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.

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.

This book was sitting in my library for i don't know how many years. I don't even know how it got there. A good suspense book. Vivid characters. Give it a go if you like the genre.

The Tower has more to do with the political agenda's of its protagonists and rife with moral ethics,("should man build something as a crowning honor to self...?")than I would have expected from a book of this genre. But, overall I liked the story. I was somewhat creeped out by the references to the World Trade Tower and couldn't help compare the real life event with this fictional account from 1973. Since I like the movie The Towering Inferno I could not resist this book. I'm going to read The Glass Inferno next as a way of comparing the two. The movie version was based on a combination of these two books. I will hold judgement until then. If you are a fan of disaster movies/books then this one will not disappoint you.

He llegado a leerme la mitad de la novela (200 páginas) y es un historia que jamás termina de arrancar.
Es aburrido y no suceden apenas cosa.
No pierdo el tiempo, lo abandono y me pongo con otro libro.

I read this in 1975 and saw the movie THE TOWERING INFERNO at a later date. The book was better.

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.

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!

Quick and easy read. The writing gets a little out there sometimes. It's oddly like reading a Mad Men episode at times. Hard to believe people spoke like this, having no idea if it is accurate representation of the time. Anyway, mixed in with the high-flown dialogue the story does a good job with pacing, switching between all the characters and the tension is high by the end.

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?

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.

Trapped on the 125th floor of a burning building, how does one react to seemingly inescapable death. In the best passages this book was very good but ultimately the ending was kind of dumb and disappointing. Felt like the paperback novel equivalent of a 1970s American made for TV movie.