Fountains of Paradise, The (Mass Market Paperback)

by Arthur C. Clarke (Author) "The crown grew heavier with each passing year..." (more)
Key Phrases: space elevator, butterfly nut, hundred klicks, Mahanayake Thero, Sri Kanda, Vannevar Morgan (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Published in 1953, 1952, and 1979, respectively, this trio of novels follow Clarke's recurring theme of humans thrusting themselves into space and then not necessarily liking what they find. The religious images that run throughout Clarke's work also are present here.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"Clarke once again sounds his grand theme...man is most himself when he...challenges the very laws of the universe." -- -The New York Times Book Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Spectra (December 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553288199
• ISBN-13: 978-0553288193
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #427,808 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To the moon!, July 10, 2000

By	Michael Battaglia - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Or not. But close enough. The sad thing about reading this book and reading the later Clarke books is the contrasting quality, this appears to be the last time he had his act completely together, later books have had little sparks of ideas here and there, but mostly lack that roar of inspiration. Not here. Clarke goes for broke, first putting forward an idea that was totally new at the time: a space elevator. For those of you not scientifically inclined, it's basically a long tether connecting a station orbiting the planet, and people could run up and down the cable in cars. Basically it would make spaceflight easier because ships could launch and refuel up there and not have to worry about gravity and escape velocity and it just opens the entire solar system up. These days it's been more commonplace, writers don't even bother centering entire books around it (though Kim Stanley Robinson probably had this book in mind when he had the Martians install an elevator in his Red/Green/Blue Mars book), but back then it was a fairly new idea. And a great one, it's out there but enough so the reader can envision it, the problem with the Ringworld is that I have trouble picturing it within the realms of reality, I just can't, I know it's possible but I just can't do it. Here, it's gloriously real and Clarke takes you every step of the way. He sets the novel in a renamed Sri Lanka and then proceeds to play with the history, framing the story about a king who built a series of gardens to reach the gods two thousand years before. Also there's this alien spacecraft that happens to pass through years before and laughs at the thought of God, which I thought had little relevance (I thought Clarke was just making sly references to Rendevous with Rama at first) and that makes perfect sense as well. It's a quick read, but not a light one, the science concepts are presented so that those without engineer's degrees can follow. Alas it's also out of print (cue rant: WHY?) but well worth your time to find, used book stores should have a copy if you try and look. But if you ever thought that we're reached the limits of our technical achievements, go read this and see just how far we can go.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hard Sci-Fi at its best!, August 4, 2000

By	Sailoil (Dublin Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fountains of Paradise (Hardcover)

This is the story of an engineer using diamond cable to build a space elevator. Along the way we have visions of the Gibraltar bridge and the argument of putting rails on the side or not, since the vehicles on the bridge will be controlled not by occupants but by the road. Here is Clarke writing about stuff that is now in development. Intelligent roads. When will we seriously look at the Space elevator? The book is set in Clarke's favourite place on earth Sri-Lanka, although admittedly he conveniently shifts it to a more favourable latitude for scientific reasons. This book is beautifully written but has a backbone of hard science behind it. Today's writers could learn so much from this man.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Arthur Clarke's finest novels., September 2, 2001

By	Edward Alexander Gerster "miamibooks" (South Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Fountains of Paradise (Paperback)

In the two decades since THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE was written, the idea of an 'elevator' into space has permeated the science fiction world completely, seen as merely a fact of things to come. In part, I believe it is because Arthur C. Clarke made such an excellent case for it in this novel which builds one up 36000 km (24,000 miles)--from Sri Lanka to geostationary orbit. It combines two of the authors most popular themes, technological evolution & human quintessential development, with sparse prose and moving directness. At the time of it's original publication, it was announced to be the author's last novel, which happily is one of Clarke's predictions which did not come true! Very Highly Recommended.