Books: Hiero`s Journey By Sterling E. Lanier

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - The 1970s were the years of the Cold War. Everyone was afraid of a possible devastating nuclear conflict between the West and the Soviet Union. The fear about an atomic holocaust inspired many writers, who speculated about how life will be after the Armageddon. Walter M. Miller`s "A Canticle for Leibowitz" is the most famous and maybe the best of the post-nuclear war novels.

The book "Hiero`s Journey" by Sterling E. Lanier, published in 1973, is another take on this subject, a modern fairy tale ( amazon). The plot is set about 5,000 years after the disaster. The nuclear strikes had changed everything. More than 5 millennia of radical radiation extremely altered the genetics on earth, it created bizarre new life forms and converted surviving humanity and animals into something different. Like in "Canticle for Leibowitz" there are some abbeys which are oases of civilization and try to recover humanity, but in this novel also science blends with telepathy and precognition, as a result of the genetic alterations.

The protagonist is a kind of priest, but also a highly educated killer; very smart and possesses growing telepathic powers. He gets the order to travel south to discover machines from the pre Armageddon era which could help to rekindle civilization. 

He is accompanied by a morse, a breed between a moose and a horse, a slightly intelligent and a bit telepathic animal, and later he will get more companions. The protagonist makes a lot encounters, some benign, but others are very vicious and strange. "There were perils everywhere, but a wise man tried to balance the lesser against the greater".

The book advances like a computer game: The challenges are getting more and more severe, and the protagonist learns from his encounters, he adapts to them and is getting stronger. "The priest learned early that exact knowledge was the only real weapon against a savage and uncertain world".

I had a lot of fun because the author has a rich fantasy and develops bizarre environments & life forms. "Then ghastly cosmic forces unleashed by The Death had made the mingling of strange life possible and being had grown and thought which should never have known the breath of life". The telepathic communications with  the animals read a bit like Dr. Doolittle - but they sound plausible in this setting - and there is a lot humor and also a little bit romance.

Maybe someday Netflix, Hula, Prime or Max will discover the novel and turn it into a fascinating TV series.