Going Down…in Spaaaaace
By John DeNardo |
Friday, July 23rd, 2004 at
12:33 am
The 3rd Annual International Space Elevator Conference has posted tons of presentations proving that someone is thinking about this stuff and it’s not just some fairy tale. Cool stuff. [Thanks to Spacecraft for the link]
What about space elevators in sf?
I recently read Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds which had a way cool space elevator sequence. Another space elevator was portrayed in David Gerrold’s Jumping Off The Planet.
Other books (that I have not read) with space elevators:
- The Web Between the Worlds by Charles Sheffield (Credited with being the first sf book to mention a space elevator, although it was coincidentally first published at around the same time as…)
- The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke
- Indistinguishable From Magic by Robert L. Forward (The title taken from a quote of Clarke’s: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”)
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Forward also used a space elevator in some of his SF. Sheffield used the space elevator concept again in his “Heritage Universe” novels. Robinson had a space elevator in the “Mars” books.
More on space elevators.
Kim Stanley Robinson also has a waycool scene in his MARS book (I forget which one) where a space elevator is damaged and CRASHES into Mars; the beanstalk falls and wraps itself arouns the equator, producting hypersonic shockwaves. Men at the top of the tower decide to take their chances jumping off into orbit, with only an hour or two of air in their suits, rathing than going down with the fall.
My humble book, THE GOLDEN AGE, the last chapter concerns the protagonist having to walk down a space elevator. The book proposes hundreds of space elevators linking up to a geosynchronous city orbiting the Earth like a solid version of the rings of Saturn.
Yikes! How could I forget my recent read, The Golden Age (and the excellent books that followed)?
And yes, I do remember that scene in Red Mars. Thanks for the corrections of omission.