Burning Tower
Encyclopedia
Burning Tower is a fantasy novel by Larry Niven
and Jerry Pournelle
. It is a sequel to The Burning City
, set some years after that novel concluded. It was published in 2005.
. Regapisk is an incompetent Lord and his family arrange for him to be shanghaied
to become an oarsman on a coastal ship. Sandry and Burning Tower are romantically linked throughout the book.
Large flightless birds attack trading caravans, but Sandry fights them off. He is sent by the Lords with the caravan, of which Burning Tower is also a part, to discover the source of the birds. They travel to the southern city of Condigeo and then to Crescent City, defeating terror bird attacks along the way. In Crescent City, they are joined by Regapisk, who has escaped from his ship. The three of them travel on to the high-magic city of Aztlan
, where Regapisk redeems himself.
The authors researched Aztec
culture for the book, and many aspects of the culture depicted in the book are based on that research. This is explained in a brief note at the end of the book. Also, the authors claim that the terror birds continued to exist until long after humans spread through the Americas
; this is based on the North America
n phorusrhacid Titanis walleri (but see McFadden et al. 2007).
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
and Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Eugene Pournelle is an American science fiction writer, essayist and journalist who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte and has since 1998 been maintaining his own website/blog....
. It is a sequel to The Burning City
The Burning City
The Burning City is a fantasy novel of social and political allegory by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle set in an analogue of Southern California in an imaginary past shortly after the sinking of Atlantis about 14,000 years ago in the twilight of a civilization then struggling and now vanished for...
, set some years after that novel concluded. It was published in 2005.
Plot summary
The three main characters are Sandry, a Lord of Tep's Town, Sandry's cousin Regapisk, also a Lord, and Burning Tower, a daughter of Whandall, the main character of the previous bookThe Burning City
The Burning City is a fantasy novel of social and political allegory by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle set in an analogue of Southern California in an imaginary past shortly after the sinking of Atlantis about 14,000 years ago in the twilight of a civilization then struggling and now vanished for...
. Regapisk is an incompetent Lord and his family arrange for him to be shanghaied
Shanghaiing
Shanghaiing refers to the practice of conscripting men as sailors by coercive techniques such as trickery, intimidation, or violence. Those engaged in this form of kidnapping were known as crimps. Until 1915, unfree labor was widely used aboard American merchant ships...
to become an oarsman on a coastal ship. Sandry and Burning Tower are romantically linked throughout the book.
Large flightless birds attack trading caravans, but Sandry fights them off. He is sent by the Lords with the caravan, of which Burning Tower is also a part, to discover the source of the birds. They travel to the southern city of Condigeo and then to Crescent City, defeating terror bird attacks along the way. In Crescent City, they are joined by Regapisk, who has escaped from his ship. The three of them travel on to the high-magic city of Aztlan
Aztlán
Aztlán is the mythical ancestral home of the Nahua peoples, one of the main cultural groups in Mesoamerica. And, by extension, is the mythical homeland of the Uto-Aztecan peoples. Aztec is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan".-Legend:...
, where Regapisk redeems himself.
The authors researched Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
culture for the book, and many aspects of the culture depicted in the book are based on that research. This is explained in a brief note at the end of the book. Also, the authors claim that the terror birds continued to exist until long after humans spread through the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
; this is based on the North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
n phorusrhacid Titanis walleri (but see McFadden et al. 2007).