. He married Anna Louise Becker in 1945, and they had four children. For several months in 1953 he lived with science-fiction writer Judith Merril, ex-wife of Frederik Pohl and a noted science-fiction author in her own right.

Between 1951 and 1957, Miller published over three dozen science fiction short stories, winning a Hugo Award in 1955 for the story "The Darfsteller". He also wrote scripts for the television show Captain Video in 1953. Late in the 1950s, Miller assembled a novel from three closely related novellas he had published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1955, 1956 and 1957. The novel, entitled A Canticle for Leibowitz, was published in 1959.

A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic (post-holocaust) novel revolving around the canonisation of Saint Leibowitz and is considered a masterpiece of the genre. It won the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel. The novel is also a powerful meditation on the cycles of world history and Roman Catholicism as a force of stability during history's dark times.

After the success of A Canticle For Leibowitz, Miller never published another new novel or story in his lifetime, although several compilations of Miller's earlier stories were issued in the 1960s and 1970s.

In Miller's later years, he became a recluse, avoiding contact with nearly everyone, including family members; he never allowed his literary agent, Don Congdon, to meet him. According to science fiction writer Terry Bisson, Miller struggled with depression during his later years, but had managed to nearly complete a 600-page manuscript for the sequel to Canticle before taking his own life with a gun in January 1996, shortly after his wife's death. The sequel, titled Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, was completed by Bisson and published in 1997.(less)

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Average rating: 3.94 · 32,315 ratings · 1,683 reviews · 18 distinct works · Similar authors

	A Canticle for Leibowitz 3.95 of 5 stars 3.95 avg rating — 31,272 ratings — published 1959 — 75 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman by Walter M. Miller Jr., Terry Bisson (Contributor) 3.09 of 5 stars 3.09 avg rating — 357 ratings — published 1997 — 14 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dark Benediction 3.78 of 5 stars 3.78 avg rating — 118 ratings — published 1980 — 3 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Conditionally Human And Other Stories 3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 avg rating — 27 ratings — published 1962 — 4 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The View from the Stars 3.54 of 5 stars 3.54 avg rating — 26 ratings — published 1965 — 4 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Darfsteller And Other Stories 3.63 of 5 stars 3.63 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 1982	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Death of a Spaceman 3.85 of 5 stars 3.85 avg rating — 20 ratings — published 1954 — 6 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Science Fiction Stories Of Walter M. Miller, Jr 4.3 of 5 stars 4.30 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 1978	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Hoofer 3.3 of 5 stars 3.30 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 1955 — 5 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Classic Science Fiction by Walter M. Miller, Jr. 3.43 of 5 stars 3.43 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 2010 — 2 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Walter M. Miller Jr.

“You don’t have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

tags: body-soul

19,536 people liked it

“The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they became with it, and with themselves as well. They made a garden of pleasure, and became progressively more miserable with it as it grew in richness and power and beauty; for then, perhaps, it was easier to see something was missing in the garden, some tree or shrub that would not grow. When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle's eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

tags: society

30 people liked it

“To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law—a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

tags: ends, perversion, security, suffering

26 people liked it

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This poll is for the March Theme: Post-Apocalypse which we will be reading starting March 15...

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.

5 votes 33.3%

Clade by Mark Budz

3 votes 20.0%

On the Beach by Nevil Shute

2 votes 13.3%

Ill Wind by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason

2 votes 13.3%

Shard Mountain by Joseph Mitchell

2 votes 13.3%

The Eighth Day by Al Philipson

1 vote 6.7%

15 total votes

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Walter M. Miller Jr.

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