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Check and Checkmate
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32 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1953
3 people are currently reading
36 people want to read
About the author
Walter M. Miller Jr.
147 books949 followersFrom 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 31, 2017
It's a great short story - novella?
It's a satire about two isolated superpowers. Imagine that you live in one site of a wall and the other are another super power you don't know nothing about? Imagine now that the level of suspicion and fear is so much that the president has ten doubles and he never show is face around. Authoritarian vs Communist. It was interesting to see the level of paranoia of the USA/Liberty/Authoritarian goverment against an Pan-Russia/Asian Communism... that you know nothing about.
It was nice to see the reactions of both leaders as they tried to talk and at the same time to threat each other. It has a nice twist in the end.
Politics are always fun...
If you want to picture this story, picture north korea... what do you know about them? Almost nothing, now imagining being south korea and knowing nothing about what is happening in the north part of the country and always living in fear that they will attack you... It will consume you... It will turn you to what you most fear...
Small and good... I advice to anyone.
It's a satire about two isolated superpowers. Imagine that you live in one site of a wall and the other are another super power you don't know nothing about? Imagine now that the level of suspicion and fear is so much that the president has ten doubles and he never show is face around. Authoritarian vs Communist. It was interesting to see the level of paranoia of the USA/Liberty/Authoritarian goverment against an Pan-Russia/Asian Communism... that you know nothing about.
It was nice to see the reactions of both leaders as they tried to talk and at the same time to threat each other. It has a nice twist in the end.
Politics are always fun...
If you want to picture this story, picture north korea... what do you know about them? Almost nothing, now imagining being south korea and knowing nothing about what is happening in the north part of the country and always living in fear that they will attack you... It will consume you... It will turn you to what you most fear...
Small and good... I advice to anyone.
September 12, 2024
another Project Gutenberg. The Cold War still rages on in the late 21st century, and the American and Russian presidents meet in Antarctica, the only remaining neutral ground. Very satirical. Not particularly special, and kinda peters out.
December 26, 2020
Yay! The Cold War is over!
*checks notes*
Never mind. It seems I was mistaken.
It is the 2070’s and there is two super powers in the world: The Asian Proletarian League, led by
Ivan Ivanovitch IX and the Western Federation of Autonomous States, led by John Smith XVI. It has been forty years of the Big Silence, which has seen no contact between the two ruling nations. Upon the inauguration of President Smith XVI, he is planning on keeping his campaign promise (which no one really expected him to keep) of reopening dialogue with the East.
The Federation that President Smith oversees is pretty much a communist state now. Over time laws and the constitution have been eroded to mean nothing. The requirements to be president have become so strict that the selection is done through genetics. The president (along with Ivan’s nation) wear masks to protect the leader’s faces. Smith has two hundred “stand ins” who are to protect against assassination. The people are to be made to think that they have the real power, but they don’t.
The satirical view throughout is funny (“Accident-Prevention Week”) and thought provoking (what if the US did move toward that direction). Another interesting thing is the words that they use to give a positive spin on things (“peace-effort” instead of war).
As the title suggests this is a game of chess between to powerful nations. The West versus the East. This time, though, the West is the one to look like the idiots.
The ending is perfect and fits in with the rest of the story. It was interesting to see what ultimately is the downfall of the Federation (don’t ever get too confident). I really enjoyed this short story which was just the right length.
*checks notes*
Never mind. It seems I was mistaken.
It is the 2070’s and there is two super powers in the world: The Asian Proletarian League, led by
Ivan Ivanovitch IX and the Western Federation of Autonomous States, led by John Smith XVI. It has been forty years of the Big Silence, which has seen no contact between the two ruling nations. Upon the inauguration of President Smith XVI, he is planning on keeping his campaign promise (which no one really expected him to keep) of reopening dialogue with the East.
The Federation that President Smith oversees is pretty much a communist state now. Over time laws and the constitution have been eroded to mean nothing. The requirements to be president have become so strict that the selection is done through genetics. The president (along with Ivan’s nation) wear masks to protect the leader’s faces. Smith has two hundred “stand ins” who are to protect against assassination. The people are to be made to think that they have the real power, but they don’t.
The satirical view throughout is funny (“Accident-Prevention Week”) and thought provoking (what if the US did move toward that direction). Another interesting thing is the words that they use to give a positive spin on things (“peace-effort” instead of war).
As the title suggests this is a game of chess between to powerful nations. The West versus the East. This time, though, the West is the one to look like the idiots.
The ending is perfect and fits in with the rest of the story. It was interesting to see what ultimately is the downfall of the Federation (don’t ever get too confident). I really enjoyed this short story which was just the right length.
April 4, 2025
started finished 4th april 2025 good read three stars i liked it nothing less nothing more library loaner and had to read it on desktop computer but it is relatively short so although i prefer not to...read on the computer (you have to keep line open and active or go searching if tis that the other) ...it reads quick. originally in 1953, this short story from miller portrays a world where there is no "world opinion" as there are only two opinions, east and west, there has been a Big Silence...50-some years I think it was...and east and west are now talking. the year is 2073 and the west has something we have now only we have months...black history month...women's history month...gay pride month...but in the story the west has "fried pie week"..."eugenics week"...
i wouldn't want to live in either world. and like our world today, "peace effort" also in quotation marks in the story multiple times...means war. one side suggests splitting the world cleanly in two, the two half hemi spheres possibly happy campers until the other side says simply it won't work. alas.
anyway, short and sweet. and considering it was written?/published 1953 there is enough in the story as noted to make most poets curious. "fried pie week!"
i wouldn't want to live in either world. and like our world today, "peace effort" also in quotation marks in the story multiple times...means war. one side suggests splitting the world cleanly in two, the two half hemi spheres possibly happy campers until the other side says simply it won't work. alas.
anyway, short and sweet. and considering it was written?/published 1953 there is enough in the story as noted to make most poets curious. "fried pie week!"
December 4, 2024
Well I remember really liking this story when I read it but now I go to review it I remember pretty much nothing about it (except for the end of war and conflict and I usually remember all kinds of useless stuff). So all I can say is that its enjoyable, yet forgettable.
September 26, 2017
Frigging weird as hell but wonderful in the current political climate.
READ IT!
READ IT!
January 21, 2025
Crazy enough to be true.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews