 First edition | |
| Author | Robert Silverberg |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Charles Scribner's Sons |
Publication date | 1970 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 247 |
| ISBN | 0-684-10544-6 |
Tower of Glass is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert Silverberg, published in 1970. It was nominated for the Nebula Award in 1970, [1] and for both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1971. [2]
The plot involves 24th-century entrepreneur-tycoon-scientist Simeon Krug, who has created a race of androids to serve humanity. Krug directs the construction of an immense tower of glass in the Canadian tundra. The edifice is not a monument, however, but a way to communicate with a distant planetary nebula, NGC 7293, from which an intelligent (though indecipherable) message has been received. Krug is also building a starship to send there, which is to be crewed by androids in hibernation.
The tower construction is directed by Krug's most faithful android, Alpha Thor Watchman. Thor and other leading androids have invented a secret religion for androids, based on the vision that their creator, Krug, intends to eventually make them equal to humans. Krug is unaware of the religion. Thor's dream is to convince him through indirect means, including the manipulation of his weak-willed son and heir, Manuel, through a sexual relationship with a female android, Alpha Lilith Meson. Thor eventually falls in love with her, as does Manuel.
After Thor and Lilith have manipulated Manuel into telling his father about the android religion, Krug insists that the minds of him and Thor be connected in the "shunt room" which allows one mind to probe another's [3] (a form of technologically enabled telepathy). Thor discovers via the link that Krug regards androids as mere things, and has no intention of treating them as equal to womb-born humans. Realizing that Krug will never give freedom to androids, Thor loses his faith and announces Krug's true nature to androids worldwide. With the collapse of their religion, androids across all of Earth rebel. Many walk off their jobs, others take control of key Earth installations, and some even kill humans in their long-suppressed rage. Thor then causes the fall of the nearly-complete, 1,200-metre-tall (3,900 ft) tower.
An enraged Krug attacks Thor; the latter, unable to fight his creator, is pushed into an unprogrammed teleporter and annihilated. Krug, his empire destroyed and humanity in grave danger, flees in his starship, alone, towards the star system from which the alien message was sent.
Known Space is the fictional setting of about a dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories by American writer Larry Niven. It has also become a shared universe in the spin-off Man-Kzin Wars anthologies. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) catalogs all works set in the fictional universe that includes Known Space under the series name Tales of Known Space, which was the title of a 1975 collection of Niven's short stories. The first-published work in the series, which was Niven's first published piece, was "The Coldest Place", in the December 1964 issue of If magazine, edited by Frederik Pohl. This was the first-published work in the 1975 collection.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a 1968 dystopian science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. It is set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco, where Earth's life has been greatly damaged by a nuclear global war, leaving most animal species endangered or extinct. The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who has to "retire" six escaped Nexus-6 model androids, while a secondary plot follows John Isidore, a man of sub-par IQ who aids the fugitive androids.
Speaker for the Dead is a 1986 science fiction novel by American writer Orson Scott Card, an indirect sequel to the 1985 novel Ender's Game. The book takes place around the year 5270, some 3,000 years after the events in Ender's Game. However because of relativistic space travel at near-light speed Ender himself is only about 35 years old.
The Fountains of Paradise is a 1979 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. Set in the 22nd century, it describes the construction of a space elevator. This "orbital tower" is a giant structure rising from the ground and linking with a satellite in geostationary orbit at the height of approximately 36,000 kilometres. Such a structure would be used to raise payloads to orbit without the expense of using rockets. The novel won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel.
Gregory Dale Bear was an American writer and illustrator best known for science fiction. His work covered themes of galactic conflict, parallel universes, consciousness and cultural practices, and accelerated evolution. His last work was the 2021 novel The Unfinished Land. Greg Bear wrote over 50 books in total.
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The Hyperion Cantos is a series of science fiction novels by Dan Simmons. The title was originally used for the collection of the first pair of books in the series, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, and later came to refer to the overall storyline, including Endymion, The Rise of Endymion, and a number of short stories. More narrowly, inside the fictional storyline, after the first volume, the Hyperion Cantos is an epic poem written by the character Martin Silenus covering in verse form the events of the first two books.
Footfall is a 1985 science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The book depicts the arrival of members of an alien species called the Fithp that have traveled to the Solar System from Alpha Centauri in a large spacecraft driven by a Bussard ramjet. Their intent is conquest of the planet Earth.
Titan is a science fiction novel by American writer John Varley, the first book in his Gaea Trilogy, published in 1979. It won the 1980 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and was nominated for both the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1979, and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1980.
Michael Lawson Bishop was an American author. Over five decades and in more than thirty books, he created what has been called a "body of work that stands among the most admired and influential in modern science fiction and fantasy literature."
The Fall of Hyperion is the second novel in the Hyperion Cantos, a science fiction series by American author Dan Simmons. The novel, written in 1990, won both the 1991 British Science Fiction and Locus Awards. It was also nominated for the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award.
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Odyssey is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack McDevitt. It was a Nebula Award nominee for 2007. It is set in the 23rd century and "explores the immorality of big business and the short-sightedness of the American government in minimizing support for space travel."
The Three-Body Problem is a story by Chinese science fiction author Liu Cixin, the first novel in the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy. The series portrays a fictional past, present, and future wherein Earth encounters an alien civilization from a nearby system of three Sun-like stars orbiting one another, a representative example of the three-body problem in orbital mechanics.
The Star Fox is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson, first published in 1965. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1965.
The following is a list of works by science fiction and fantasy author Poul Anderson.
"The Gold at the Starbow's End" is a science fiction novella by American writer Frederik Pohl. Originally published in the March 1972 issue of Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, it was nominated for both the 1973 Hugo Award for Best Novella and the 1973 Nebula Award for Best Novella. It did win the 1973 Locus Award for Best Novella.
A bibliography of works by American science fiction author Gregory Benford.
