Tower of Glass

It's all here: Simeon Krug is a God, a Creator, a King, the architect of Mankind's destiny; the Ubermensch. Will he succeed in his arrogant quest to dominate the Earth through engineering? Will he complete the immense Tower of Glass, his bridge to the stars, his Antenna of Babel, through which he hopes to communicate with distant intelligence beaming strnge patterns to Earth? Or will he be undone by hubris? Krug seems unaware that his closest friend is one of the Androids that Krug himself designed, born of his own vats, unaware of the religious beliefs that bind the androids to his will, unaware of what his son is getting into...

This book is too big to fail - dystopia, erotic fantasy, first contact novel, shakespearean tragedy and biblical allegory all rolled into one. A punchy little novel packed with big ideas and more hints of science than one tends to see in a Silverberg book. Nevertheless the author's usual themes of destiny and transcendence still dominate this book and the characters are, as always, visceral, sensual and tangible.