You can tell this book was written during the Cold War. Canticle paints a grim picture of humanity’s future, but a creative one. The setting is well written and the idea that humanity is doomed to cycles of self-destruction and “Simplification” is a chilling one. The low rating is because it didn’t suit my (completely objective and unbiased) personal tastes; post-apocalyptic books are not really my favorite, and it was overall too dark for me to really enjoy it all that much. While the monastery was a fantastically interesting setting, there were some elements of the text’s ‘50s Catholic morality that I found questionable.