The Glass Inferno is a 1974 novel by American writer Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson. It is one of the two books that was used to create the movie The Towering Inferno, the other being the 1973 novel The Tower by Richard Martin Stern.
Overview
The Glass Inferno is a 1974 novel by American writer Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson. It is one of the two books that was used to create the movie The Towering Inferno, the other being the 1973 novel The Tower by Richard Martin Stern.
Plot summary
The story concerns the events over the course of a single evening in a recently completed 66-story building in an unnamed American city. The building was called the National Curtainwall Building, nicknamed the Glass House, the headquarters of the fictitious National Curtainwall corporation. A combination of a skyscraper built to the absolute minimum compliance with safety rules, combined with cutting corners to save money on construction, leads to a disaster waiting to happen.
Craig Barton, the building’s architect, is to meet for dinner with the building’s owner, Wyndom Leroux, in the building’s Promenade room. During drinks and dinner Barton questions Leroux regarding the specifications of the building and whether or not they have been altered from his original plans, why they have been altered and what the consequences of this may be. After dinner they are alerted by the hostess that there is a fire in one of the building’s storage rooms on the 17th floor. Barton is sent down by Leroux to assist with the firefighting operations while his wife, Jenny, remains at dinner with Leroux and his wife Thelma.
