MILLER, Walter M(ichael)

(1922-)

   US writer. WMM flew combat missions in WWII and was converted to Catholicism in 1947; he began publishing sf with "Secret of the Death Dome" in AMZ in 1951, and over the 10 years of his active writing career released about 40 more tales, many of which had a deep impact upon the field. During the 1950s, a time when US sf tended to express its new-found interest in character through stories whose rigid formulae were derived from sentimental fiction and which tended to read as simplistic moralities, WMM published in Gal, FSF, ASF and elsewhere tales whose treatment of character was effortlessly complex; moreover, through his preoccupation with RELIGION, he transfigured conventional sf themes and instruments - progress, GENETIC ENGINEERING, BIOLOGY in general - by treating them with a rich ambivalence.Perhaps the best example is "The Darfsteller" (1955), which won a HUGO as Best Novelette in 1955. The sfpremise seems simple: a computer-like machine that controls a THEATRE of life-sized mannequins has displaced human actors. The darfsteller, an unemployed Method actor, has been working as a janitor in a theatre, and sabotages one of the mannequin-tapes so that he can replace it on stage. At this point the typical sf story of "character" might well give him hiscomeuppance and the tale would end. But WMM is just beginning; the rigged performance becomes an essay in acting and, through its presentation of Christ's Passion, a continually deepening examination of the actor'scomplex, emblem-haunted nature. The story appears in Conditionally Human (coll 1962); WMM's other collection of shorter items was The View from theStars (coll 1965). The Science Fiction of Walter M. Miller, Jr. (coll 1978) and The Best of Walter M. Miller, Jr. (coll 1980) amply convey a sense of his finest work in short form.But WMM remains best known for his single novel, A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ (1955-7 FSF; fixup 1960), which, along with James BLISH's A CASE OF CONSCIENCE (1953 If; exp 1958), stands as one of the very few attempts in US sf to deal with formal religion. The first part of this 3-part work is set in a Dark Ages 600 years after a 20th-century nuclear HOLOCAUST, when the survival of the human raceremains a moot question. The Catholic Order of Leibowitz - named after a 20th-century physicist who created the Order and bestowed upon it the taskof preserving knowledge during the period of violent nescience that followed the holocaust - has come into some holy relics relevant to Leibowitz's canonization, and their survival becomes emblematic ofhumanity's. In the second part, half a millennium later, the Order is confronted with the rise once again of the scientific mentality, with all its benefits and risks. In the third part, a further half-millennium later, the Order has lost prestige and power in a new industrial-scientific age, but prepares a spaceship to escape the inevitable second holocaust, thus hoping to shorten the period of darkness that will ensue. The novel is full of subtly presented detail about the nature of religious vocation and the way of life of an isolated community, deals ably with the questions of the nature of historical and scientific knowledge which it raises, and poses and intriguingly answers ethical questions about mankind's proper relation to God and the world; though the vagrant entry of the Wandering Jew into the text is perhaps a little contrived, that is a small flaw in a seminal work. While A Canticle for Liebowitz can be read as a work of Christian apologetics, WMM (like GeneWOLFE after him) clearly responds mythopoeically to the holy story - and to the institutions - of his Church, with effects both ambiguous and ironic. At the same time, however, his central commitment (like Wolfe's) is unwavering, and the cyclical pattern of the tale reads as anything but defeatist - for the moment of Christ's Coming is not a matter of dead history. The 1961 Hugo for the book was richly deserved. A sequel is projected for publication in the early 1990s.

   JC

   Other works: Beyond Armageddon: Survivors of the Megawar (anth 1985) ed with Harry Martin GREENBERG.

   See also: AMAZING STORIES; ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN SF; ARTS; AUTOMATION; COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS; ESP; HISTORY IN SF; The MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ; MEDICINE; MUTANTS; ROBOTS; SOCIOLOGY; SPACE FLIGHT; SUPERNATURAL CREATURES.