
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Walter M. Miller Jr. · 1960
Three centuries of post-nuclear civilization, with monks of the Order of Leibowitz preserving fragments of a destroyed world. Miller's meditation on cyclical catastrophe and institutional memory is the most Catholic and most bleak of all SF novels.
Science Fiction & Fantasy · the Pro canon
The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.