''Burning Tower'' is a

fantasy novel Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. magic (paranormal), Magic, the supernatural and Legendary creature, magical creatures are common i ...

by American writers

Larry Niven Laurence van Cott Niven (; born April 30, 1938) is an American science fiction writer. His 1970 novel ''Ringworld'' won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, Hugo, Locus Award, Locus, Ditmar Award, Ditmar, and Nebula Award for Best Novel, Nebula award ...

and

Jerry Pournelle Jerry Eugene Pournelle (; August 7, 1933 – September 8, 2017) was an American scientist in the area of operations research and ergonomics, human factors research, a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. ...

. It is a sequel to '' The Burning City'', 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

book A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...

. Regapisk is an incompetent Lord and his family arrange for him to be shanghaied to become an

oarsman Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically att ...

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 Phorusrhacids, colloquially known as terror birds, are an extinct family of large carnivorous, mostly flightless birds that were among the largest apex predators in South America during the Cenozoic era. Their definitive fossil records range from ...

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 The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...

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 mentioned is that within the described timeline, the

s continued to exist until long after humans spread through the Americas; this is based on the North American phorusrhacid '' Titanis walleri'' (but see McFadden ''et al.'' 2007).

Sources

* McFadden, Bruce; Labs-Hochstein, Joann; Hulbert, Richard C. Jr. & Baskin, Jon A. (2007): Revised age of the late Neogene terror bird (''Titanis'') in North America during the Great American Interchange. ''

Geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

'' 35(2): 123–126. PDF fulltext
2005 American novels 2005 fantasy novels American fantasy novels Novels by Larry Niven Novels by Jerry Pournelle Collaborative novels {{2000s-fantasy-novel-stub