Science-fiction is a big genre, including everything from the trashiest 'rockets n' rayguns' schlock to serious sociological speculation. On that scale, The Fountains of Paradise falls clearly into the mega-engineering sub-genre, where rational yet humanistic men of science build immense engineering projects, and the author walks us through an exploration of their inner workings. In this case, the project is space elevator. The engineering is a little cursory, while harmonic and electrodynamic issues are brought up, it's assumed that a 40000 km unbreakable cable with maglev tracks is just going to work. On the human side, all characters are reasonable and wise and calm under pressure, which can be a little irritating, but they're more distinguishable than the alien explorers in Rendezvous at Rama. And somehow, the introductory chapter which skip between ancient Sri Lanka, the 22nd century engineering effort, and the 21st century visit of an intelligent alien probe to the solar system charmingly establish the novel. The Fountains at Paradise is earnestly old school, but sometimes that's just what you need.

****

UPDATED for Hugo Reread

The Fountains of Paradise is a relatively straightforward story of heroic engineering. In the 22nd century, Vannevar Morgan, world's greatest living engineering, wants to follow up his bridge across the Straits of Gibralter with a bridge to the stars, using a new carbon-based superfiber to construct a 40,000 km space elevator. Much of the engineering is surprisingly straightforward. There's some talk of the incredible tensile strength required, the super-conducting maglev track the cars will ride on, harmonic and electrodynamic structural complications, but mostly Morgan is very very smart, and things come together.

The biggest potential conflicts are over funding and siting. The best possible location for the elevator is perpetually owned by a Buddhist monastery, and the fantastical cost could bankrupt even an advanced 22nd century multiplanet economy. These problem are neatly avoided, when a fortuitous storm and an ancient prophecy cause the Buddhists to abandon their monastery without a fight, and Morgan outmaneuvers the petty minds who would unfund his tower for merely pragmatic reasons. Along with the main plot of building the story, Clarke adds the true mythology of Kalidasa, an ancient prince who built gardens of fabulous beauty, and the 21st century encounter with Starglider, an alien robot probe that passes through the Solar System, converses with Earth (disproving the existence of God in the process), and zooming onwards.

The actual drama, and climax of the book, occurs when a science team gets stranded in the upper ionosphere, 20,000 km from the midway station and rescue. The only way to get the team enough oxygen to survive till permanent rescue is to send a 'spider' cable car up far beyond it's design limit. Morgan, as chief designer, volunteers and saves the day, but dies of a concealed cardiac condition on the way down. The final scene is of an Earth being abandoned for a few centuries during an inter-glacial, as posthumanity uses a vastly expanded elevator to take refugee on Venus and Mercury. One of the starglider aliens asks why the elevator is named for Kalidasa, when that king lived thousands of years before it was constructed. Fin, and a nice bibliography about the actual theoretical development of the space elevator.

This book has all the strengths and weaknesses typical of Clarke, but is on the whole much better than Rendezvous with Rama. The setting is orderly to the point of obsession, with global peace and harmony, but the conflicts and ambition of Morgan and his opponents is real enough, if a little muted. The fictional island of Taprobane is based closely on Sri Lanka, which Clarke clearly loved (speaking of which, this book is dedicated to Leslie Ekanayake, Clarke's partner, who died a year prior to publication). The communicative Starglider is a much more relatable alien than either the Ramans or the Monolith from 2001, even if it can be a somewhat annoying author's voice on the subject of rationalism. The biggest weakness is the complete absence of female characters. Thematically, though the ending is about as subtle as a hammer blow, I like the meditation on what we'll be remembered for, and how Morgan never achieves the immortality of name that he sought, even after dying a hero on his tower.