The Fountains of Paradise

Overview

One of the most accomplished authors in the history of science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke has written numerous international bestsellers. His visionary classics, including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Childhood's End, and Rendezvous with Rama, range across frontiers of science and society, combining exquisitely daring blueprints of future worlds with perceptive observations of our own.

Vannemar Morgan's dream is to link Earth to the stars with the greatest engineering feat of all time-a 24,000-mile-high space elevator. But first he must solve a million technical, political, and economic problems...while allaying the wrath of God. For the only possible site on the planet for Morgan's Orbital Tower is the monastery atop the Sacred Mountain of Sri Kanda. And for 2,000 years, the monks have protected Sri Kanda from all mortal quests for glory. Kings and princes who have sought to conquer the Sacred Mountain have all died.

Now Vannemar Morgan may be next...

"Clarke once again sounds his grand theme...man is most himself when he strives greatly, when he challenges the very laws of the universe."

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Author Information

Bio of Arthur C. Clarke

A sense of the cosmic underlies much of Arthur C. Clarke's (1917-2008) fiction and manifests in a variety of forms: the computer accelerated working out of prophecy in "The Nine Billion Names of God," the sentient telecommunications network given the spark of life in "Dial F for Frankenstein"; and the mysterious extraterrestrial overseers guiding human destiny in the novelization of his screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Clarke's best known story, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and its sequels 2010: Odyssey Two; 2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: Final Odyssey represents the culmination of ideas on man's place in the universe introduced in his 1951 story, "The Sentinel," and elaborated more fully in Childhood's End, his elegiac novel on humankind's maturation as a species and ascent to a greater purpose in the universal scheme. Clarke grounds the cosmic mystery of these stories in hard science. Degreed in physics and mathematics, Clarke was contributor to numerous scientific journals and first proposed the idea for the geosynchronous orbiting communications satellite in 1945. Some of his best known work centers around the solution of a scientific problem or enigma. A Fall of Moondust tells of efforts to rescue a ship trapped under unusual conditions on the lunar surface. The Fountains of Paradise concerns the engineering problems encountered building an earth elevator to supply orbiting space stations. His Hugo and Nebula Award winning A Rendezvous with Rama extrapolated his solid scientific inquiry into provocative new territory, telling of the human discovery of an apparently abandoned alien space ship and human attempts to understand its advanced scientific principles. Clarke's other novels include Prelude to Space, The Sands of Mars, Earthlight, Imperial Earth, and The Deep Range, a futuristic exploration of undersea life in terms similar to his speculations on space travel. He has written the novels Islands in the Sky and Dolphin Island for young readers, and his short fiction has been collected in Expedition to Earth, Reach for Tomorrow, Tales from the White Hart, The Wind from the Sun, and others. His numerous books of non fiction include his award winning The Exploration of Space, and the autobiographical Astounding Days. Clarke was officially knighted by the Queen of England in 2000.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Hachette Book Group USA

Filesize

1.18 MB

Number of Pages

332

eBook ISBN

9780446501750