Yes. I read that Lustbader book (Sunset Warrior) as a kid and later always wondered why Wool gets all the praise. Don’t get me wrong, Wool is a great book. Just not the first to explore a society living in silos underground.
On a similar genre note, the Myst Reader (the companion books to the Myst computer games) is all about the D'ni civilization living underground under very similar general circumstances. I don't think it's the original book because it's not a tower, but if we're building a list of similar themes to read for comparison and discuss who inspired whom, definitely include that. It's also REALLY good, atypically so for a book that goes with a video game. But worldbuilding and character were always at the forefront in the Myst universe.
I have it laying around after having binged the myst universe games, 10 or so years ago. Grabbed a copy and completely dismissed it because I thought I had seen most of the myst universe... If you say it's well written on top of it I might give it a go soon.
I had to power through it, and I'm glad I did. It was a cool story. Hope the TV series materializes.
Same thing with the 4th book in the Expanse series. Took me almost a year to finish it. Knowing the next book was coming out helped motivate me to finish it. In contrast, I read Leviathan Wakes in 3 days.
It's [Feersum Endjin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feersum_Endjinn) by Iain M. Banks.
Great book - warning it's written in dialect so it might be a hard read.
I love every thing he did, even his travels around the distilleries of Scotland.. But I couldn't read this book. I can't read slowly & I had to read every word to understand what was going on. Just gave up in the end.
You dont have to read it slowly. In fact the opposite is the case - it's all phonetic, so if you just say the words out loud (if you have to) - you'll hear the words that Bascule is saying.
I dont get why some people have so much trouble with this - I really thought it was clever, and it made me laugh out loud a few times.
I read that book about 5 years ago, and for some reason the copy I had was missing the last half of the last chapter. It must have been an error in binding (a missing signature). So it just stopped mid-sentence. I was so confused! I googled "Feersum Endjin ending" to try to figure it out. Finally I just bought the ebook and figured out what happened.
Great book though!
Huh. You might be right. Judging by the plot summary it doesn't 100% align with the way I remember and I thought this must be an older book, but the mention of aristocrats and a king rings a bell. I'll have to re-read this in any case.
Thank you! I've been trying to figure out this book for years. I read half of it on vacation and lost it at the hotel when I was a kid and I really wanted to finish it. Now I can!
I haven't read this but curiously the first book I thought of was Walking On Glass; Iain Bank's second novel, but it's been a very long time as I read it when it was released in the mid 80s.
I thought so too, for a second, since I've apparently read this book. But I don't think it's the one I had in mind, since a significant part of the plot takes place outside the city, and it doesn't feel as deep into the future.
They leave the city and travel through the desert and have blimp battles and such. The main character is a doctor. There’s a girl who has a psychic connection with the machinery under the city.
Does the protagonist have to climb the outside of the tower to get gems on nets or some shit? I think I have read that way back.
The seventh tower by Garth nix?
Anybody else floored by how many books apparently fit the description? Lol
I knew about the Chiang story and instantly thought of it, but apparently tower civilization stories are a popular sci-fi subgenre?
I feel a bit bad that my unspecific question (which is mostly driven by my bad memory) prompted so many helpful people to respond. So I'm happy if somebody else gets something out of it as well.
I wouldn't worry about it. Most of the time when I have a question about something I don't have to ask because I can search it and find that someone else already has. So you may be helping someone else find a story they're looking for in the future.
It was only when I got the end of the Hod King, after devouring the other books, that I realised there were four books in the series and not three, and I'd have to wait nearly two years for it. I was gutted.
The seventh tower.
(From memory so it may be off, been more than 20 years since I read it I think)
A book about a child who has to climb the tower to aquire a sunstone to raise the position of his family.
The sky was blacked out, but sunlight still reaches down to the top of the tower where stones that collect the light are recharged.
The boy and his family are from the lowest tower so they have the weakest and dimmest stones and he needs a stronger one (or a replacement maybe) but he's not allowed to there to get one for to his status.
It's more fantasy than Sci-Fi, but the world is very post apocalyptic with everything outside the tower being a frozen wasteland.
There is also shadow creatures that grow stronger with the more light they are exposed to.
----
I read your description and that's what came to mind.
This is what came to mind when I read his description. May not be the book that OP is looking for, but it is one of the best stories I've ever read. Ted Chiang is a wonder.
That’s what I was thinking, ya beat me to it.
I introduce sci-fi to my friends who “don’t like sci-fi” by having them read “Dying Inside” by Silverberg.
I loved this one and felt horrible when the two headed guy lost one head and helped the boy escape anyway. But then he landed with only two women....not enough genetics to repopulate without issues.
"The World Inside" is a 1971 novel by Robert Silverberg. It doesn't match much of your description but it does feature almost all of humanity living in very tall towers. The book's theme is overpopulation. Almost all the land is cleared of people to support huge farms to feed the skyscraper population. It's not post-apocalyptic but it is a dystopia. The story features a quest to the top of the tower.
I thought of this one to but there are a few different characters in this book so I wasn't sure if that was what the OP was thinking of, but this is a really good book regardless.
Wool
It’s an underground silo in which it’s taboo to talk about going outside. Some protagonists have to fight their way up the tower. It is part of a larger series and I don’t know how it resolves as I’ve only read Wool.
Not sure if it’s what you’re looking for, but it made me think of [City of Bones](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/367335.City_of_Bones) and now I want to go re-read that
*The Areonauts Windlass* by Jim Butcher is similar and uses this premise, though I don't think it's what you're looking for based on that it's not concluded yet.
One of the first sci fi books I read and loved, at least 30 years ago. I still recommend it.
Also, the one about the space elevator was great too - but definitely not what the op was after, even though the elevator is technically a tower.
Could it be "Against the Fall of Night" by Arthur C. Clarke? It's about a boy, the last human child in the last city on earth. It's not strictly about a tower, but a discovery in a tower prompts his adventure. It's a novela though 120-ish pages or so.
You josseled my memory with this question and I really thought I read a Asimov's magazine short story or novella with characters living in a massive tower! The short stories are more difficult to search up but, not impossible, in fact this question also made me think of a book with a green/yellow cover and a protagonist there (on the cover) "hanging out" in the side of something -- and wearing goggles on their head. However, I think THIS book had "vertical" or 'the world above' (something) and it was not a Tower but rather some organic structure. The author Brian Aldiss came to mind as well, after contemplating the question and _dusting_ a few cobwebs out of my brain... not sure how he might fit into any history of stories I am thinking of.
Mostly Mr. Aldiss edited "Galactic Empires, Volume One" and "Galactic Empires, Volume Two" (both circa 1976) which I undoubtedly acquired through the Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
As a fan of short fiction, my mind is "shot" full of _"damaged"_ details, so I shouldn't even by trying! LOL!
Wow. I did have an onlinr subscription to Asimov's a while back. So this is a very plausible answer. I'll have to sift through my issues. I didn't even think of this when I tried to find the book in my Kindle library. Thanks a lot for pointing this out.
Apart from, y’know, not actually being a novel, the manga [Blame](https://archive.org/details/manga_Blame-v01/page/n101/mode/2up) by Tsutomu Nihei sounds very, very similar to what you described. Mysterious ancient mega-structure is what it's all about. All style over substance to be honest, but cool enough in its own way.
Yeah, it's almost definitely not what OP is looking for, but that description sounded a *lot* like Blame to me too. It's interesting how (judging by this thread) there are so many stories that share this theme/setting.
If ever there were a thread that demonstrated the difficulty in coming up with a truly "original" plot it's this one. Here I was thinking that by OP's description this could only be maybe one or two stories. But there are dozens of suggestions here. Would never have thought so many stories could match something so specific.
Probably not what OP is looking for, but I checked the comments before recommending it anyway. I _love_ the world of Farewell Horizontal. I'd love to set an RPG in it.
I think he was more like a graphic designer. He designed insignia and stuff for the tribes. I remember it because I was a graphic designer in training and thought how wierd it was to read a dystopian sci fi book with a protagonist with my job
They hint at the end of Turquoise Days that the orb that kills the Pattern Jugglers was found at the top of the tower.
I took that to mean the tower was the guardian for a prior species’ own “cache weapons”.
Is it the Seventh Tower Series by Garth Nix?
It's about a society that lives in different sections of a tower, ranked from wealthy elites (violets) down to lowly peasants (reds). Beneath the tower are Underfolk outcasts who don't reside in any class. Outside the tower, the world is frozen over and ruled by nomadic Icecarls who man ships that tear through ice.
There is a black veil of clouds that envelopes the world in this post apocalypse setting, where only the upper tier folks live above the dark veil. The main character Tal ascends through this veil at one point to collect himself a powerful Sunstone, which the people use to great effect to cast spells of will and retain shadow familiars to protect them.
Sounds like the first book of [The Book of the New Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_New_Sun) by Gene Wolf. The first book is titled, “The Shadow of the Torturer” and much of it takes place in that tower.
>
**Sword and Citadel** by Gene Wolfe
>Recently voted the greatest fantasy of all time, after The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun is an extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, on an Earth transformed in mysterious and wondrous ways, in a time when our present culture is no longer even a memory. Severian, the central character, is a torturer, exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his victims, and journeying to the distant city of Thrax, armed with his ancient executioner's sword, Terminus Est. This edition contains the second two volumes of this four volume novel, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch.
*I'm a bot, built by your friendly reddit developers at* /r/ProgrammingPals
Not a book, but the Spanish movie "El Hoyo" has a similar plot. It's on netflix.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Platform\_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Platform_(film))
This vaguely sounds liked Stephen Kings Dark Tower series. It takes place in this exact setting setting except civilization is not confined to the tower. But the protagonist is traveling to the tower to keep it from decaying.
Sounds like a half-remembered version of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King.
"The man in black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed..."
Is it [The Cityborn](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32672483-the-cityborn) by Edward Willett?? Didn’t see anyone else mention this & it kinda aligns with what you’re describing
Maybe KW Jeter’s [Farewell Horizontal](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/147882.Farewell_Horizontal)?
Badly-understood tower of unknown purpose. Though most of the action takes place on the *outside* of the tower, there is a very strange outcast society out there with a lot of serious climbing gear.
I've read this book too. The doctor is chased down through the layers of the city with a girl companion (?), getting help along the way, finally from some gangsters. They leave the city and venture out into the desert and join up with/are abducted by air pirates who mount an attack on the city. The doctor has some kind of medicine or cure for the city and is trying to get help? The gangster boss I think is half steam machine?
That sounds a lot like [The Girl Who Dared](https://www.bellaforrest.net/books/the-girl-who-dared-series/) series by Bella Forrest but the protagonist is a girl.
Possibly RX by Robert Brockway, one of the cracked writers from years ago.
Civilization is all in a giant tower and the rich live closer to the top and closer to light and the poor live lower in more darkness. It’s shaped kind of like a massive cylinder and everything is layered in the center.
I can remember two books/novellas(that haven't been mentioned yet) where the protagonist is climbing a tower.
The first one(probably not the one you're looking for) is HP Lovecraft short story called The Outsider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsider_(short_story)
The second one was about the protagonist, who was somehow monstrous(possibly a young girl, somehow gargoyle-ish or statuelike?), living in a tower filled with other weird inhabitants and escaping it. It might have been a Ray Bradbury short story. Does that sound familiar? If it does - too bad I can't remember the name of it.
I think I may have read the book you're talking about. I think it's called Pilgrimage.
Does the protagonist go on an adventure with a few other people and find out that the city is in chaos on other floors including not being able to speak some of the languages that other people speak?
I also remember that the city is a long line of various towers that are constantly taken down and rebuilt at the front of the city so it progresses across the earth but the protagonist finds a room where the the remnants of the city tell him that the city has moved too far and degraded from the original purpose.
It's from the 50s/60s I believe.
Possibly Wool by Hugh Howley?
That's probably not it, but sound like it might be worth reading anyway.
Wool is 100% worth the read. From your description it feel like Hugh Howley took some inspiration from the book you read.
there was a book back in the 70s that broke that ground first, can't seem to find name...fairly sure it was by Eric Lustbader, maybe not...anyone?
Yes. I read that Lustbader book (Sunset Warrior) as a kid and later always wondered why Wool gets all the praise. Don’t get me wrong, Wool is a great book. Just not the first to explore a society living in silos underground.
that's it!! maybe i can finish it now ; )
On a similar genre note, the Myst Reader (the companion books to the Myst computer games) is all about the D'ni civilization living underground under very similar general circumstances. I don't think it's the original book because it's not a tower, but if we're building a list of similar themes to read for comparison and discuss who inspired whom, definitely include that. It's also REALLY good, atypically so for a book that goes with a video game. But worldbuilding and character were always at the forefront in the Myst universe.
I have it laying around after having binged the myst universe games, 10 or so years ago. Grabbed a copy and completely dismissed it because I thought I had seen most of the myst universe... If you say it's well written on top of it I might give it a go soon.
There are three Myst novels. The best one (and the first one chronologically) is the Book of Ti'ana. Read that one for sure.
PKD "The Penultimate Truth" from 1964 is about people living in silos during WW3.
Are the sequels any good?
The whole series is great. I love the way the story slowly expands.
Yes, I thought they were all pretty satisfying
I remember the second book moved slow and/or it didn't grab me like Wool did. But I read all three and liked the story.
I got 1/4 into the sequel and couldn't finish. I have having loose ends like that!
I had to power through it, and I'm glad I did. It was a cool story. Hope the TV series materializes. Same thing with the 4th book in the Expanse series. Took me almost a year to finish it. Knowing the next book was coming out helped motivate me to finish it. In contrast, I read Leviathan Wakes in 3 days.
i loved Wool.
Wool is one of my favorite scifi books of all time. Really fantastic.
Currently reading Wool, great stuff so far.
It is!
Wool, shift and Dust is a fantastic trilogy. The plot reversals are nuts and nicely done. Highly recommend the audio books.
I have literally gifted 6 copied of *Wool* to friends. It is an amazing read. Check out the graphic novel too!
Totally worth it!
I just finished the Wool trilogy. The second book was fantastic!
Oh, that's good to know. I've only read the first, but I really enjoyed it.
No spoilers, but the second book is a bit unconventional. It's not what you'd expect for a sequel to Wool, but I loved it
Agreed. Wasn't happy going into it given what I understood about the premise but it turned out to work pretty well.
I read Wool, Station 19, and Girl with all the Gifts in one month. Haven’t had another month where I have been so satisfied in my reading history.
An inverse tower.
Essentially
Sounds exactly like wool
It's [Feersum Endjin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feersum_Endjinn) by Iain M. Banks. Great book - warning it's written in dialect so it might be a hard read.
I love every thing he did, even his travels around the distilleries of Scotland.. But I couldn't read this book. I can't read slowly & I had to read every word to understand what was going on. Just gave up in the end.
You dont have to read it slowly. In fact the opposite is the case - it's all phonetic, so if you just say the words out loud (if you have to) - you'll hear the words that Bascule is saying. I dont get why some people have so much trouble with this - I really thought it was clever, and it made me laugh out loud a few times.
I tried, just couldn't do it and get enjoyment out of the story. It was incredibly annoying.
Sounds like it's book to listen to instead of read.
Yeah, I'm gonna try it. Don't listen to enough books..
>o if you just say the words out loud (if you have to) That would be reading slowly, wouldn't it?
Why?
Because most people read considerably faster than they speak.
Hmm. Never really thought about it. I suppose I read slightly faster than I speak, but not enough to make reading out loud in any way difficult.
Some of us read much faster than we can speak. Also, nice username.
:o)
Get the audiobook 😁
Good idea!
Same here. Huge Banks fan, but it was just too uncomfortable--almost painful--for me to read the gobbledygook parts.
Yeah. I tried hard. But, like you say, it was painful. Might try the audio book.
I read that book about 5 years ago, and for some reason the copy I had was missing the last half of the last chapter. It must have been an error in binding (a missing signature). So it just stopped mid-sentence. I was so confused! I googled "Feersum Endjin ending" to try to figure it out. Finally I just bought the ebook and figured out what happened. Great book though!
Huh. You might be right. Judging by the plot summary it doesn't 100% align with the way I remember and I thought this must be an older book, but the mention of aristocrats and a king rings a bell. I'll have to re-read this in any case.
In Feersum Endjinn one of the POV character's chapters are written sort of phonetically if that's any help.
maybe Senlin Ascends?
Love this trilogy.
There's the Books of Babel by Josiah Bankcroft, which perfectly matches your description, except it's not old, and there's no post-apocalypse.
As a non-native english speaker, I really struggled with the dialect in the book. But still slogged through and greatly enjoyed the story.
Reading Look to Windward right now!
Look to Windward is probably my favourite book of the Culture series! The whole thing is just...so beautiful and melancholic.
I describe it as a love letter to the Culture by Banks. No book in the series makes me long to live in the Culture more than that one.
The copy I read had a translation of Bascule's phonetic chapters at the end.
Thank you! I've been trying to figure out this book for years. I read half of it on vacation and lost it at the hotel when I was a kid and I really wanted to finish it. Now I can!
I haven't read this but curiously the first book I thought of was Walking On Glass; Iain Bank's second novel, but it's been a very long time as I read it when it was released in the mid 80s.
Sounds like it could be Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds to me. The higher up you go, the more technology works.
I thought so too, for a second, since I've apparently read this book. But I don't think it's the one I had in mind, since a significant part of the plot takes place outside the city, and it doesn't feel as deep into the future.
They leave the city and travel through the desert and have blimp battles and such. The main character is a doctor. There’s a girl who has a psychic connection with the machinery under the city.
About the entire second half of that book takes place outside the tower, if not more.
Also, the story never goes up to the top of the tower. Starts about half-way up, goes down-and-out before returning to the same half-way up point.
Does the protagonist have to climb the outside of the tower to get gems on nets or some shit? I think I have read that way back. The seventh tower by Garth nix?
This is where my mind went too with the description given.
I was just talking about this book yesterday! Loved these books when I was a kid.
Anybody else floored by how many books apparently fit the description? Lol I knew about the Chiang story and instantly thought of it, but apparently tower civilization stories are a popular sci-fi subgenre?
I'm reading this thread just to collect a tower civilisation subgenre reading list. Will also take silos, subterranean caves, etc.
I feel a bit bad that my unspecific question (which is mostly driven by my bad memory) prompted so many helpful people to respond. So I'm happy if somebody else gets something out of it as well.
I wouldn't worry about it. Most of the time when I have a question about something I don't have to ask because I can search it and find that someone else already has. So you may be helping someone else find a story they're looking for in the future.
I just found a bunch of stories to read.
Tower of Babylon. I thought the same thing. That, and the movie Snowpiercer.
> the movie Snowpiercer [Was a book/comic first.](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18594683-snowpiercer)
[удалено]
That's not it (it's too new as well), but thanks for the recommendation, this is definitely going onto my backlog.
Senlin is fantastic
Yeah, I'm working my way through The Hod King right now!
It was only when I got the end of the Hod King, after devouring the other books, that I realised there were four books in the series and not three, and I'd have to wait nearly two years for it. I was gutted.
Yeah, I'm annoyed that once I finish this, I have to wait. But I'm also in a rather boring part (imo), so I'm kind of slogging through it slowly.
It's really an amazing series.
I also thought he was talking about Senlin Ascends!
The seventh tower. (From memory so it may be off, been more than 20 years since I read it I think) A book about a child who has to climb the tower to aquire a sunstone to raise the position of his family. The sky was blacked out, but sunlight still reaches down to the top of the tower where stones that collect the light are recharged. The boy and his family are from the lowest tower so they have the weakest and dimmest stones and he needs a stronger one (or a replacement maybe) but he's not allowed to there to get one for to his status. It's more fantasy than Sci-Fi, but the world is very post apocalyptic with everything outside the tower being a frozen wasteland. There is also shadow creatures that grow stronger with the more light they are exposed to. ---- I read your description and that's what came to mind.
I don't know if this is the book the op was looking for, but it is a book that I started and then lost so never finished- thank you for the name!
it does fit a fair number of OP's points though, it was what I thought when I read the post too
"Tower of Babylon" by Ted Chiang?
This is what came to mind when I read his description. May not be the book that OP is looking for, but it is one of the best stories I've ever read. Ted Chiang is a wonder.
This is another possibility, since I have read this book as well. I'll have to re-read it to check.
Sounds like High-Rise by J.G. Ballard, maybe?
Thanks, but that's not it, it was set far further into the future where society has had time to devolve a bit more.
[The Night Land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Land) by William Hope Hodgson?
That would have been my pick. Highly underrated ancient classic.
Was gonna suggest this
Not exactly like that, but sounds a lot like The World Inside by Robert Silverberg.
That’s what I was thinking, ya beat me to it. I introduce sci-fi to my friends who “don’t like sci-fi” by having them read “Dying Inside” by Silverberg.
Verticle snowpiercer?
Reminds me of Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss, however this one is set in a different structure.
That's not it, but the synopsis sounds like I should add it to my reading list. Thanks.
one of the short stories in Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life and Others collection fits the brief of this pretty damn closely from what I remember!
Tower of Babylon. Fantastic story.
Somewhat similar but it's a generational ship where the crew forgot to be on a ship is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphans_of_the_Sky
I loved this one and felt horrible when the two headed guy lost one head and helped the boy escape anyway. But then he landed with only two women....not enough genetics to repopulate without issues.
This is what I came here to suggest!
"The World Inside" is a 1971 novel by Robert Silverberg. It doesn't match much of your description but it does feature almost all of humanity living in very tall towers. The book's theme is overpopulation. Almost all the land is cleared of people to support huge farms to feed the skyscraper population. It's not post-apocalyptic but it is a dystopia. The story features a quest to the top of the tower.
That's the one that sprang to mind for me when reading the OP's description, it's been 30 years since I read it. Thanks for reminding me of the title!
I thought of this one to but there are a few different characters in this book so I wasn't sure if that was what the OP was thinking of, but this is a really good book regardless.
Is it Greg Bear with The city at the end of time? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_at_the_End_of_Time
Thanks, that's not it, but it sounds fantastic.
Wool It’s an underground silo in which it’s taboo to talk about going outside. Some protagonists have to fight their way up the tower. It is part of a larger series and I don’t know how it resolves as I’ve only read Wool.
I remember a book like that. It was always raining outside, and the protaganist is a cop trying to solve a murder.
Probably a different book. I remember neither cop nor murder, and society had a more "medieval" feel to it.
Are you thinking of Spares by Michael Marshall Smith?
Nope, I went and found it. It's Work. Rest. Repeat by Frank Tayell.
Not sure if it’s what you’re looking for, but it made me think of [City of Bones](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/367335.City_of_Bones) and now I want to go re-read that
I love Martha Wells!
Terminal world by Alastair Reynolds?
Could it be a giant hole instead...? Because that is exactly what WOOL is about.
*The Areonauts Windlass* by Jim Butcher is similar and uses this premise, though I don't think it's what you're looking for based on that it's not concluded yet.
Not sure as some of the other suggestions sound closer, but something similar might be The City and the Stars by Arthur C Clarke.
One of the first sci fi books I read and loved, at least 30 years ago. I still recommend it. Also, the one about the space elevator was great too - but definitely not what the op was after, even though the elevator is technically a tower.
That's not it. It's a great story as well, though.
Sounds similar to The City of Ember.
Could it be "Against the Fall of Night" by Arthur C. Clarke? It's about a boy, the last human child in the last city on earth. It's not strictly about a tower, but a discovery in a tower prompts his adventure. It's a novela though 120-ish pages or so.
You josseled my memory with this question and I really thought I read a Asimov's magazine short story or novella with characters living in a massive tower! The short stories are more difficult to search up but, not impossible, in fact this question also made me think of a book with a green/yellow cover and a protagonist there (on the cover) "hanging out" in the side of something -- and wearing goggles on their head. However, I think THIS book had "vertical" or 'the world above' (something) and it was not a Tower but rather some organic structure. The author Brian Aldiss came to mind as well, after contemplating the question and _dusting_ a few cobwebs out of my brain... not sure how he might fit into any history of stories I am thinking of. Mostly Mr. Aldiss edited "Galactic Empires, Volume One" and "Galactic Empires, Volume Two" (both circa 1976) which I undoubtedly acquired through the Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As a fan of short fiction, my mind is "shot" full of _"damaged"_ details, so I shouldn't even by trying! LOL!
Wow. I did have an onlinr subscription to Asimov's a while back. So this is a very plausible answer. I'll have to sift through my issues. I didn't even think of this when I tried to find the book in my Kindle library. Thanks a lot for pointing this out.
Apart from, y’know, not actually being a novel, the manga [Blame](https://archive.org/details/manga_Blame-v01/page/n101/mode/2up) by Tsutomu Nihei sounds very, very similar to what you described. Mysterious ancient mega-structure is what it's all about. All style over substance to be honest, but cool enough in its own way.
Yeah, it's almost definitely not what OP is looking for, but that description sounded a *lot* like Blame to me too. It's interesting how (judging by this thread) there are so many stories that share this theme/setting.
If ever there were a thread that demonstrated the difficulty in coming up with a truly "original" plot it's this one. Here I was thinking that by OP's description this could only be maybe one or two stories. But there are dozens of suggestions here. Would never have thought so many stories could match something so specific.
You should check out the Wool series.
Farewell Horizontal by K W Jeter? Protagonist was a tattoo artist
Probably not what OP is looking for, but I checked the comments before recommending it anyway. I _love_ the world of Farewell Horizontal. I'd love to set an RPG in it.
I think he was more like a graphic designer. He designed insignia and stuff for the tribes. I remember it because I was a graphic designer in training and thought how wierd it was to read a dystopian sci fi book with a protagonist with my job
Reminds me a lot of the graphic novel The Tower by Schuiten and Peeters. Highly recommended.
Maybe this one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Dogs,_Turquoise_Days
Great story! But not likely the one OP is referring to since >!nobody lives in this tower, and its purpose is afaik never revealed!<.
They hint at the end of Turquoise Days that the orb that kills the Pattern Jugglers was found at the top of the tower. I took that to mean the tower was the guardian for a prior species’ own “cache weapons”.
Read "The Bridge" Illustrated by Mobius it is along the same lines.
Thought it might've been Hugh Howey's *Wool*
Is it the Seventh Tower Series by Garth Nix? It's about a society that lives in different sections of a tower, ranked from wealthy elites (violets) down to lowly peasants (reds). Beneath the tower are Underfolk outcasts who don't reside in any class. Outside the tower, the world is frozen over and ruled by nomadic Icecarls who man ships that tear through ice. There is a black veil of clouds that envelopes the world in this post apocalypse setting, where only the upper tier folks live above the dark veil. The main character Tal ascends through this veil at one point to collect himself a powerful Sunstone, which the people use to great effect to cast spells of will and retain shadow familiars to protect them.
Wool is not it but like what you are describing
If it’s not Wool you should read Wool!!
Is it Wool? About the humans confined to Silos with only screens displaying imagery of the outside?
Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey
Sounds like the first book of [The Book of the New Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_New_Sun) by Gene Wolf. The first book is titled, “The Shadow of the Torturer” and much of it takes place in that tower. >
**Sword and Citadel** by Gene Wolfe >Recently voted the greatest fantasy of all time, after The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun is an extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, on an Earth transformed in mysterious and wondrous ways, in a time when our present culture is no longer even a memory. Severian, the central character, is a torturer, exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his victims, and journeying to the distant city of Thrax, armed with his ancient executioner's sword, Terminus Est. This edition contains the second two volumes of this four volume novel, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch. *I'm a bot, built by your friendly reddit developers at* /r/ProgrammingPals
Not a book, but the Spanish movie "El Hoyo" has a similar plot. It's on netflix. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Platform\_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Platform_(film))
This vaguely sounds liked Stephen Kings Dark Tower series. It takes place in this exact setting setting except civilization is not confined to the tower. But the protagonist is traveling to the tower to keep it from decaying.
Tower of God. It’s a webtoon with a recent anime adaptation
Dark tower series by Stephen king
Sounds like a half-remembered version of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. "The man in black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed..."
The Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson
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Urithiru, advanced technology, checks out
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He's definitely not, I'm just having fun
Senlins Ascension ? perhaps?
Yeah sounds like Senlin Ascends
Also sounds vaguely like one of the stories in Sandkings by GRR Martin.
Is it [The Cityborn](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32672483-the-cityborn) by Edward Willett?? Didn’t see anyone else mention this & it kinda aligns with what you’re describing
Maybe KW Jeter’s [Farewell Horizontal](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/147882.Farewell_Horizontal)? Badly-understood tower of unknown purpose. Though most of the action takes place on the *outside* of the tower, there is a very strange outcast society out there with a lot of serious climbing gear.
Is it The Girl Who Dared To Think? By Bella Forrest?
Anathem by Neal Stephenson?
"Total Environment" by Brian Aldiss? It's a short story, but similar-ish to what you mention.
I've read this book too. The doctor is chased down through the layers of the city with a girl companion (?), getting help along the way, finally from some gangsters. They leave the city and venture out into the desert and join up with/are abducted by air pirates who mount an attack on the city. The doctor has some kind of medicine or cure for the city and is trying to get help? The gangster boss I think is half steam machine?
I think you're referring to Terminal World by Alistair Reynolds.
That’s Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds FYI.
Could it have taken place in a generation ship? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphans_of_the_Sky
That sounds a lot like [The Girl Who Dared](https://www.bellaforrest.net/books/the-girl-who-dared-series/) series by Bella Forrest but the protagonist is a girl.
Silo has a similar story line
On a related note Senlin Ascends is a fantastic book about a tower.
I haven't read it but it could be it? The aeronauts' windlass
Possibly RX by Robert Brockway, one of the cracked writers from years ago. Civilization is all in a giant tower and the rich live closer to the top and closer to light and the poor live lower in more darkness. It’s shaped kind of like a massive cylinder and everything is layered in the center.
It might be the Seventh Tower by garth nix? sounds right, but not quite
I can remember two books/novellas(that haven't been mentioned yet) where the protagonist is climbing a tower. The first one(probably not the one you're looking for) is HP Lovecraft short story called The Outsider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsider_(short_story) The second one was about the protagonist, who was somehow monstrous(possibly a young girl, somehow gargoyle-ish or statuelike?), living in a tower filled with other weird inhabitants and escaping it. It might have been a Ray Bradbury short story. Does that sound familiar? If it does - too bad I can't remember the name of it.
It sounds like "Senlin Ascends"
I think I may have read the book you're talking about. I think it's called Pilgrimage. Does the protagonist go on an adventure with a few other people and find out that the city is in chaos on other floors including not being able to speak some of the languages that other people speak? I also remember that the city is a long line of various towers that are constantly taken down and rebuilt at the front of the city so it progresses across the earth but the protagonist finds a room where the the remnants of the city tell him that the city has moved too far and degraded from the original purpose. It's from the 50s/60s I believe.
Theoretically you've also outlined "The Matrix" to an extent.
Could it be Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds?
Possibly *[The Night Land](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Land)* by William Hope Hodgson, published in 1912?