Around the end of the 20th century, industrial civilization was destroyed by a nuclear war, known later as the "Flame Deluge". Subsequently, there was a violent backlash against the culture of advanced knowledge and technology that had led to the development of nuclear weapons — the "Simplification". Anyone of learning, and eventually anyone who could even read, was likely to be killed. Illiteracy became almost universal, and books were destroyed en masse. After surviving the war, Isaac Edward Leibowitz converted to Catholicism and founded a monastic order, the "Albertian Order of Leibowitz", dedicated to preserving knowledge by hiding books, smuggling them to safety (booklegging), memorizing, and copying them.
Fast forward to the 26th century: Brother Francis Gerard of Utah, a novice training to become a monk, is sent out from the Abbey of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz on a Lenten mission of "penance, solitude, and silence" in the desert. While there, Francis encounters a traveler, who points out a rock that might help him complete his shelter. In moving this rock, Francis discovers the entrance to an ancient fallout shelter containing "relics", such as handwritten notes on crumbling memo pads bearing cryptic texts like "pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels–bring home for Emma". Brother Francis soon realizes that these notes appear to have been written by his order's founder, the Blessed Leibowitz himself.
Around the end of the 20th century, industrial civilization was destroyed by a nuclear war, known later as the "Flame Deluge". Subsequently, there was a violent backlash against the culture of advanced knowledge and technology that had led to the development of nuclear weapons — the "Simplification". Anyone of learning, and eventually anyone who could even read, was likely to be killed. Illiteracy became almost universal, and books were destroyed en masse.
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