Wow, there's some serious zeitgeist going on there:
This novel was published almost simultaneously with The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke. Through an amazing coincidence the two novels contained many similarities. Both protagonists are engineers who have built the world's longest bridge using a machine named the "Spider", both of whom are hired to build a space elevator, and both engineers modify their Spiders to produce a crystalline fiber.
It's like the simultaneous invention of calculus. People are conduits for independently-living ideas.
This novel was published almost simultaneously with The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke. Through an amazing coincidence the two novels contained many similarities. Both protagonists are engineers who have built the world's longest bridge using a machine named the "Spider", both of whom are hired to build a space elevator, and both engineers modify their Spiders to produce a crystalline fiber.
It's like the simultaneous invention of calculus. People are conduits for independently-living ideas.