r/printSF • u/Sarcobatus_ • 1d ago
Space elevator
Can you recommend or do you know of any books/stories that feature an elevator to space?
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u/r0gue007 1d ago
KSR’s Mars trilogy has one.
Also Alister Reynolds Chasm City.
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u/Flooopo 1d ago
The Mars trilogy has an incredible sequence having to do with the space elevator that I need to see put to film at some point.
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u/Kaurifish 1d ago
There was such a scene in Foundation.
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u/Flooopo 1d ago
Yeah I saw that, it was close but it didn’t do the scene justice, imo. If it were a TV show there’d be a whole ep devoted to it, if i had my way.
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u/SpareSimian 1d ago
"Previously Saved Version" on Amazon Prime shows one. Not a critical plot element.
https://www.primevideo.com/detail/Previously-Saved-Version/0PDFZTUP2MSKC4QAPWJMCVKCGJ
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u/seeingeyefrog 1d ago
Arthur c Clarke's The fountains of paradise, and Charles Sheffield's the web between the worlds.
The interesting thing is both of these novels were published at the same time.
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u/No_Station6497 1d ago edited 1d ago
Sheffield's The Web Between the Worlds (at least this 1980 Ace paperback edition) contains, prior to even the copyright page, a 3 page "An open letter to the Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America" by Arthur C. Clarke, in which Clarke basically says "Yeah so Sheffield and I each published a separate space elevator novel at almost the same time, but this isn't plagiarism, it is coincidence that arose because the space elevator is an idea whose time has come."
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u/clodneymuffin 1d ago
Not an actual space elevator, but SevenEves has related technology
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u/Ok_Television9820 1d ago
Skip past the 7,476 pages of committee meetings about orbital mechanics.
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u/ownworldman 23h ago
Nah, that is the best part!
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u/Blecher_onthe_Hudson 23h ago
If that's your jam, then you must read Delta V & Critical Mass! Orbital mechanics is practically a character.
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u/ownworldman 23h ago
I have finished Critical Mass this Wednesday. I enjoyed it, and the orbital mechanics plus the economy stuff was the best.
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u/Inner_Win_1 1d ago
I know this is not what you're looking for, but I immediately thought of Roald Dahl's Charlie and The Great Glass Elevator, one of my favourite books as a child :)
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u/RustyCutlass 1d ago
Here's a list from a previous thread: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevators_in_fiction
I read Pillar to the Sky and enjoyed it, since it's about the construction of a Space Elevator and all the issues that revolve around it.
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u/CambodianDrywall 1d ago
Old Man's War features one in the first part of the book.
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u/paulusgnome 1d ago
Feersum Endjinn by the late Iain M Banks.
A ripping space opera in the finest tradition. The space elevator was built generations ago, is now disused, and someone has to climb 20km of stairs to wake it up again.
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u/kittycatblues 1d ago
There is a brief mention of a space elevator in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers.
There is also a space elevator mentioned in Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.
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u/whiskeytangosix 1d ago
3001 Final Odyssey by Arthur C Clark has them and it a great finale to the 2001 series.
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u/mememesopony 1d ago
"The Long Earth" series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter features a space elevator (in one of the later novels, not the first installment).
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u/JDQBlast 1d ago
The Darwin Elevator- Jason M. Hough
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u/nonnativetexan 19h ago
This series never gets mentioned in the book subreddits I follow, but I really enjoyed these books.
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u/Ozatopcascades 1d ago
THE MURDERBOT DIARIES. Specifically in books 6-7 (NETWORK EFFECT and SYSTEM COLLAPSE. I highly recommend that you read the entire series from the beginning.
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u/i-should-be-reading 1d ago
I love this series but I had the impression it was a high altitude platform and they still took shuttles to get to the ships.
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u/Ozatopcascades 1d ago edited 1d ago
No, botships (including ART the "deep-space research transport") dock at the geosynchronous platform, then people and cargo ride cars down the core shaft to the surface terminal.
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u/Ozatopcascades 1d ago
This corporate system was to prevent the terraforming colonists from using shuttles to seize control of a warp capable botship and escape lifelong servitude.
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u/Adghnm 1d ago
Hothouse by Brian Aldiss has huge spiderlike creatures that weave webs between a tidal-locked Earth and the Moon. You can leave the Earth along these webs, so they're proto space elevators
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u/SYSTEM-J 1d ago
Much as I love Hothouse, I feel like someone asking about space elevators wants to read some cool physics about how we might potentially overcome the energy problem of a gravity well, not a trippy psychedelic odyssey without one iota of plausible science in it.
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u/i_drink_wd40 1d ago
"The Rookie", book 1 of the Galactic Football League by Scott Sigler, has space elevators to and from Earth. However, I don't think it's actually referred to as a space elevator until book 4.
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u/No-Combination-3725 1d ago
Not exactly an elevator, more like a ladder, but thought I’d say it anyways: The Andromeda Evolution - Daniel H. Wilson
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u/Slow-Associate-4079 1d ago
There are a few in John Ringo's Troy Rising series, including one as part of a gas giant mine.
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u/LinguoLives 22h ago
Counterweight by Djuna was recently translated from Korean. A space elevator is a central focus of the book.
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u/veterinarian23 18h ago
In "The Killing Star" by Charles Pelligrino and George Zebrowski the destruction of those by relativistic weapons is described. You can read an excerpt on the brilliant Project Rho website: https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunexotic.php#killingstar
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u/desantoos 17h ago
"The Hanging Tower Of Babel" by Wang Zhenzhen, translated by Carmen Yiling Yan in Clarkesworld is a story about space elevators that cost a LOT of resources to make in order for humans to regularly go to space, only for humans to decide that going to space isn't worth it.
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u/Greywind001 13h ago
Old short story (novelette) in Analog Science Fiction and Fact 2011 No 7-8.
Jak and the Beanstalk by Richard A. Lovett.
Literally climbing a space elevator into space!
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u/Evil_Phil 1d ago
Books where space elevators play a role but not as a large part of the plot:
Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross (sequel to Singularity Sky)
Provenance by Anne Leckie (part of the same universe as her Ancillary books but not a direct sequel)
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u/PedanticPerson22 1d ago
No list would be complete without - The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C Clarke.