The Tower

by Richard Martin Stern

For one hundred and twenty-five floors, the world's newest skyscraper rises tall and clean and shining.

In its highest room film stars, celebrities, politicians, diplomats, tycoons and their wives celebrate the official opening.

Suddenly, an explosion rocks the building. The electrical system is sabotaged. Fire rages upwards from the fourth floor. Totally isolated, the VIP guests are trapped. Who can escape, and how ... and who must be left to die...?

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Action, Media Tie In, Novels, Adventure

303 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Richard Martin Stern was an American novelist. Stern began his writing career in the 1950s with mystery tales of private investigators, winning a 1959 Edgar Award for Best First Novel, for The Bright Road to Fear.
He was most notable for his 1973 novel The Tower, in which a fire engulfs a new metal-and-glass frame skyrise. Stern was inspired to write the novel by the construction of the World Trade Center in New York City. Warner Brothers bought the rights to the novel shortly after its publication for roughly $400,000, and Stern's book, in combination with the novel The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson, was the basis for the movie The Towering Inferno, produced by Irwin Allen and directed by John Guillermin and featuring an all-star cast. The film, shot with a $14 million budget, earned more than $100 million at the American box office.
Stern was known mainly for his mysteries and disaster-related suspense. He died on October 31, 2001, after prolonged illness. He was 86.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Outside the city’s tallest fire ladders maneuvered uselessly; the problem was within, not without. On floor after floor, above and below street level, sweating, panting, coughing, and sometimes vomiting firemen wrestled hoses and hurled water, tons of water, at the sometimes seen, but usually hidden enemy – fire. In a thousand points within the walls of the building, ten thousand, material smoldered or burst into hesitant flame, grew in force and fury, or faded into mere glow and then nothingness from lack of oxygen. But where, for example, plastic-foam insulation had melted, flues were formed and in them a new chimney effect reached down and out into open halls and corridors for fresh air to feed the blaze, and the growing flames themselves added strength to the draft…”
- Richard Martin Stern, The Tower

As premises go, the The Tower is about as can’t-miss as you can get. The high-concept plot can be succinctly described in a single sentence: There is a fire in the tallest building in the world, raging out of control, and there are a bunch of rich-and-famous people at the very top, celebrating the grand opening. In other words, you are taking the Titanic, turning it on one end, and striking a match. What follows is a race against time, set against the backdrop of man’s hubris.

It is strikingly cinematic. Thus, it is not surprising that Richard Martin Stern’s compact, 303-page novel was one of two books used as the basis for Irwin Allen’s 1974 disaster opus, The Towering Inferno. Indeed, if you are seriously considering hunting down a copy of this book, it’s probably because you appreciate the half-camp, all-spectacle grandeur of that film.

(Brief aside: The Towering Inferno was one of a spate of disaster epics released by Hollywood in the 70s, including such glorious titles as Rollercoaster, The Swarm, Airport, and Earthquake. The objective best of this bunch is The Poseidon Adventure, fueled by master-class overacting by Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine. My favorite, though, is The Towering Inferno. It features an all-star cast of past-their-peak stars, including Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, and William Holden; it has OJ Simpson playing a guy named Jernigan who rescues a cat; it required two directors and two cinematographers; it has an Oscar winning song; and it has a burning Robert Wagner conducting a danse macabre to a John Williams score. It is pure gold. There’s not even space in this brief aside to mention Fred Astaire).

Unfortunately, the only thing remarkable about The Tower is how badly it botches its execution by needless story convolutions, unnecessary side-plots, and oxygen-sucking philosophizing.

The Tower takes place on the day of the opening of the World Tower in New York City. The World Tower – not to be confused with the World Trade Center, located nearby – is the tallest building in the world, and to celebrate its dedication, there is going to be a party on the very tippy-top, with the builder, the mayor, the governor, the senator, a congressman, some guy from the United Nations…well, you get the picture. The only character worth mentioning is the governor, simply because he meets a young lady at the party and falls instantly, deeply in love, a relationship that is stunningly fake, yet does not even make the top-ten list of dumb things in this book.

This is one of those novels that pretends to be a true story, compiled from an official inquiry. It is a conceit that is picked up and dropped at will. Like every other superfluity contained herein, it adds nothing of substance, while calling attention to Stern’s deficits as a storyteller.

What are those deficits?

Simply put, Stern appears to have no idea how a thriller is constructed, how to properly modulate tension, or have the ability to distinguish between A-plot, B-plot, and stuff that should be excised completely.

For instance, The Tower takes around one-hundred pages (an entire third of the total length) to actually get the fire started (the result of a convoluted series of events whereby some guy for vague reasons is able to mess with the electrical grid, while simultaneously, a fire breaks out on another floor because of “spontaneous combustion”). During this time, we are treated to lengthy character introductions of people who are so thinly drawn as to be nearly transparent.

In this overlong buildup, we meet Nat Wilson, who is to architects what Indiana Jones is to archaeologists. The crucial difference is that Indy has a personality. All that Nat has is a wife named Zib, who doesn’t wear a bra and is cuckolding her husband by sleeping with the same slimy contractor who filled the World Tower with cheap wiring.

(No joke: There is an entire paragraph of Nat eating a peanut. The paragraph begins: “Nat cracked, opened, and ate a peanut. It tasted good.” In this scene, the peanut is not on fire, it is not being eaten atop a blazing building, and it is really pointless, providing an early test for a reader’s patience).

As the characters act out their sub-soap opera arcs, Stern fills the interstitial moments with speeches. Belying the reason for its existence, The Tower is incredibly, confoundingly talkative. It really should have been named The Towering Monologue. Much of the talk is ruminative, discoursing on human arrogance, city-planning, and finding love shortly before immolation in a 125-story pyre. Clearly – and this is the reason The Tower ultimately fails – Stern had some things he wanted to get off his chest. His diatribes – there is no better word – are aimed squarely at 1970s New York City, which he caustically describes as a failed state. For Stern, the building of the World Tower is doomed not because of its tremendous height and shaky electrical system, but because the city itself is doomed, and the building should not have been built in the first place. Briefly, I tried to find an actual ethos, to discern whether he was an adherent of Jane Jacobs or Robert Moses. I quickly gave up, because he’s mostly a crank who obviously prefers the sprawl of the suburbs.

(Another Stern target is “Women’s Lib.” That’s what he calls it. Women’s Lib. Stern is so retrograde, so struggling with the concept of women in the workplace, and whether or not they are wearing brassieres, that it’s not even insulting).

The most astounding thing about The Tower is that Stern thinks we care about all this ancillary crap, rather than the natural, inherent theater of people struggling to live while the hourglass drains down (and the fire burns up). One striking example: Two-thirds into the novel, Stern cuts away from the creeping flames to give us seven pages of Zib’s backstory working at a magazine.

I sort of get it. Suspense can be a tricky thing. Focus too long on the peril and it becomes familiar, thereby losing some of its edge. Orchestrating scenes so that they grip the reader and advance the drama, without blunting that edge, is an art that Stern does not master here. (Despite all the critical sneers, The Towering Inferno attains this balance perfectly, and without breaking a sweat).

Before the RMS Titanic sank in 1912, there was a book called Futility, written by Morgan Robertson, that eerily prefigured this real-world event. Robertson’s work is not good, but the way he imagines the largest ship on earth hitting an iceberg – nearly fifteen years before it actually occurred – is chill-inducing.

There’s a touch of that prophecy in The Tower. The ghosts of September 11, 2001 hover over these pages. It is impossible, as we read about the World Tower, not to think of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, flaring like gigantic candles. More pertinently, Stern explains a bunch of flaws in the central core system of these mammoth high rises that – on that awful day – actually led to the collapse of both buildings, before many people near the top could escape. Still, because it is so disappointingly average, it is difficult to give Stern too much credit in the foresight department.

The Tower should have been a sweaty-palmed divertissement. Instead, it’s an overthought, overwrought bore that smothers any flicker of excitement with ponderous dialogue and half-thought social commentary. I can only recommend it as a curiosity for those who love The Towering Inferno as much as I do. But really, you’d be better off skipping this and just watching the movie again.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an experience! This book starts slow, gradually building tension all the way until the final pages. I didn't like it at first because I didn't like many of the characters. Even Nat, the cowboy junior architect who is the closest thing this book has to a traditional hero, really got on my nerves. However, as the disaster worsens, several of the characters do some serious soul-searching, and they even grow a little bit. Those parts were fascinating. By the end, I was completely invested in these characters. I think it's gutsy of Stern that even the traditional "hero" is able to admit in this story that he hasn't been a very good husband. I think it's wonderful that the characters are flawed. It was fascinating to see which characters collapsed under pressure, and which ones grew stronger.

The bad:
• It's a bit preachy.
• Some parts didn't age well. I wouldn't mind 70's references or music or slang, but the characters’ internal thoughts on "women's lib" got to be a bit tedious, especially since the feminist movement, as shown here, seems so far removed from anything I know, and few of the characters took it seriously.
• The writing style took some getting used to; it's a bit more over-the-top than a modern book would be. The building on fire is compared to a living “breathing” thing, with a steel "skeleton" and shiny "skin," and it's “in torment” from the fire. This sort of flowery prose is not an approach that I see all that often, and it might be off-putting for some.
• Over too soon. It ended very abruptly, and the epilogue didn't help much.
• The characters' names! Oh. My. Goodness. Okay, be prepared to be confused. There's the commissioner, the assistant commissioner, the fire chief, some other firemen, some guy who may outrank the chief (the commissioner? maybe?), the architect, the junior architect, the contractor, the sub-contractor, the inspector, the fire inspector (same guy? I think?), the senator, the other senator who’s high-strung, the mayor, the governor, the police captain, and the police lieutenant. These characters are in and out of the story at various times, but they’re sometimes referred to by name, and sometimes by job title, so it’s a little hard to keep track of who did what, or even how many people are involved. Then there are other characters who always have names. There is at least one character who doesn’t even have a name. And what names! There is a Bert, a Bent, and a Ben. Don’t mix them up! There is Patty, and also Pat (different person), and also Pete. There are two guys both named Paul. And they’re both awful people! And Zib and Elizabeth are the same person, and Nat and Nathan are the same.

The good:
• Suspense builds slowly; tension is palpable
• Lots of development, even with side characters. Lots of interesting backgrounds. One character was a Holocaust survivor whose wife rescued him from a concentration camp. (How?! Forged papers? Political influence? Busting out some ninja moves on the Nazi guards?) One character was a person of color who everyone knew was smarter and better educated than his white co-worker. One married couple snipes at each other like something out of a sitcom. These are people who are dynamic and memorable.
• Strong women. Lots of them, and in unexpected places. One woman meets the news of her husband’s death with grace, poise, dignity, and quiet strength. One woman refuses to be demeaned. And one woman, who wanted to go home and stay out of the way, stays with the firemen instead and comes up with great ideas for helping.
• Villains! One of them especially is so much fun to hate. All of them are interesting.
• Historical vibe. Yes, I know I said parts of this book feel dated, but parts are a vibrant reminder of 1970s New York.
• And best of all, the LAST FIVE PAGES. The end of the story is abrupt, as I said, but the writing style for the final scene is spot-on. It's some of the most chilling stuff I've read in a novel, not just for what happens, but for the way the events are revealed to the reader. The last little bit of this book was worth any frustration I'd had before.

So, to sum up:
The bad = the writing style, the 70's feel, the female characters, and the ending.
The good = the writing style, the 70's feel, the female characters, and the ending.
Clear as mud, right?

[Mayda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book begins in a rather boring way, with uninteresting dialogue by equally uninteresting characters. But little by little, much the way a fire starts slowly, it builds to an exciting and exploding crescendo. Nat, architect, is upset to discover that some of the features of his super tall skyscraper had been cheapened, something that could likely become a safety issue, and that someone had signed his name to the changes. But even while he is tracking down the guilty party, another person has begun his own plan of sabotage against the building. It takes a few chapters before this novel gets gripping, but once it does, it becomes a page turner. The author could have used a bit more imagination in naming his characters. There are too many with closely similar first names, and two even share the same first name. He also tends to sometimes refer to them by their names, sometimes by their nicknames, and sometimes by their job description. A more consistent treatment would have made keeping track of the many characters much easier. But he does a good job of developing the characters and their personalities, both with the heroic good guys and the bad scoundrels. I wish he had taken more time with the ending; it is rather abrupt. But still, the last chapter before the epilogue is chilling in its content.

[Patrick DiJusto · Rating 1 out of 5]

Holy Crap, what a bad book. No, I mean REALLY bad. And what's really bad is that it has the makings of a very good story, buried deep inside itself.

(In the early 1970s, two novels appeared about a fire in a large skyscraper. The Glass Inferno was the other one. Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox each bought the rights to one of the books, then they realized that people wouldn't pay twice to watch a similar movie, so both movies would undercut the other. In a brilliant movie, the studios decided to pool their resources and make The Towering Inferno, a single super spectacular movie about a skyscraper fire, and split the profits.)

And it's a good thing they did, because you couldn't get a TV movie of the week out of this book. All the Towering Inferno plot elements are here -- tallest building in the world; builder's son-in-law uses substandard wiring; governor, ambassadors, senators at the dedication; breeches-bouy rescue -- but the vast majority of the book is spent ... talking. And thinking.

Yes. The architect spends a great deal of time talking and thinking about why we build buildings so big. The governor spends a great deal of time talking and thinking about why we allocate tax breaks to let builders build buildings so big. The senator spends a great deal of time talking and thinking about why he became a senator: was it to watch people put up big buildings?

And the stereotypes! The architect's wife is a chic magazine editor who is into Women's Lib (yes, the book is that old), who stays at her magazine rather than rushing downtown to be of service to her husband (don't worry -- she gets hers in the end). The NYPD cops are either "begorrah, saints presairve us" stereotypes, or highly efficient roboticized African-American stereotypes. The building contractor is a two-fisted he-man who dies of a heart attack. His daughter is a smart, capable woman who nonetheless knows her place (see Women's Lib, above).

All in all, a sad book that was a product of its time.

[Checkman · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the two novels that was used to write the disaster movie classic "The Towering Inferno" (1974). Set in New York City the story packs a punch - mainly because of the similarities to 9/11. The fact that the World Trade Center North Tower plays a key role in the rescue effort makes the story even more powerful.

The story is suspenseful and tragic. It's obvious that Mr. Stern was saying something about our obsession with always needing to be bigger and better and that ,if left unchecked, eventually the drive to be Number One was going to result in some real serious losses.

The novel is laced throughout with observations of how our various systems are flawed. People fall through the cracks (with unintended and tragic consequences) and small and crucial details are either ignored or overlooked. Couple those failings with Human greed and unchecked ambition and it's a real Witches Brew.

As a disaster story the novel is fine. It moves along quickly and it's readable. However I would have to agree with another reviewer who states that the book is a mishmash of ideas. Mr. Stern simply overreached in some respects and as a result the plot sometimes comes to a stop while characters lecture each other. I understand what he was saying, but I wonder if a disaster/suspense novel was the best setting for such an argument.

All in all three stars. Not a bad book, but not a piece of great literature either.

[Doug Haynes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book inspired part of a great movie. Well I guess that depends on your definition of great but I consider anything that puts Paul Newman and Steve McQueen on the same screen to be a work of art so yeah, there's that...

So the book, oh geeze where do I start on this thing? For one thing it just isn't that damn good. If the story in this book were any more transparent it would be hard to read it because you'd be able to look right through the page, nothing is a surprise. It tries hard to build tension but it's pretty hard to reach a climax when you know where everything is headed. The story just sort of grinds along towards the end point you can already see in the distance; the only question is how, exactly, it will get there.

It is also a mashed up shit-show of ideas, concepts and crap the author wants to say about just about everything. He comments on sexuality, fidelity, politics, publishing, womens lib and just about anything else he had an opinion on. Had he cut some of the commentary and replaced it with actual plot points this might have been a better book.

[Jordan Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

The Tower has its moments of genuine tension, but it never quite decides what kind of book it wants to be.

On one hand, it delivers some well-crafted suspense as disaster looms over the titular skyscraper. On the other, it gets bogged down in melodrama, with character conflicts that feel more like soap opera subplots than the high-stakes thriller it sets out to be. The novel introduces a large cast of characters, each with their own personal struggles and ambitions, but instead of enhancing the story, many of these elements feel like distractions from the central crisis. They also all feel the same with little to no distinguishing characteristics. Everyone is either a typical 70’s damsel in distress, a stereotypical man’s man, or the cookie cutter villain with early any real reason for their evil ways. Rather than letting the disaster itself drive the tension, the book frequently detours into interpersonal drama that never quite earns its place in the narrative.

The biggest issue is the pacing—it’s all over the place. The book moves at a snail’s pace for long stretches, weighed down by excessive detail and unnecessary exposition. Entire chapters seem devoted to minutiae that do little to advance the plot or deepen the suspense, making it a chore to push through at times. Just when the tension starts to build, the narrative shifts gears and slows down again, losing its momentum. While the disaster sequences occasionally manage to be gripping, they are too few and far between, buried beneath layers of slow-moving setup and repetitive character interactions.

The novel’s structure ultimately makes it difficult to stay fully engaged, as any excitement is quickly undercut by sluggish storytelling.The stakes should feel urgent, but instead, the novel often meanders just when it should be ramping up. The sense of danger is there in moments, but it never fully takes hold in a way that makes the reader feel the weight of the unfolding catastrophe. Some characters make frustrating decisions, while others feel like they exist only to fill space rather than add anything meaningful to the story.

The book flirts with deeper themes about hubris, human error, and the perils of modern engineering, but it never truly commits to exploring them in a way that resonates. Instead, it remains stuck between being a gripping thriller and an overwrought drama, never excelling at either.

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I recently watched The Towering Inferno, for the first time. I was quite shocked to discover that this was based on not one, but two different books. This one and The Glass Inferno. The mind boggles how they managed to get such a great film that's stood the test of the time, partly from this book.

I struggled my way through this book, despite it being only 303 pages (The Glass Inferno is 435 pages). I was quite close to giving up multiple times. The characters were introduced at a million miles a minute, but were not described in a way that they could be differentiated between. I found myself unable to keep track of which character was which, apart from a couple. The author cannot write memorable, or distinctive characters.

There is also no sense of urgency to this book - sure the film had a slow build up, but at least it introduced the characters and made you care about them. The first mention of a fire only occurs about page 100, and the first sense of urgency I felt was about page 200, but that was over very quickly.

It also had some weird phrases, which are probably from the time it was written, but confused me no end. Such as:

"The old man, Paul thought, was like a bear with a sore paw, and it behooved him to tread warily."

"He rose as she came toward him smiling, skirt short on regal legs, long hair gleaming, unbrassiered breasts jouncing gently."

Jouncing? Behooved? Don't try and attempt to say "jouncing gently" when you've had one too many drinks on a Saturday night.

The finale, is also really abrupt. Fair enough, Hollywood went down a different route, and changed the ending, but it was almost like the author was either getting bored with the repetitiveness of what he was writing, and just decided to end it there and then, or he was under deadline. The ending is shockingly abrupt, and almost seemed rushed, and poorly thought out.

I'm inclined to say that this book could have been a good 100 pages shorter, but I have not yet read The Glass Inferno, which is considerably longer. I'm hoping that will be better, but I'm not getting my hopes up. There was so much unnecessary information, and the book felt twice as long as it actually was. A good editor, who wasn't afraid to say no to the author, could have solved this problem.

I don't think this book would have got to the printing stage in the present day, and I think they did a much better job of the film - while the film is from the 70s, the majority of the special effects are still good quality, and the characters are memorable, and will leave you caring about them. I would recommend watching the film, rather than wasting your time reading this. It will be interesting to see how The Glass Inferno compares.

[Allison Roy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not gonna lie, I bought it for the cover. Which....when I saw I was all 😳😳😳 Of course I picked it up to read and it was ...not good.

The story itself wasn’t terrible (skimping on construction yada yada, come crazy guy) but it was one of those books that is clearly written by a man and it that kind of UGHHHH way.

Dialogue was pathetic and soooo not real (yes politician man we just met but you are oh so strong and I would love to risk my life further to stay with you blah blah/ chick dances and gets half naked during doom/ people barely panic at inevitable doom) It got pretty cringe-y.

Watched The Towering Inferno (the movie based on it) which was also awful and so unnecessarily long (2hr 40min!) and the character development wasn’t there but there were some good dumb dramatic moments added. Oddly a star studded cast- Paul Newman, Faye Dunaway, OJ Simpson, Fred Astaire etc. 🏢🔥

[Luciano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un libro con algunos aspectos interesantes pero que no me terminó de convencer. Me gustó la alternancia de escenarios entre lo que pasaba dentro y fuera de la torre, la personificación de esta última por momentos proponiéndola como un personaje más (aunque bastante influyente) y el trabajo con la temporalidad ya que aunque la historia es lineal los distintos capítulos van adentrándonos cronológicamente en el fatídico día del incendio.
En general me pareció que la obra es bastante anticuada. Hay algunos intentos de crítica social: el autor pone en tela de juicio los motivos que llevan al ser humano a desarrollar obras como esta, una torre de 125 pisos sin ninguna necesidad; se evidencia cómo la irresponsabilidad y el egoísmo de algunos van generando un cúmulo de errores trágico; y se cuestiona sobre todo a la clase política norteamericana, tan alejada de la realidad, inmersa en su propia burbuja. Pero todas estas propuestas creo que son tratadas con superficialidad, y el autor se muestra dubitativo, más bien filosofando en torno al sentido de la vida que tomando una postura de denuncia firme. Cierto es que el tipo de escenario propuesto da lugar a mostrar cómo las situaciones límite sacan el verdadero carácter de las personas, pero creo que el autor desaprovechó la oportunidad.
También me sucedió que me costó mucho conectar con los personajes, incluso con los más "bienhechores" con sus matices como el protagonista Nat Wilson; y en general me fue difícil seguir la lectura. Martin Stern recurre mucho a los diálogos entre personajes como forma principal de desarrollar los capítulos, dando un corte teatral al libro pero también haciendo a todos sus personajes numerosos, muy diversos y poco reconocibles.
Me quedan como cuentas pendientes buscar más información, ver si el trabajo está inspirado en algún caso real, y sobre todo ver la película, pues tengo la expectativa de que eso me aclarará un poco más el panorama y me permitirá acceder a otro tipo de comprensión en relación a la historia.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read "The Glass Inferno" then "The Tower" and then watched the movie "Towering Inferno." I had seen the movie years ago and remembered a lot but it was very interesting to see how the elements of the film were derived from the two books. More of the movie came from the "The Glass Tower" but some key parts also came from "The Tower."

"The Glass Inferno" was much better, a really fun read. It's interesting to feel the zeitgeist of the early 1970's in the two books but it was much more apparent in "The Glass Inferno."

It is my understanding that Fox and Warner Brothers were each going to do a skyscraper disaster movie based on each of the books. Irwin Allen who was a renowned producer of disaster films ended up doing a joint venture and used both books. I don't know the history of why the two books were written but i have a few of insights:
- Both books have a similar story and the main character is the architect (the Paul Newman character) of the new grand skyscraper (in "The Tower" it's the tallest building in the world. There are other common characters, the building owner (the William Holden role), the african american guard/police officer (the OJ Simpson role) and the fire chief (the Steve McQueen role). Elements related to the cause of the fire were also very similar.
- I think at least one of the authors of "The Glass Inferno" was gay. Perhaps one of the most heroic characters was a gay interior decorator and there are a lot of details about his relationship issues and discrimination as a number of social issues were at the surface, race, sexual orientation and drug abuse.
- In particular with "The Tower" I have a hunch that the inspiration for the book was the World Trade Center construction. I find it prophetic how the events in the books were not terribly unlike what happens in the WTC 30 years after the books were written. WTC was actually a "setting" in "The Tower." Had the collapse of WTC been known to the authors, I think they would have made changes. One thing in both books is comments about how the relaxed building standards in the early 70's lead to the problems....and I know that there had been a contentious debate about building standards during the construction of the WTC. I don't think Stern would have said the steel is "white hot" and not had the building collapse.

They are both worth a read!

[Christian Petrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The reason I read this was because The Towering Inferno is based off it, one of the my favorite movies. So I was curious to see which elements they used from it for the movie. There was a second book they used as well, but currently cannot find a copy of it.

This book was better than expected. The writing was clear and the story moved along at a great pace. Richard Stern does a great job of building layers upon the story line.

You feel for the characters and understand what they are thinking. Also, he does a good job of using them to bring up points on society without beating you over the head with it.

Because the character's names are not the same in the movie, you are not sure who will live or die by the end. This keeps the tension up. Even though it was written in the 70's, it does not feel dated.

With how he describes the way the fire is fought the things going on with the tower, he brings great depth to it as well. I would recomend this book to anyone to read.

[Michael David · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not a complex novel of characterization, or coruscating writing, but it's a novel that's a fine suspense. Due to some acts of corruption, a monolith was built with cut corners. When a madman who lost his job and his wife sought to have his revenge on the system, the building was the foremost in his mind. Out of his rage, a fire fomented, and because of the poorly-designed building the fire spread fast, with over a hundred people trapped in the building's highest floor. Those with sharp minds and noble hearts such as Nat Wilson, Giddings, and Fire Commissioner Brown attempt to find a solution without, and decent people such as Governor Bent Armitage try to keep the peace within.

It's a taut, well-told story.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book describes in a fictional way exactly why the twin towers came crashing down on 9/11. The problems encountered in this plot are thinly disguised criticisms of new building tecghniques used in creation of the then new World Trade Towers. We are now living the mornings after.

[for-much-deliberation ... · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great movie, The Towering Inferno!

[Paul Dinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great page turner which became part of an awful movie called the Towering Inferno. I loved the movie then, now I think the books were a lot better. This is great page turner.

[Jon Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book as a scanned paperback copy on the Internet Archive. I think I may be starting a kick where I read the source novels for the series of "disaster" films produced in the 1970's: this is one of two books cited as the inspiration for the film "The Towering Inferno." Somehow I have never seen the 1974 movie "The Towering Inferno," but nobody could grow up in the 1970's and not know of the film's existence. When I learned of the connection between this 1973 book and the film, I decided to check it out. The book is an uneven goulash of soap opera, suspense, and social commentary. It centers on the opening ceremonies of New York City's newest and tallest skyscraper, the 125-story World Tower, built right next to the World Trade Center towers. We are introduced to the men (always men - it is, after all, 1973) who designed, financed, and built the tower. We find out whose wife is having an affair with who. We are introduced to the group of 100-some-odd bigwigs on hand for the opening - mostly they are politicians and diplomats with attendant arm candy. On the morning of the grand opening, the building's designers discover that corners have been cut in the installation of the building's electrical systems, but nobody wants to cry wolf, so the ceremony proceeds anyway. After some ribbon-cutting and speechifying down at ground level, the bigwigs retire to a ballroom on the tower's 125th floor to guzzle champaign and eat cocktail weenies. Far below them, a confusing series of events leads to fire engulfing the building. As far as I could tell, two completely unrelated events happen almost simultaneously: fire erupts in unattended cans of paint in an apartment being decorated, and a mentally-unbalanced man with a deep grudge against the city detonates a bomb in the electrical transformers in the basement. The bomb blast triggers an electrical surge through the building's wiring that is not halted because a critical safety circuit was left out (see above discussion about electrical corner-cutting). All the building's firefighting systems are shorted out, allowing the fire to spread unchecked. The NYFD is unable to cope with a fire so high up. From this point on, it's a race to rescue the bigwigs at the top of the building before they're roasted by the advancing fire. In amongst all this are interludes of exposition by various characters about mankind's overreaching hubris (exemplified in the world's tallest building), the unsustainability of mega-cities like New York, women's lib, May-December romances, chivalry under pressing circumstances, and lots, lots more. That I could have skipped. Without giving too much away, some people are rescued via ingenious means involving the US Coast Guard, and then the book ends in a strangely abrupt fashion. I guess I will read the other book cited as inspiration for "The Towering Inferno" and then watch the movie, and then get on with the rest of my life. Three out of five stars.

[Eden Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

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The Tower was one of two books inspiring the 1974 disaster film The Towering Inferno (the other The Glass Inferno co-authored by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson). Both books responded to the building of New York's World Trade Center towers, and the fear of fire breaking out at over 100 stories. While not as exciting as the film, this had enough elements to make it a fun read.
If your idea of fun is people trapped in a blazing inferno.

The anodized steel World Tower structure rose 125 stories, surpassing the World Trade Center towers. Mechanical and electrical systems breathed life into this marvel, which was not quite finished the night of the top floor grand opening party for politicians, the influential, and the building owners. Unfortunately, no one as glamorous as Faye Dunaway.
In the plaza below, an electrician passes the police barricade with a toolbox of plastic explosives—a disgruntled ex-worker who knows the inspector and chief electrical engineer have evaded safety protocols to save money. Several workers who threatened to blow the whistle met mysterious deaths.
As the party begins, his explosives destroy the basement control room, sending an uncontrollable surge of power that melts the circuits buried within the walls up the entire height of the building, melting insulation and sprinkler systems on every floor.
At the base, building architect Nat Wilson works with the fire commissioners to deal with the unfolding disaster. On the top floor Tower Room, the fire doors have been blocked, and flames erupt in the emergency stairwells. There is plenty of time for them to get drunk, pontificate on life, fall in love, and hijack the elevator straight into raging flames as the rails have melted. Several people get fried before they enact a terrifying plan to connect a zip line to the Twin Towers below and sail out the blown-out windows.

The story unfolds in one night, a series of events that shouldn't have happened. The trapped partygoers were not so interesting, but the failing rescue plans kept the pages turning. Before each section, there are hints of the aftermath, so you know some will get out, and in perfect disaster tradition, others accept their fate, knowing the building will never be saved.
This doesn't beat The Towering Inferno (and I have yet to read The Glass Tower), but for action fans, this satisfies. On publication, it earned high praise from none other than The New York Times for its taut suspense, and barring some dated comments about women's libbers, it holds up well.
This is widely available in old paperback form and modern ebook.

[Carolina Gomez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro era de mi papá, por lo que tiene un valor sentimental grande. Nunca había leído nada que fuera de algún familiar, por esto mismo, es un libro viejo.
Honestamente no sabía bien que esperar al abrirlo pero la historia me cautivó. Me sentí transportada al interior del edificio en lo material, en sus paredes, en este ‘núcleo’ que mencionan repetidas veces, y en la mente de las personas que pasaron por esta catástrofe. Creo que es una historia un poco lenta, pero te da una perspectiva completa. Desde los personajes dentro, fuera, importantes y no tanto; eso me agrada mucho para comprender el trasfondo de todo.
Es una historia bastante digerible, fácil de leer y si te gustan los detalles, sin duda alguna se disfruta muchísimo. Si no te gusta conocer cada pequeño detalle —importante o no—, sin duda será un libro que se te hará tedioso y “too much”.
Es un libro que tiene ciertas palabras y modismos que sin duda son de otra época, y se hace un poco difícil de entender si no estás familiarizado con esto, pero no le resta continuidad a la historia.
En fin, la historia me parece magnífica, el desarrollo de los personajes es gigante para el periodo de tiempo en el que se desarrolla la historia y dentro de todo, me gustó el final. Aunque para mi gusto, se quedó corto en relación con el desarrollo de la historia.

[Doug Haynes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book inspired part of a great movie. Well I guess that depends on your definition of great but I consider anything that puts Paul Newman and Steve McQueen on the same screen to be a work of art so yeah, there's that...

So the book, oh geeze where do I start on this thing? For one thing it just isn't that damn good. If the story in this book were any more transparent it would be hard to read it because you'd be able to look right through the page, nothing is a surprise. It tries hard to build tension but it's pretty hard to reach a climax when you know where everything is headed. The story just sort of grinds along towards the end point you can already see in the distance; the only question is how, exactly, it will get there.

It is also a mashed up shit-show of ideas, concepts and crap the author wants to say about just about everything. He comments on sexuality, fidelity, politics, publishing, womens lib and just about anything else he had an opinion on. Had he cut some of the commentary and replaced it with actual plot points this might have been a better book.

[Wes Brummer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Time has sapped the suspense

Curiosity on which charactors the movie kept as well as plot points kept me reading. Certainly not the suspense. Some cringe-worthy dialog, and the female characters are not interesting—probably because of the times in which this book was written (circa 1970). The many male characters are hardly discernible from each other. After a while i filed them away as good guy/bad guy. I skipped some, looking for the good scenes. Just was not that many.

My advice: hunt down a print copy of “The Glass Inferno.” It seems the kindle version of the Frank Robinson/Thomas Scorlita novel (also used as source material in “The Towering inferno!” Is an uncorrected OCR scanned book, poorly formatted. Ironic that indie authors are held to a high bar in editing excellence. That is what makes a good writer. Yet older notable books with slip-shod scanning, slip in with zero editing. Kindle gatekeepers ought to take action to minimize this.

[Kurt Reichenbaugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a couple of weeks to read this book. I was reading it in conjunction with The Fifties and found myself more drawn to that book than this one. I saw The Towering Inferno so long ago and have forgotten much of it that I figured I could enjoy this novel for what it is. It's a tight novel, taking place over a single day as a gleaming new skyscraper and the VIPs inside it deal with a fire. The plot involves a terrorist as well as corruption by some of the builders of The Tower. There is very much a 70s vibe to the novel, especially in the dynamics between the male and female characters. And there is a nice ratcheting of suspense as the good and bad characters trapped in the building unravel. But again, it's a book of its time.

[Mike Crooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a re-read. I first read the book a year or two after it came out...

It was pretty much as I remembered it, three and a half stars. Not surprisingly there were some issues with the story as to the status of women and how the men felt about them and treated them. In the late middle seventies this was common but woudn't/shouldn't be tolerated today.
This was one of two books whose stories were combined to make the disaster film "The Towering Inferno" starring Steve McQueen and Paul Newman and a bunch of other well known actors. I saw it in the theater and then read both of the books responsible. Easy quick read that moves fast. Nothing too deep or complicated, just mildly entertaining.

[Mcf1nder_sk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This classic novel, written in 1973, was the source material for the 1974 disaster epic The Towering Inferno, which in itself was the inspiration for the recent Dwayne Johnson blockbuster Skyscraper. While it's an oft-quoted cliche that "The book is always better than the movie", it definitely holds true in this case, and I liked the movie. The depth of character backstory and motivations made this a veryengrossing read indeed, even knowing how it turns out at the end.
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My Rating: 4.25/5 stars

[Trinin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Empieza lento pero para mí sorpresa no lo pude soltar hasta terminarlo. Me gustó como se describe la acción. Rascacielos y nueva york en el año 73, y aún se siente moderno, sobre todo como los personajes se van desenvolviendo en cuanto a la acción. No me gustó mucho como estaban escritos los personajes femeninos porque es bastante obvio que se ocupan como un extra a las acciones de los personajes principales. El final me dejó medio "oh, ok" se esperaba, pero como Nat Wilson no quería perder la esperanza. Lo recomiendo a quienes le gustan las novelas medio policíacas y de acción.

[Robert Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

The movie was better

After reading the 2 books, (This and The Glass Inferno) I could tell that the tower was the least used. It started out good bit got caught up in drama and no action. The ending was a downer and there are too many "goddammed" is use. Call it lazy writing.
I expect so much more, but felt it was a letdown. I could see that the director had to piece the 2 novels together to make a movie. But also create some tension that wasn't present in the book.

[Aaron G. · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good story but rather tediously written. All the characters speak (and think) in a similar voice which is singularly unlike the way anyone actually speaks -- even in the 1970s. A lot of self-important naval-gazing stuff, to the point that I wondered if people tried to avoid Mr. Stern at cocktail parties. The Tower is worth trudging through if you're a fan of the film it inspired, The Towering Inferno, but the other book behind that movie -- The Glass Inferno -- is a better read.

[Scott Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world’s highest skyscraper, 125 floors high, is subjected to a massive explosion and subsequent fire rages through the building, while a group of over 100 people are trapped at the very top

This was one of the two books that inspired the great film The Towering Inferno along with The Glass Inferno

A good read, takes a while to get going and there a few slow parts but keeps you gripped once the fire takes hold.

[Hilary · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I can definitely see elements of The Towering Inferno; I'm not sure which differences came from the other source book, or were general adaptation changes.

It does start off slowly, taking time to set up the calamity, and felt a little dry at times, with sparse language rather than richness of description or character design. Still kept me reading an hour later than I intended.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

It doesn't happen often, but I have to say that the movie (The Towering Inferno) was better. Too many of the three hundred-ish pages were spent dealing with various wife-borrowing scenarios which didn't really add to the story. I suppose for four bucks at a secondhand store it wasn't so bad, but I can see why the moviemakers had to combine it with another book to get a exciting disaster story.