Notes
The Fountains of Paradise, a novel by Arthur C. Clarke.

Extracts were published in Playboy (January and February 1979 issues).

The image opposite and the blurb below are from the 1980 printing of the Pan Books paperback edition, ISBN 0330259849. Cover illustration by Chris Moore.

Publisher’s Blurb – Lower Cover
THE YEAR:
2142 A.D.

THE PLACE:
Taprobane, a tropical island paradise.

THE PROJECT:
A giant space elevator to transport men and materials to a point outside the earth’s atmosphere.

THE MAN:
Ace engineer Vannevar Morgan

THE PROBLEM:
Only suitable site is a sacred mountain jealously guarded by monks . . .

'An extraordinary dynamo of ideas that transcend mere science fiction'
Evening Standard

'A superbly crafted novel that may be the best in his canon . . .'
Tribune

'. . . At times almost unbearably exciting'
New Statesman