Rating: 
Summary: The One About the Space Elevator
Review: A hard science-fiction novel, Clarke takes the idea of a space elevator and invents a material that solves the major hurdle to constructing such an elevator today - form of carbon that has enough tensile strength to support itself over the long distance from Earth to geosychronous orbit. Surrounding this major idea is the story of the man trying to build it - Vannemar Morgan, whose resume' includes building a bridge across the Pillars of Hercules.
Morgan's story of ambition and reach begins in parallel to that of Kalidasa, an ancient king of Clarke's country of Taprobane - analog to the real world's Sri Lanka which has been Clarke's home since the late 1960's. Kalidasa's strugles to construct a fountain and tower complex in the face of political opposition from his brother and religious opposition from Buddhist monks mirrors Morgan's own struggles with the head of his company, a prominent senator, and with the heirs to the monks of Kalidasa's day who reside in a temple at the prime location for the anchor point of the elevator.
This parallel is largely pushed aside mid-way through the book, while the theme of the tension between technology, knowledge and religion is picked up in other ways. Still, the focus of the book remains about the construction of Morgan's tower and his drive to complete it. There is some development of other characters: an ex-world president retired to Taprobane,the head of the monastary there, and reporter Maxine Duval who may get the most attention of the minor characters. Yet they remain fairly one dimensional to the collossal construction project which towers over the text.
In his afterword, Clarke cites the major scientific literature about skyhooks & space elevators that preceded the novel beginning in 1960.
This winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards is one of the few novels that have shaped the landscape of science fiction beyond themselves. Most prominently, one can see Clarke's vision behind Kim Stanley Robinson's elevator in _Red Mars_ and its sequels. One also sees an early use of monofiliment here.
Rating: 
Summary: really first-rate
Review: A slow, but thoughtful account of the building of an enormous elevator into space. Incredible atmosphere and a thoughtfulness which you rarely find but which Arthur C. Clarke always delivers.
Rating:
Summary: The ONLY WAY mankind will ever get off this planet!!!!!!!!!
Review: An exciting story of future technology that describes construction of a "space elevator." The best science fiction story ever.
Rating:
Summary: May yet be the most important book of the 20th Century
Review: Hugo & Nebula Awards for Best Novel.Nikola Tesla has been called the man who invented the 20th century. I'm hoping that Clarke will be remembered as the man who invented the 21st. As I type this there is a TV in the room, connected to a box, in turn connected to a dish on the roof, that is pointed to a satellite over 42,000 km away in what is called a Clarke Orbit, after the astronomer who realized it would be a useful place for a communications satellite to be, Sir Arthur C. Clarke. So what does that have to do with this novel? In this book Clarke talks about a bridge, a tether that connects the ground to Clarke orbit. A vertical railroad, allowing for a more economical method for reaching Earth-orbit than riding on a Space Shuttle with the power of sixty-five locomotives. As in real life, the political problems far outweigh the technical ones, and those who say that Clarke is weak in characterization have not read the same book I did. Do the math, we can build a tether, we should build it. The only thing wrong with this book is that it hasn't happened, yet.
Rating:
Summary: May yet be the most important book of the 20th Century
Review: Hugo & Nebula Awards for Best Novel. Nikola Tesla has been called the man who invented the 20th century. I'm hoping that Clarke will be remembered as the man who invented the 21st. As I type this there is a TV in the room, connected to a box, in turn connected to a dish on the roof, that is pointed to a satellite over 42,000 km away in what is called a Clarke Orbit, after the astronomer who realized it would be a useful place for a communications satellite to be, Sir Arthur C. Clarke. So what does that have to do with this novel? In this book Clarke talks about a bridge, a tether that connects the ground to Clarke orbit. A vertical railroad, allowing for a more economical method for reaching Earth-orbit than riding on a Space Shuttle with the power of sixty-five locomotives. As in real life, the political problems far outweigh the technical ones, and those who say that Clarke is weak in characterization have not read the same book I did. Do the math, we can build a tether, we should build it. The only thing wrong with this book is that it hasn't happened, yet.
Rating:
Summary: One of Arthur Clarke's finest novels.
Review: In the two decades since THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE was written, the idea of an 'elevator' into space has permeated the science fiction world completely, seen as merely a fact of things to come. In part, I believe it is because Arthur C. Clarke made such an excellent case for it in this novel which builds one up 36000 km (24,000 miles)--from Sri Lanka to geostationary orbit. It combines two of the authors most popular themes, technological evolution & human quintessential development, with sparse prose and moving directness. At the time of it's original publication, it was announced to be the author's last novel, which happily is one of Clarke's predictions which did not come true! Very Highly Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: To the moon!
Review: Or not. But close enough. The sad thing about reading this book and reading the later Clarke books is the contrasting quality, this appears to be the last time he had his act completely together, later books have had little sparks of ideas here and there, but mostly lack that roar of inspiration. Not here. Clarke goes for broke, first putting forward an idea that was totally new at the time: a space elevator. For those of you not scientifically inclined, it's basically a long tether connecting a station orbiting the planet, and people could run up and down the cable in cars. Basically it would make spaceflight easier because ships could launch and refuel up there and not have to worry about gravity and escape velocity and it just opens the entire solar system up. These days it's been more commonplace, writers don't even bother centering entire books around it (though Kim Stanley Robinson probably had this book in mind when he had the Martians install an elevator in his Red/Green/Blue Mars book), but back then it was a fairly new idea. And a great one, it's out there but enough so the reader can envision it, the problem with the Ringworld is that I have trouble picturing it within the realms of reality, I just can't, I know it's possible but I just can't do it. Here, it's gloriously real and Clarke takes you every step of the way. He sets the novel in a renamed Sri Lanka and then proceeds to play with the history, framing the story about a king who built a series of gardens to reach the gods two thousand years before. Also there's this alien spacecraft that happens to pass through years before and laughs at the thought of God, which I thought had little relevance (I thought Clarke was just making sly references to Rendevous with Rama at first) and that makes perfect sense as well. It's a quick read, but not a light one, the science concepts are presented so that those without engineer's degrees can follow. Alas it's also out of print (cue rant: WHY?) but well worth your time to find, used book stores should have a copy if you try and look. But if you ever thought that we're reached the limits of our technical achievements, go read this and see just how far we can go.
Rating: 
Summary: the ending is worth it
Review: The story here is seems really long and drawn-out, filled with characters that have little or no purpose at all. The main character, Vannemar, is the only one that seems to have any definition. The others are kinda meaningless. It's as if Clarke thought up the ending, then wrote a bunch of "bla bla bla" to lead up to it.
The only thing that kept me interested was the Starglider side story. The Starglider was an unmanned alien craft that traveled to our solar system and used it's on-board computer to communicate with us.
The ending is one of the best that Clarke has written. Which I thought made the entire book worth reading. Although I thought the characters and the rest of the story only served one purpose: filler.
Rating:
Summary: Not Clarke's best
Review: The technology of the space elevator is interesting, but Clarke failed to build a compelling story around it. Plot elements, such as the sojourning spacecraft and the king who wanted to build a stairway to the stars, come and go without amounting to a unified whole. Character does not seem to be a major concern for Clarke, which is fine if you have as strong a plot as he did in, for example, "Rendezvous with Rama," but I did not find the struggle to build the space elevator sufficiently interesting in and of itself to satisfy me.
Rating:
Summary: Not Clarke's best
Review: The technology of the space elevator is interesting, but Clarke failed to build a compelling story around it. Plot elements, such as the sojourning spacecraft and the king who wanted to build a stairway to the stars, come and go without amounting to a unified whole. Character does not seem to be a major concern for Clarke, which is fine if you have as strong a plot as he did in, for example, "Rendezvous with Rama," but I did not find the struggle to build the space elevator sufficiently interesting in and of itself to satisfy me.
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