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.

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.

This book was one of two apparently inspired the movie The Towering Inferno, in this book there is someone who gains access to the building to try and sabotage it but like the film the electric work being done was changed from the spec and replaced with lesser quality cables once the person sabotages the system it causes a fire in the tower.

And what follows is the rescue effort.

Great movie, The Towering Inferno!

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

Great Book

The ending is completely different than the movie. This is well written and such a good book.
I recommend it!

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.

En intressant blandning karaktärer (om än inte väldigt djupa var för sig), en förhållandevis sakta utvecklande katastrof som destillerar ner de drabbade till sina mest fundamentala drag.

Klart instressant läsning, och spännande trots att det nästan från början är fullkomligt klart hur det kommer gå i grova drag. Ett balanserat avslut också, vilket är väldigt viktigt för en sån här bok.


Svårt att inte tänka på WTC-tornen (vilka f.ö. spelar en biroll i form av grann-hus till bokens Torn) och hur dem klarade brand, även om både orsakerna och händelseförloppet är klart annorlunda.

Fantastic disaster premise, which inspired not only another book at the same time (The Glass Inferno), but the smash hit movie which BOTH books were based on - The Towering Inferno.

Decent read, with some tension, but this book is FAR less entertaining than the fast-moving, action-packed, charisma-stuffed film.

This book focuses far more on individual characters internal reactions to the disaster, and less on the proactive rescue attempts, which come so late in this book - and are so prematurely cut-off - the ending is very anti-climatic.

Stern uses the disaster to present his bias on political maneuvering (present in the film, but very toned down) and feminism (nary a hint in the movie). Gender politics which must have been very topical in the mid-70s, but far less so today. I kept wanting to scream - enough of the gender wars - get to the good stuff!!!

Alas, the good stuff - particularly in comparison with the film - hardly comes at all.

Not gonna lie, I bought it for the cover. Which....when I saw I was all

Definitely the lesser of the burning skyscraper novels

Não me canso nunca dessa história .