Name of a novel
Ariston Theotocopulos
caused a skyscraper to fall over? I remember reading the book years
ago but I can't remember the title.
Ariston Theotocopulos
Robert A. Woodward
ariston_th...@hotmail.com (Ariston Theotocopulos) wrote:
> Does anybody remember the name of a novel where a water main break
> caused a skyscraper to fall over? I remember reading the book years
> ago but I can't remember the title.
I think it was a short story (perhaps by Fredrick Pohl). Though my
vague recollection of that story is that somebody left the water
running (and the drain clogged).
--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw
Don Erikson
(Ariston Theotocopulos) wrote:
In the novel SKYSCRAPER by Robert Byrne,a shoddily built skyscraper
falls over, but I don't remember if a water main was involved.
Simon Slavin
<5359cab6.04073...@posting.google.com>:
> Does anybody remember the name of a novel where a water main break
> caused a skyscraper to fall over? I remember reading the book years
> ago but I can't remember the title.
Maybe there was a novel too, but what I remember was a short story.
It's mainly centred around a rich and obnoxious man talking to an
architect about the next house he wants built. In the course of
the conversation it becomes obvious that the rich man (or his wife ?)
left a tap running while he went on holiday. The apartment filled
up with water and the weight of the water caused structural failure.
It was a short (five or less pages) comedy by a well-known author.
I seem to remember a title like _The Collapse of the Great Americum
Tower_ but I can't find anything like that in my database.
Simon.
--
Using pre-release version of newsreader.
Please tell me if it does weird things.
Butch Malahide
Sounds like "Mr. Murphy of New York" by Thomas McMorrow. Maybe he's a
well-known author, I don't know. First published in the Saturday
Evening Post, March 22, 1930, it takes up twelve and a half pages in
Groff Conklin's "The Classic Book of Science Fiction". Here is an
extract from near the end:
"If you were drawing your bath," I said sternly, "you must have
stopped the waste. And you think that, perhaps, you went away and left
the water running."
"A mere surmise, Mr. Craig. But why are you so pressing? If you think
that I should pay this bill even now--"
I drew a breath. "A hundred thousand cubic feet of water, gentlemen,
weighs more than three thousand tons. In my opinion, though I'm no
engineer, the steel frame designed by Hendricks would not have stood
under a superimposed load of three thousand tons--not without buckling
somewhere. If it would stand any such overloading, Hendricks didn't
know his business. It's late in the day to reopen the investigation
into the fall of the Americus Tower."
machf
>Simon Slavin <slavins.delete....@hearsay.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:<cemh1n$gff$2$8300...@news.demon.co.uk>...
>> On 30/07/2004, Ariston Theotocopulos wrote in message
>> <5359cab6.04073...@posting.google.com>:
>>
>> > Does anybody remember the name of a novel where a water main break
>> > caused a skyscraper to fall over? I remember reading the book years
>> > ago but I can't remember the title.
>>
>> Maybe there was a novel too, but what I remember was a short story.
>> It's mainly centred around a rich and obnoxious man talking to an
>> architect about the next house he wants built. In the course of
>> the conversation it becomes obvious that the rich man (or his wife ?)
>> left a tap running while he went on holiday. The apartment filled
>> up with water and the weight of the water caused structural failure.
>>
>> It was a short (five or less pages) comedy by a well-known author.
>> I seem to remember a title like _The Collapse of the Great Americum
>> Tower_ but I can't find anything like that in my database.
>
>Sounds like "Mr. Murphy of New York" by Thomas McMorrow. Maybe he's a
>well-known author, I don't know. First published in the Saturday
>Evening Post, March 22, 1930, it takes up twelve and a half pages in
>Groff Conklin's "The Classic Book of Science Fiction".
>
I'd suspect that one too. It's also in "100 Years of Science Fiction, Book One",
edited by Damon Knight. Second story in the book, right after Kipling's "With
The Night Mail". A little over 18 pages there.
--
__________ ____---____ Marco Antonio Checa Funcke
\_________D /-/---_----' Santiago de Surco, Lima, Peru
_H__/_/ http://machf.tripod.com
'-_____|(
remove the "no_me_j." and ".sons.of" parts before replying