The novel “Gather, Darkness!” by Fritz Leiber was published for the first time in 1943 in the magazine Astounding. It’s set at the beginning of the XXIV century in a theocracy that took power on the Earth and the space colonies after a terrible nuclear war which took place a few centuries earlier. Humanity is ruled by the Hierarchy of the Great God, whose priests exploit religious beliefs to keep ordinary people in a state of ignorance and submission.