If you were drawn to Per Hiero Desteen’s trek through the wastes and the way his priesthood shapes every choice, you’ll appreciate how the monks at the Abbey of St. Leibowitz preserve scraps of pre-Fall knowledge—much like Hiero scouring the Unclean lands for remnants of the “ancients.” Watching Brother Francis stumble upon relics with near-mystical significance will echo Hiero uncovering deadly artifacts and confronting the Unclean’s schemes, but here the long view of history turns those discoveries into moving meditations on what civilization remembers—and forgets.

If Klootz—the great morse who shoulders Hiero through swamps and skirmishes—won your heart, you’ll love Hosteen Storm working in seamless mind-link with his kestrel, meerkats, and dune cat on the frontier world of Arzor. Like Hiero and his mount navigating mutant territories and ambushes by the Unclean, Storm and his team stalk hostile terrain and outthink predators and human foes alike. That same “two minds, one survival instinct” energy fuels every tense hunt and escape.

Hiero’s run-ins with lethal relics—devices the ignorant treat as sorcery while the Unclean covet their true power—set the stage for the audacious game in which Sam (Mahasamatman) battles a pantheon who’ve cloaked advanced tech in divine ritual. As Hiero’s priestly mission pits him against secretive orders, Sam’s heresy pits him against engineered “gods.” The thrill of unmasking miracles as machinery—and using that knowledge to outmaneuver zealots—lands here with dazzling, mythic swagger.

Hiero’s psi-talents and reconnaissance into Unclean territory find a kindred echo in the metapsychic exiles who step through a time-gate into the Pliocene—and discover the Tanu, a ruling class who exploit human minds with tech-collars. If you loved Hiero deciphering traps, forging alliances, and using telepathy to survive ambushes, you’ll relish Aiken Drum and company waging a cunning campaign against overlords who weaponize mind-power just as brutally as the Unclean.

Hiero’s day-by-day craft—scouting routes, reading spoor with Klootz, rationing gear, and facing predators—mirrors Ish Williams’ quiet struggle to live after the collapse. Where Hiero crosses ruined towns and mutant forests, Ish traverses a depopulated landscape, building a fragile community with nothing but scavenged tools and stubborn will. If the grit of foraging and the hard choices on the trail hooked you, this classic delivers that same relentless, lived-in survival.