User:JimDunning/Sandbox/Cats can play

Plot synopsis
WP:PLOT


 * 1) Plot summaries. Wikipedia articles on works of fiction should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's achievements, impact or historical significance, not solely a summary of that work's plot. A plot summary may be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic. See Notability (fiction).

Manual of Style (writing about fiction)

The following contrived plot description about a series of novels does not discuss the real-world universe at all, even tangentially, and is an example of the type of writing that should thus be avoided on Wikipedia:


 * In Star Year 8891 the Slibvorks of Blastio were infected with the Kroxyldyph virus by a bio-warfare special operations unit on a clandestine mission. The unit, acting under the leadership of Commander Sam Kinkaid and without the approval of Star Command, rewrote the Slibvorks' DNA and caused their skin to turn blue.

In contrast, the passage below places the same subject in a real world context, by discussing the fictional universe with respect to events, people, and things in this universe. Notice how this perspective allows the inclusion of information that an in-universe perspective would not:


 * Ferdinand Howard's novel The Kroxyldyph Virus (1993) takes place in Star Year 8891. The story tells how the Slibvorks of Blastio are infected with the Kroxyldyph virus by a bio-warfare special operations unit on a clandestine mission. In the follow up novel, Commander Sam Kinkaid (1995), the unit, acting under the leadership of Commander Sam Kinkaid and without the approval of Star Command, rewrites the Slibvorks' DNA and caused their skin to turn blue.

WikiProject Novels/Style guidelines

Plot introduction
This introduction is intended to give a general overview, spoiler free or teaser plot section. It should not exceed 80 words unless there is a specific reason. Describe the basic premise of the story in a couple of sentences and introduce key characters.

Plot introductions are strictly optional. Be sure when considering whether or not to include one that you carefully weigh the benefits and the drawbacks; pages that are dominated by plot summary exhaust the reader sooner and tend to degenerate into a rehashing of the novel itself rather than an encyclopedia article on the novel. See WP:WAF for advice about how to write about fiction for Wikipedia (how to avoid an in-universe perspective, for example) as well as WP:FICTION.

Plot summary
Plot summaries should be short and an integral part of the article. According to WP:NOT, "Wikipedia articles on works of fiction should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's achievements, impact or historical significance, not solely a summary of that work's plot. A plot summary may be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic."

A plot summary should be no more than three or four paragraphs (for example, four paragraphs for a complex plot such as that found in Charles Dickens' Bleak House). Shorter novels and short stories should have shorter summaries. Plot summaries should not contain an explication of every subplot in the novel nor need they be told in the same order as the novel itself. Well-written plot summaries are extremely difficult to achieve and one of the ways to make your article look like Sparknotes rather than a respectable encyclopedia entry is to detail the plot of every chapter rather than to attempt to truly summarize the novel. A summary details the most important events and character relationships in the novel.

Some editors choose to include templates, though this practice is controversal; in any case, the spoilers themselves should not under any circumstances be deleted or omitted, as doing so directly contradicts the Wikipedia-wide content disclaimer. There are also other unacceptable alternatives which have been proposed in the past. In short, Wikipedia contains spoilers; please respect this policy.

CfL Sources
American Science Fiction and the Cold War: Literature and Film by David Seed


 * Nuclear holocaust, recovering the past through books, the novel as a puzzle, recurrence or cyclic history
 * Initially got negative reviews from the New Yorker, Nation and Saturday Review. Good reviews from Best Sellers, NY Times and Catholic Digest


 * Persistence across time -- strong abbots in all three parts -- Roberson p. 4
 * Roberson notices the unusual amt of attention CfL rcvd for a non-mainstream book, p. 4
 * List of reviews -- http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2283

"Incubator of the New Civilization; A Canticle for Leibowitz". New York Times By Martin Levin, March 27, 1960, Sunday Section: Book Review, Page BR42 "In this ingenious fantasy, Walter M. Miller Jr. diagrams mankind's future in terms of its past."

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/wmiller.htm

National Review -- (5/7/1960) By: Wills, G. Reviews the book "A Canticle for Leibowitz," by Walter M. Miller.

An Extraordinary Tale Speculating on Man's Destiny. Edmund Fuller; Chicago Daily Tribune (1872–1963); Mar 6, 1960; pg. B1

NOTES ON NAMES, BIBLICAL ALLUSIONS, AND RELIGIOUS THEMES IN A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ. Mark McVann, F.S.C.

Miller Source List http://www.infography.com/content/040281001962.html

http://www.bookrags.com/criticisms/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz http://books.google.com/books?id=eGfwpU2TC1wC&printsec=frontcover&dq=canticle+leibowitz&ei=5ixaR5qCEZKIiQH1gsicAg&sig=qAth1jrVADt_r7VLcMdfrAEQeMk&hl=en#PPT29,M1

Reception
Martin Levin of the New York Times hailed A Canticle for Leibowitz as an "ingenious fantasy". In a front page review in the Chicago Tribune Magazine of Books, Edmund Fuller called the book "an extraordinary novel".

Major themes
Scholars and critics have noted the theme of cyclic history and recurrence in Miller's works, epitomized in A Canticle for Leibowitz. David Seed, in his book American Science Fiction and the Cold War: Literature and Film (1992), in discussing the treatment of nuclear holocaust in science fiction, states, "it was left to Miller M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz to show recurrence taking place in a narrative spanning centuries." David N. Samuelson, whose 1969 doctoral dissertation on Canticle is considered the "best overall discussion of the book", calls the "cyclical theme of technological progress and regress . . . the foundation-stone on which A Canticle for Leibowitz is built."

Development
Walter Miller was a prolific writer of science fiction short stories, and by 1955 he had published over 30 stories in such magazines as Astounding Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, and Fantastic Adventures. Some of the stories dealt with themes of loss of scientific knowledge, its preservation through oral transmission, and the guardianship of archives by priests. These motifs, combined with the growing subgenre of the “post-disaster” story and Miller’s own World War II experiences, set the stage for the short story that would become the opening section of A Canticle for Leibowitz.

During World War II, Miller served as part of a bomber crew that participated in the destruction of the ancient Roman Catholic monastery at Monte Cassino (Italy) founded by St. Benedict in the 6th century. This experience impressed him enough to write, a decade later, the short story "A Canticle for Leibowitz" about an order of monks whose abbey springs from the destroyed world around it. The story, which would evolve into the first part of the novel ("Fiat Homo"), was published in the April 1955 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Although not originally intended as a serialization, the saga continued in "And the Light is Risen", which was published in August 1956 (also in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction); this work would later grow into "Fiat Lux". It was while writing the third "novelette", "The Last Canticle", for magazine publication the following year (February) that Miller realized he was really completing a novel: "Only after I had written the first two and was working on the third did it dawn on me that this isn't three novelettes, it's a novel. And I converted it."

For the novelization Miller did not simply colligate the three short stories. A significant revision process &mdash; involving title and character name changes, addition of Latin text, and new characters and changes in the natures and prominence of existing characters &mdash; occurred; these revisions result in significant impacts on and interpretations of the religious and recurrence themes of the story. For example, the already strong recurrence motif is further enhanced by the name change of the abbot of the first part from "Father Juan" to "Abbot Arkos". The cycle/recurrence theme is highlighted by ensuring that the name of the first abbot encountered begins with the first letter of the Roman alphabet and the last abbot's name (Zerchi) begins with the last letter. This echoes the alpha and omega nature of the sadhe and lamedh symbols the Wandering Jew inscribes on the rock for Brother Francis in the novel's beginning. Miller also expanded scenes, increasing their importance: for instance, the initial encounter between Brother Francis and Abbot Arkos in "Fiat Homo" grew from a brief, two-page scene in the short story to a substantial eight-page treatment clearly showing Arkos possessed of doubts and uncertainty (unlike the dogmatism of Father Juan).

Publication
The novel was published by J.B. Lippincott as a hardcover in 1960 (although the copyright is 1959).

Demand for the book was enough to prompt two reprints within the first year, and it has never been out of print since. In 1961 it was awarded the prestigious Hugo Award for Best Novel by the The World Science Fiction Convention. Since then A Canticle for Leibowitz has had new editions and reprints issued in paperback and hardcover more than 40 times. It regularly appears on "best of" lists and has been recognized three times with Locus Poll Awards for best all-time science fiction novel.