History Literature / ACanticleForLeibowitz

* FeudalFuture: Justified, seeing that an Age of Simplification leads to a new dark age.

* InsufferableGenius: Justified with Thon Taddeo. He feels miserable himself, because in all his brilliance, he is merely rediscovering things obvious to the "ancients". A brief visit in the monastery to read part of the collected books sends him to the brink of depression because of how all his contemporary "genius" is common knowledge from the past. This makes him feel insecure and actively lash out against people questioning his authority.

** Brother Francis plays an important role in getting Leibowitz canonized. Centuries later, one monk doesn't even remember who he is.

* ShoutOut: One of the documents Thon Taddeo finds at the abbey is strongly implied to be ''Rostrum's Universal Robots''.
* TheSpymaster: The Vatican Diplomatic Service has gained notoriety, to say the least.

* TranslationTrainWreck: The Abominable Autoscribe is a janky piece of technology capable of translating any language it hears into the text of another language, except that it translates the words backwards. So, the word "urgent" into another language as that language's equivalent of "tnergu." This is after the Abbot spent a good part of the day fiddling with each and every one of the computer's hundreds of mechanisms, so without that maintenance, it would probably be even more inaccurate.

* ImAHumanitarian: Some of the mutants practice cannibalism even long after the basic shortage of food ceased to be a factor.

* InsultBackfire: The "Simplification" didn't really swing into high gear until some of the last scholars called the rampaging mobs "bloodthirsty simpletons."

* TorchesAndPitchforks: The Simplification, where most technology and knowledge was actively destroyed in a backlash against technology after the nuclear war. Which in turn made any organized recovery from the Flame Deluge impossible and send humanity back to pre-medieval stage.

* WalkingTheEarth: The Old Jew takes to wandering at times.

* DistantFinale: 1,200 years after "Fiat Homo".

* HeroicResolve: Poet is surprised by his own sudden surge of heroism, when he [[spoiler:attacks Texarkanan officer, who was busy killing scared civilians. This ends with MutualKill]], while Poet notes the irony of getting involved into conflict that doesn't bother him in the slightest.

** Leibowitz himself. He was some humble engineer, who eventually died for the cause of preserving human knowledge for the future generations.

* TheChessmaster: Hannegan, who is also quite the MagnificentBastard. He played everyone and their dog to do exactly what he wanted them to do, leading to his complete hegemony. It's strongly implied the empire he built is one of the two world superpowers from Fiat Voluntas Tua.

-->''The trouble with being a priest was that you eventually had to take the advice you gave to others]].''

* BadassPreacher: It's implied the monks, despite being [[MartialPacifist generally non-violent, have defended the abbey with arms]] multiple times in its history.

* AllHailTheGreatGodMickey: The first chapter is set in the 26th century, long after a disastrous nuclear war. A seventeen-year-old novice named Brother Francis Gerard is on a vigil in the desert. While searching for a rock to complete a shelter, he encounters a pilgrim who inscribes Hebrew on a rock that appears the perfect fit for the shelter. When Brother Francis removes the rock he discovers the entrance to an ancient fallout shelter containing "relics", such as handwritten notes on crumbling memo pads bearing cryptic texts resembling a 20th-century shopping list. He soon realizes that these notes appear to have been written by Leibowitz, the founder of his order. The discovery of the ancient documents causes an uproar at the monastery, as the other monks speculate that the relics once belonged to Leibowitz. The items are then used as evidence in Leibowitz's canonization process, thus making them actual holy relics under the Church's definition.

* AntiIntellectualism: Simplification turned it to radical extreme, ending with hunting down people capable of reading. The fallout of the movement kept humanity on its knees for ''centuries''.

* FalloutShelterFail: In ''Fiat Homo'', the monks and Church scholars piece enough together from the shelter Francis finds to conclude that a cave-in of some sort occurred at the entrance around the time of the Flame Deluge. Not only killing Leibowitz's wife in the process, but also trapping the unlucky denizens inside as they suffocate to death, as the main door didn't swing inward.
* FantasticCatholicism: Due to internal organization and bit of luck, Catholic Church was one of the few, if not ''the only'' institution to survive Flame Deluge and definitely the only one to thrive. The story almost entirely focuses on the monastery started by Leibowitz, preserving as much knowledge of the old world as possible.

* TestosteronePoisoning: In-universe. Members of the nomad tribe Hannegan allied with drink (animal) blood, considering water a "women drink". This makes the younger of the two emissaries send to make the pact quite uneasy.

* NoOSHACompliance: One of the monks ends up blinded, because he was manually operating an arc lamp without proper eye protection. Nobody even ''knew'' how damaging it will be for his eyes, so he ended up operating the lamp for few days.

** Somewhere between the time directly after the Flame Deluge and ''Fiat Homo'', the information about blueprints being blue and white because they are a negative of the original plans was forgotten or lost. Cue monks spending ''weeks'' on carefully covering entire pages in rare blue ink ''by hand'', dead-sure it's the way how it's supposed to be done.
** Notably averted with printing press and movable type. One of the abbots before ''Fiat Homo'' quickly realised printing press only makes sense if they are going to mass-produce those books. Otherwise it will simply take more time and effort to print them in few copies than to hand-write them. Eventually the press is used when there is demand for the books stored in the abbey.

* JustBeforeTheEnd: The third part of the book starts after the initial, limited exchange of warheads already happened. It goes only worse from there.

* InsufferableGenius: Justified with Thon Taddeo. He feels miserable himself, because in all his brilliance, he is merely rediscovering things obvious to the "ancients". A brief visit in the monastery to read part of the collected books sends him on a brink of depression how all his contemporary "genius" is a common knowledge from the past. This makes him feel insecure and actively lash against people questioning his authority.

* EvilLuddite: The Simplification was the backlash of a group of self-proclaimed "[[DumbIsGood simpletons]]" against scientists and other intellectuals, whom they blamed for the Flame Deluge. Leibowitz himself was one of their victims. The initial movement quickly get out of hand and turned into a very literal witch hunt. First the politicians, then scientists, teachers, students, and finally people who can read.

* CourtJester: The Poet fills the role of the Shakespearean fool, as he points out hypocrisies in the form of jokes that go over the heads of the priests and barbarian lords in his company. He's a little to sardonic for his own good, leaving him unemployed and eventually sending him on the run from a barbarian lord who doesn't find the Poet's audition for court jester a little too insulting.

** Somewhere between the time directly after the Flame Deluge and ''Fiat Homo'', the information about blueprints being blue and white because they are a negative of the original plans was forgotten or lost. Cue monks spending ''weeks'' on carefully covering entire pages in rare blue ink ''by hand'', [[CriticalResearchFailure dead-sure it's the way how it's supposed to be done]].

* FalloutShelterFail: In ''Fiat Homo'', the monks piece enough together from the shelter Francis finds to conclude that a cave-in of some sort occurred at the entrance around the time of the Flame Deluge. Not only killing Leibowitz's wife in the process, but also trapping the unlucky denizens inside as they suffocate to death.

* InsufferableGenius: Justified with Thon Taddeo. He feels miserable himself, because in all his brilliance, he is merely rediscovering things obvious to the "ancients". A brief visit in the monastery to read part of the collected books sends him on a brink of depression how all his contemporary "genius" is a common knowledge from the past. This makes him feel insecure and actively lashing against people questioning his authority.

* ArmorPiercingResponse: Early in ''Fiat Lux'', Thon Taddeo dismissively asks Monsignor Apollo, Texarkana's Nuncio to New Rome, after seeing a group of peasants how their forefathers could have fallen so far from the heights prior to the Deluge. Only to get a response that shakes the scholar enough to reveal his true colors.
--->"How can a great and wise civilization have destroyed itself so completely?"

--->"Perhaps," said Apollo, "by being materially great and materially wise, and nothing else."